Creative AI – Is Artificial Intelligence Taking Over?

Infinite Monkey Theorem

Artificial intelligence is no longer just something you see in bad Sci-Fi movies. Machine learning and AI has crept into lots of things we use on a day-to-day basis. From smart refrigerators to your search engine, AI is helping to read a website, or order more milk. But now it’s started writing adverts too?

AI Improving

Lexus, the Japanese car manufacturer, have used AI to stitch together an advert using 15 years of data from previous advertising campaigns. The 60 second advert was created by creating an AI algorithm and feeding it all the information that has been collected from all of the companies other advertising campaigns, then trying to turn that into a narrative story. You can see the advert below

While the video might not have the most logical storyline, it does have an emotional pull to it. You see the father waving goodbye to his creation as he finishes cleaning the car, and then celebrating when it performs its job by passing the automatic braking test. If you didn’t know it had been written by AI, you probably wouldn’t notice anything different.

Creative Robots

Automation taking over people’s jobs is not a new fear in business, but the idea of automation replacing creative roles is. Initial fears revolved around production line jobs, where the job was focused on performing a repetitive task over and over, but the idea of AI having a role in creative industries like writing or video creation is very different. That a robot can complete a physical task like sticking a label on a bottle is nothing new, but that a “robot” can write an advert that elicits an emotional response from a viewer is.

Creative AI

Only time will tell if content marketers are replaced by 1000 monkeys with 1000 typewriters, but one thing’s for sure; AI is improving, and the more it improves the more we will see it in our day to day lives. Tools like Google Home, Alexa and Siri have become commonplace already. What do you think is next?

Photo credit – Top: Mike MacKenzie