Greg Hahn: AI won’t replace creatives who connect with judgement, instinct and emotion

Greg Hahn, the legendary co-founder and chief creative officer of Mischief @ No Fixed Address, New York, on why AI can’t replace human creativity.

“At the moment, AI is great for data, research and churning out executions—anything objective. But humans still have a lock on the subjective. The stuff that requires judgment and gut instinct.

Things that are often illogical and brilliantly off. This is not a new revelation. You’ve read various versions of this thought before. The shift is in rethinking the real value of what we in advertising actually do.

It’s not to create what tech companies lovingly refer to as assets. Mark Zuckerberg is actively training his bots to create assets as my human hands type this. Mere asset creation is going to be very efficient and very easy. If those are the metrics you’re being measured by, you will fall miserably behind.

Our job in marketing and advertising isn’t to create assets. Our job is to use our creativity, instinct, knowledge and taste to solve business problems in a way that connects with other human beings.

It’s creating big thoughts and uniquely capturing minute moments. It’s the elusive insight, observation or “ah-ha” that comes from relevant as well as seemingly irrelevant experiences as living, breathing creatures. It’s connecting through emotion in an intangibly human way. Like an invisible CAPTCHA that says, “I am not a robot.” And more importantly, “I understand, you are not a robot.”

That is what we do. We can, and should, use AI in this process. But when everyone has access to the same tools, our real value is in what we uniquely bring to them. Our real value is derived from what we are made of.

I predict nothing that goes by the name Artificial will be able to replace that.”

Continue reading on AdAge.com…

Want to leave a comment? Share your thoughts below, making sure to include your full name and email address. If you have a news tip or story idea, please feel free to email ricki@campaignbrief.com.