I have this hunch AI will cause a lot of change, but also cause a lot of reversion to long-held truths:

That human connection, ingenuity and creativity are far more important and compelling than any media generated by a machine.

I saw a video someone shared on LinkedIn the other day, which was a pretty compelling set of clips with people sharing the impressions of a car showcase. Except the entire clip and the event it was based on was fake, entirely generated by AI.

This had me wondering: if this kind of thing is pushed as the “normal” way to make ads moving forward, how might any average person trust that they’re legit? I suspect most folks won’t care at first, but over time grow frustrated that more & more of the ads they see are TOTAL BS and therefore, I can’t help but think that we’ll get to a point where most advertising is simply not trustworthy and therefore ineffective at driving sales of the product being advertised.

Might this crater the ad industry? Would this cripple tech platforms reliant on ads as their primary revenue/profit driver?

It feels like the ads that would break through are the ones verifiably human in origin, using real people directed by real directors. Ones that feel real.

Or ads relying heavily on word-of-mouth from people you (the consumer) trust. Which will become increasingly hard to trust in itself unless you know these people IRL.

Same in music, photography and virtually any other digital art form: We already know that AI-generated slop is flooding our networks and streaming apps. Most people don’t care, until some critical breaking point happens where (1) enough users realize their favorite digital stuff is made by a machine & there is no way to connect with the artist BECAUSE THE ARTIST DOESN’T EXIST, or (2) they get bored with increasingly same-y looking/sounding stuff and want something different (I have less faith in this outcome 😬 )

I hold out hope that this leaves opportunity for the genuine independent artists, musicians, thinkers and builders who currently struggle to break through the increasing noise of ever-more content generated without any semblance of human experience behind it.

The below photo is not AI-generated. It’s a photo I (a real person) took in Scotland and used as cover art for a different album of mine. Last week I shared a counterexample where I used AI. The latter is bizarre and shocking, but the former has a sense of place and texture and age. I think it makes a difference, do you?