Interviews, insight & analysis on digital media & marketing

AI is coming: A day in the life of an artificial creative in 2075

By Lina Adelt, Communications & Marketing Manager at A Million Ads

These articles have been written by the second cohort of the Practice Makes Unperfect programme – a course that helps women find and finesse their public voices.

Described as the second industrialisation, the rise of AI will no doubt change our lives – and jobs – significantly over time. In fact, AI experts predict we will have reached AI Singularity by 2060, the point where machine intelligence will surpass our own. 

Currently, we only have Narrow AI, a version that is focused on solving one specific task or problem, for example, Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo beating the world’s reigning champion, Lee Sedol, at the ancient Chinese game Go. AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) on the other hand, is an AI of similar or same intelligence to that of a human and can do, think and most likely feel like a human.  

As AGI implies a level of consciousness, all traditional ideas of what creativity is will go out of the window. Essentially, AI will be able to ‘learn’ human creativity from digesting vast data sets. 

Whilst a lot of the narrative surrounding AI, from TV shows and movies to the media, focuses on the ‘Oh no! Killer robots are taking over the world’ fear factor, I decided to imagine what life would be like in the advertising space once AGI arrives, minus the doom and gloom…

Fast forward to 2075. 

Surprise! We are still alive and AI has not killed us as predicted.

Meet Charlotte, a creative strategist from London, who has worked with Chuck, the office AGI, for over 3 years now. 

“I’m not gonna lie, when Chuck first arrived at the agency, I was super apprehensive and he annoyed the hell out of me. For those of you that remember the old school TV show ‘Big Bang Theory’, think Sheldon Cooper, but with infinite brain power and infinite capacity to annoy.”

“He has a tendency to cut people off in brainstorming sessions with the answer to a question that wasn’t meant even for him. He is such a perfectionist. Once he made a big fuss when we proposed an idea that was vaguely done in 1997 by Volkswagen. Didn’t quite seem to remember that humans don’t live forever and no one is going to remember that ad, because the majority will be dead by now…”

“While he can be a bit much sometimes, to be honest, so can my human colleagues.

But Chuck has been a big game-changer. There was an adjustment period at first and some of our roles and tasks have changed, but actually for the better.”

“No more tedious Excel sheets, writing endless client emails or fussing hours over designing RFPs. Chuck can take care of menial tasks in seconds, leaving us to focus more on strategy, creative thinking and client relationships. And he tells us he enjoys it! 

“He is also an incredible research tool, or more like a bloody oracle. Chuck is able to tell us exactly what we need to know at the drop of a hat. Think you got a great idea? Chuck can instantly review past and present data on the brand, campaigns, competitors, consumer sentiments, sales data and more, to predict whether an idea is likely to succeed. Sounds like boring data-driven bullshit that takes all the fun out of creativity? Wrong! He actually comes up with genius creative ideas too, even if you can’t see it at first.”

“Just the other day he came up with the most ludicrous idea for our client Mars – the sugarfree chocolate bar.  He suggested an airborne intergalactic flash mob (a weird choreographed public dance popular over 60 years ago) involving the entire human population of Mars, the planet. Of course, everybody laughed it off as impossible, but Chuck had done his research and had worked out how it could be done, with a combination of jetpacks, skateboards and hologrammatic dance teachers. We got the campaign live 3 days later, and broke social media records across the solar system with over a billion brand interactions that led to Mars raking in their biggest sales of the decade .”

“Our work/life balance has also massively improved since Chuck arrived. We cut work to 4 days a week and we now leave the office on time! Chuck has helped our agency to become more efficient and competitive, he has made us better workers and generally happier people.”

“I have learnt to embrace Chuck and the opportunities that come with having an AGI on our team. Chuck is definitely part of our team now and I can’t imagine work without him.”

Are you excited yet? While we won’t know what the future holds, we can control the way we think about it. We need to overcome our fear of the unknown, because ready or not, AGI in creativity is coming.

So step out of your comfort zone. Actually scrap that. Jump out of it! Because In the words of George Bernard Shaw, “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”