Is AI (Artificial Intelligence) & Machine Learning, Challenges to Creative People?

As with every disruptive technology, artificial intelligence has widely been hyped, discussed, feared, and hated upon over the last few years. Extensive studies showed its undeniable advances in the field of automation and also its tremendous potential to eliminate human intervention up to a certain extent from several areas in different fields. What this has led to is a blip where it seems like “the machines are taking over” and that soon all the jobs we work on will be taken away by AIs and intelligent programing. The latest debate among creative agencies has been about creativity, and how far artificial intelligence can go to substitute or replace human ingenuity.

With daily advancement in technology, it’s becoming harder to the draw line between humans and machines. We have already seen sophisticated AI understand and perform incredibly complex tasks, ranging from stock market predictions & research synthesis to even writing entire political speeches, revolutionizing industry operations which were earlier believed to rely heavily on human intuition. It’s important, however, to understand the process that these programs work on, and how an outcome is feasible, if at all.

Intelligent programming have been used to great effect in the advertising industry, a profoundly creative field, as they are able to understand audience engagement far better than humans and are hence better at delivering personalization for any creative agency. That said, while these AI can be integrated wonderfully into the workplace to boost results and productivity, they are hardly a substitute for human creativity. These programs are incredibly good at learning operations and interpreting data to arrive at conclusions or make decisions. Scope for creativity, empathy and original thought, however, is severely limited. This implies that they can fit in well alongside humans but cannot replace human creativity. Creativity is known as the last frontier of AI, and for good reason. A copywriter at any of the top advertising agencies will not be losing his job because of an AI anytime soon.

It is highly unlikely that machines will be able to replicate creativity since it’s something that just cannot be replicated. While computers can replicate creativity through math and decision making, they are nowhere close to being able to create something entirely new. Probably this is why AI, at least not for the foreseeable future, can replace the spark of ingenuity that a sentient human brain can provide. We are, however, swiftly and steadily moving into a landscape which is smarter, more connected and intelligent. This means that any top design agency cannot afford to lag behind by wondering about trivial matters. AI is a scientific invention which has its good and bad sides, but right now, it is out there waiting to be used to your benefit.