I’m (sort of) a fan of AI, at least the promise of it. But I am seeing more and more of the downsides of it. That’s not a special insight just occurring to me, I think you get it. Everybody does. Linkedin posts have just become full slop; even posts criticizing AI seem to be written by AI. It seems every ad I see on IG reels is some clearly fake person promoting a product they obviously haven’t used as they lack corporeal reality, which is key to the product experience.
Ok, so we’re surrounded by crap. What do we do about this as brand creatives? Here are a few takeaways written by a real human:
Technical quality doesn’t matter.
The first time I heard a good AI song, I was floored. I could see the future – Spotify won’t have any artists, it’s just a machine that creates instant hits that exactly match my mood. They get created in a stream of AI consciousness that disappears after I hear it, ready for the next slop track to start. But the reality is, that sucks. The first time I heard a good track and the 2nd/nth time were very different experiences for me. After the novelty wore off, I just really don’t care about AI music. It’s technically great, and super boring. The best use of it I’ve seen is a Portland realtor that makes emo songs for his social posts of homes he’s touring. Check him out, he’s great. But what makes it great is the concept. It’s creative, unusual, compelling – all the stuff that good branding has always done. AI is allowing him to produce something he couldn’t before, but that’s not what makes it compelling. It’s the idea – the fusion of staid boring real estate with unarguably the best genre of music known to humankind – mid 2000s emo.
Takeaway
Pivot from focusing on quality of execution to quality of concept. That’s where the focus should have always been anyways.
Authenticity is more valuable. (Maybe I will leave some typos in?)
The peak polish we’re starting to see, where low quality products and companies that should probably go out of business are releasing content that looks like they actually put some effort in – the amount of people that’s fooling is shrinking drastically. An association of polish and poor quality is starting to form. Add the inevitable AI scams that are just around the corner, and polished work will be even more suspect. So what do we do about it? Shoot video on your phone. Add the setup and takedown of the scenes into the concept of the shot. Put yourself in the video interviewing your subject, not just a talking head responding to no one. Elevate rapid social content into traditional brand spaces instead of planned and polished creative work. Do things that would have felt amateur 10 years ago. That’s what the pros are now doing (says me, I didn’t actually ask anyone).
Takeaway
Stop treating creative and communication as precious. Treat it as the organic and roughly human thing it’s supposed to be. AI slop has nothing on human slop. That’s the compelling stuff.
Sidenote: Eh this is sort of the same idea as the first one point. Well there you go.
Further aSidenote: I thought “human slop” was super interesting so I googled it. I am very much not the first person to think of it. Oh well, it’s still going in this article. See above slop.
