While I’m about as far as you could get from a marketing guru, my role as an intern over the last three months has included quite the smattering of content creation; including a fortnightly round-up on developments in the metaverse, and a monthly newsletter. And it’s given me the inclination to explore whether or not my job could soon be replaced by an ‘artificially intelligent’ content creator.
With the release of ChatGPT-4, the latest model can respond to images, process up to 25,000 words, and while it may "hallucinate" - a phenomenon where AI invents facts or makes reasoning errors - the soaring levels of partnerships with product companies indicate that there are some serious product opportunities within this space. So read on to see me traverse the rabbit hole of the products the world will likely need as AI makes endless content available on-tap.
Where the world definitely needs less (or better) content
Trawling through news articles, blog posts, tweets and LinkedIn musings to find the highlights can be enough of a challenge as it is, particularly with the tendency of news outlets to write about each other’s writing. As the volume of AI-generated content continues to grow, finding the gems hidden in this content will become a major headache. Products that effectively curate this content and provide users with personalised, high-quality information from reputable sources will be in high demand (at least with me). Returning to the source of the headache, these platforms could use AI algorithms to categorise, sort, and recommend the best content on a particular topic.
If I close my eyes I can almost hear my fellow oppressed would-be-marketeers crying out for content verification. With the rise of deepfakes and the increasing sophistication of AI-generated text, navigating the content world can be a minefield. Discerning what's real and what's not might not be as daunting if you work at a news organisation with a fact-checker readily available, but as a “layperson”, a product that could efficiently verify content, such as a service or tool that uses blockchain technology to track the provenance of information, would be a boon.
Where the world might need lots more (responsively generated) content
Conversely, there are some benefits to the increasing difficulty of differentiation between content created by a machine versus a human. Content creators, even pseudo types like myself, will be freed up to focus on higher-level tasks such as strategy and creative direction, and be given a boost to our productivity. It would probably help us to increase the quality of human-generated content, as it becomes more of a novelty. A product which leverages the potential ChatGPT-4 has unleashed by, for example, automating product descriptions to populate e-commerce sites, or creating an AI-generated social media presence, will unlock time and money for the companies it assists. And it goes without saying that it’s much harder to disparage an AI-generated promotion or pay rise.
But by far the most enticing use case for AI-generated content is in building something NEW. A product that enables a huge, immersive AR/VR experience, one that could provide personalisation based on user behaviour, gives new meaning to the word ‘content’. If the rise of AI could rid the world of dull, corporate truisms and LinkedIn fodder; that would constitute a change I wholeheartedly support. With the help of AI, these experiences could be dynamic and adaptive, meeting users where they are rather than telling them what they should need.
So will I, or should I, be replaced?!
While the rise of AI-generated content may have marketers worried about their job security, by focusing on areas where humans need less, or better content, and where they need lots more, responsively generated content, entrepreneurs and innovators can stay ahead of the curve and tap into the limitless potential. And with the help of tools to navigate the mayhem & innovation to push AI content forward, I think jobs like mine could even be given a vibrancy injection.
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