Is This Hollywood?

In most industries, but particularly within the scope of marketing, much debate surrounds whether the inevitable ‘AI takeover’ will reap mostly positive or negative results for people, their jobs and ultimately the need for human assistance.

Just as Alan Turing predicted in 2005, the time of ‘singularity’ – that is, the stage where AI is independent and comparable to the human mind – is near.

Now, if it is true that humans can only access ~20% of brain capacity, AI certainly does not suffer from the same biological constraints. Even now, “2-3 decades away” from the existence of fully developed AI according to Monash’s own Peter Wagstaff AI is far more intelligent and what’s more, intuitive that humans could hope to be.

Google’s AI can read lips more accurately than a trained professional and can ‘defeat’ an entire video game in a matter of hours. Undoubtedly, AI’s capacity for thinking and problem-solving have superseded our own.

It seems then that the only chance we have of retaining our competitive advantage over AI in the marketing workplace is founded on people’s preference over human interaction over talking with a computer. In an August 2018 survey, 55% of US internet users claimed they preferred human assistance. Happily, 46% said they’d rather help from a person even if an AI bot spared them 10 minutes. In more positive news, such preferences were strongest among millennials and gen Z members.

To me at least, it seems inevitable that AI will takeover a large portion of marketing jobs. Executives will simply have to “throw data of a phenomenon of some sort” at the computer and it will be able to sort and interpret data in ways even the top marketers could only dream of conceiving of. 71% of people, though, say they don’t want companies to use AI even if it improves the customer ‘experience’.

While morbid, we will likely have to stand united as a flawed species against the impending threat of independent AI if we are to prevent the marketing industry from becoming autonomous. Sounds a lot like a sci-fi movie, doesn’t it…