Or, why the policy stands at “No AI.”
Even when they say they don’t, most companies and creators use AI to some capacity. At least, they think it’s AI, but it is likely one of the generative large language models that crank out indiscriminate things for them to copy, paste, and tweak before shoving it out into the world.
What bothers me more is that no one is putting forth a disclaimer on how they are using AI to create content for their audiences to consume. This is sinister.
When watching a cartoon or a movie, there is a general suspension of disbeleif. Getting crushed by an anvil or surviving a spacecraft wreck on an alien planet? Sure, that tracks. I’ll allow it so long as it serves the story. But when it comes to copywriting, emails, sales collateral, and even scripts used by sales reps when they call in (assuming, with liberal grace, that the calls themselves aren’t AI Automatons)? We call this lying.
Remember: all AI is theft. What the LLM feeds you is everything that has come before it. All your generative AI tools do is imitate the patterns of what already exists. And, like the snake that eats its own tale, when we publish the output as our own, it becomes the thing the next generation learns from.
Before long, we all start sounding the same. When everybody looks the same, we get tired of looking at each other.
Every project starts the same: with a pen in hand. Scribbles on paper. Some words, some diagrams, things to get the general idea of what is rattling around in my head. The research comes in droves – previous projects and campaigns, texts, competitor analysis – and gets absorbed. So far, sounds kinda like how an AI gets trained: ingest, pick up patterns, get read to regurgitate.
The thing about human cognition is in the ability to pick up on patterns that might not be there. Or, a pattern that isn’t definite or practical – but it’s there. Or, more purely, the ability to create an entirely new pattern where it didn’t exist before.
Because sometimes I write with the voice in my head of novel I haven’t read in years. Or with the rhythm of a movie soundtrack, or with the distortion of cannabis and bourbon. When you’re in a space of working with human emotion at it’s core, when you’re working with creativity and persuasion, how can we justify the output of a robot?
Copywriting is meant to persuade people, and it should be people who ultimately do the persuading.
Or, maybe, you just don’t know your product?
