Technology has never been so prevalent in our lives, but with AI, Augmented reality, programmatic everything, the Metaverse and now Chat GPT, is it taking over? And are we comfortable with the way it’s muscling in on tasks WE use to perform?
These were just some of the questions up for discussion in London yesterday as adtechs, agencies and media companies gathered at a very timely humans vs technology event.
Organised by boutique tech agency The Digital Voice and martech recruitment firm Sphere Digital, the packed session sought to explore the intersection of humanity and technology, the opportunities and challenges it presented to the advertising world.
Chat GPT with David Guetta
The sheer power of artificial intelligence technology was laid bare at the top of the session with a reference to renown DJ David Guetta, who this month successfully created a rave music verse in the style of Eminem using Chat GPT, the latest AI chatbot that looks set to change all our lives.
Let me introduce you to… Emin-AI-em 👀 pic.twitter.com/48prbMIBtv
— David Guetta (@davidguetta) February 3, 2023
It’s not just music, real world authors have been unnerved by reports that Chat GPT books are being listed on Amazon.
The Digital Voice’s Julia Linehan asked the session if al this new AI was exciting for humanity or just very scary.
Rob Garber, UK Managing Director of adtech GumGum admitted that, like some, he is also concerned with the amount of AI coming into the world.
However, he also argued that AI in the attention economy could help hone marketing and ad campaigns without human bias: “Every human tries to create the logic and assumptions but AI doesn’t make bias assumptions”, he told the audience.
“You need to let machines take over for them to do their work to the best of their ability.
“Context is really important to delivering the right message. Everyone is going to be using AI in the future. How do you trust the technology is good?
He warned buyers of AI solutions that whilst AI is coming, they need to be prepared to ask the right questions of vendors.
“We are all going to be sold AI solutions. Choosing the right one is what’s important. GumGum is the only adtech vendor in the open web that has an MRC content-level accreditation that analyses text, image, video and context.”
Jay richards, Co-Founder of GenZ insights firm Imagen Insights nodded towards global drinks Coca-Cola’s announcement this week that it has hired Bain & Co to develop its vision of using Chat GPT to reach the first digital natives, Genz.
“GenZ have always had technology and they’re used to software updates. For them it’s just the next step”, he said.
Charlotte Ashton of adaptive streaming firm Seen This said she expected to see chat GPT rivals emerge from the likes of Alphabet: “Google will do whatever they can to be in the mix, they will throw their full weight behind it.”
Underscoring the need for regulation of the new AI landscape she added: “In essence automation is great and you need it, but there’s also the side that there’s so much you need to feed it to work and humans have so much bias towards things whether its conscious or unconscious.
“How much are you going to touch on issues around anything? This could go wrong really quickly and there’s nothing to keep it in check and tech is always abused for the bad things, with no one to reign them in. Legislation never catches up fast enough.
Jonathan Harrison from the UK’s largest independent creative agency The7Stars, said his teams were working with AI solutions such as Chat GPT which were providing the agency with inspiration, but that human involvement was still needed to finesse the creative process.
Amy Wright, Head of Strategy at Automated Creative said in an industry where clients demand more in less time for less money and better, technology and data needed to be used well in order to understand what makes campaigns work well and more importantly learn why they don’t.
“Clients want cheap, good and fast, but you can only ever have to of these things”, adding that AI solutions don’t make decisions that close down thinking in the creative world. They can create wider ideas. “They find that the things they predict are going to work often don’t and they can learn what does to drive performance.”
Sarah Lewis, Global director CTV at content creators ShowHeroes admitted that AI offered huge opportunities to publishers, however: “You can’t replace actual human experience with AI. Human stories can not be produced by AI which is where a lot of good news comes from.”
Victoria Pindar VP Sales at ExitBee said of the current state of AI is that it’s not real-time: “It’s important that it is so that we get the real facts and it’s not something that has generated itself over time. Real-time is important for the most updated news.”
Sam Matharu Director of Analytics for EMEA at Xaxis told the audience that we should expect AI tech to be perfect: “There’s human error and artificial error.
“Trust, as a definition, is consistency over time. It depends what you define as trust, do you trust it to be bad or good.
“I trust Chat GPT to actually give me a correct response. Once there is an ethical way of moderating Chat GPT then it’ll be more trustworthy. Critical thinking is needed for chatGPT to work.”
You can expect to hear a lot more about Chat GPT in the months ahead, or rival platforms such as Bing chat and Google’s Bard.
Coincidentally on Wednesday, BT’s chief data and artificial intelligence officer, told MPs that the UK Government needed to invest in the launch of a UK version of Chat GPT, a sort of Brit GPT, if the nation wants to avoid losing out to countries like China and the US.