Artificial intelligence (AI) is now cropping up in conversations everywhere, with tech Luddites as well as digital disciples questioning what's going on.
Given some of the mash-ups being produced by generative AI, you may be wondering if we'll ever be able to say "Now I've seen it all" again.
If you're also wondering what's with the 'Mighty Miaow' pump-up-your-cat parody above, it just caught my eye: Whiskas ads have long been a favourite on ADDS but this AI spoof is by What if AI on YouTube.
"AI can never match a human creation. There's nothing new under the sun, but humans can still exercise original thought and evoke emotion"
(Seasoned documentary-maker)
"It's going too far too fast. Being creative takes time. We can't take in what our AI gathers"
(Early-career brand account manager)
To the delight of some and horror of others, generative Search with adaptable headline responses to queries is here, as the Google Marketing Live this week announced: "Now, you can chat your way into better performance — ask Google AI for ideas, just like you might ask a colleague”.
Google Search headlines will automatically change to fit a query, which is meant to help brands get more clicks on their ads.
Great for brands, or a step too far for the audiences they want to reach?
Philosopher and technologist Nick Bostrom raised the question almost a decade ago of: 'What happens when our computers get smarter than we are?'
Fast-forward to this month's MIT Emtech Digital AI conference, where British-Canadian cognitive psychologist Geoffrey Hinton explained that machines learn better than humans, GPT4 knows "about a thousand times more than a person", and:
"If they're much smarter than us, they'll be very good at manipulating us, and you won't even realise what's going on - you'll be that easy to manipulate"
Meanwhile, the world's largest bakery, Mexico's Grupo Bimbo, has transformed 'Mexican Revenge' - meaning a bout of diarrhoea when travelling south of the US border - into a challenge to US fast food joints.
"The American fast food culture has appropriated Mexican food, making it.... simply worse," is the opening gambit in this campaign.
Using generative AI, the ‘Greatest Guide to Hotdogs and Hamburgers’ produced more than 8,000 personalised signs for Mexican street vendors who traditionally use Bimbo bread and bun products for their servings. It then put them on the map, enabling them to stand out among the globally known fast food chains.
Platforms like Midjourney provide the means to source, select and blend unimaginable quantities of pre-existing photos and text for 'creative' purposes.
As the broader ethics play out, what do we think of this effort to both challenge pre-conceptions and promote homegrown creations?
ENDS