Artificial Intelligence (AI) | What it Means for YOU in 2024

Are the machines coming for us? Well, they're already here. They've changed your life and they've changed mine, and they're going to keep changing our lives, personal and professional, for the foreseeable future. What does this mean for marketing folks like you and I in 2023? Why should you care? Well, to answer that, first we need to talk about what AI is, how it works and why it's here. Here's a quick dictionary definition. Artificial intelligence is a simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think and learn like humans. Involves the development of algorithms and computer programs that can perform tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as understanding natural language, recognizing objects and images and making decisions. Now here's the thing that wasn't a dictionary definition. Not a book in sight, people I know, you see the bookshelf back there wasn't from one of those. That was from an open source platform that's taking the world by storm right now. OpenAI's ChatGPT I asked AI to define itself and it gave a pretty good answer. In fact, you can ask ChatGPT virtually anything and it'll give you a strong answer immediately and in any tone of voice and structure you want. That's really impressive. But if you got a slightly anxious tug in the pit of your stomach, you're not alone. AI technology has been aggressively accelerating upwards for years. 2022 and 2023 have been the biggest leap so far. And you've Already heard about OpenAI's ChatGPT. Now companies like Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and IBM Watson are all leveraging AI to do incredible things. There are things you've no doubt seen in your personal life. Voice recognition, voice impersonation, predictive text bots, web crawlers that can pluck information from anywhere around the net, while at the same time companies are using AI to do the heavy lifting when building huge applications. For example, IBM Watson helps non techn users scale from quick prototypes to the large scale processing of unstructured data use cases, all through a simple drag and drop interface. It's amazing. Seriously, the people that work on this, wizards, all of these things signal a real change in how we do things and who does them. Projects and disciplines that were once inaccessible to many are becoming more open than ever. So yeah, a lot's changed and some of it may seem pretty scary that tugging your tummy isn't unjustified. Let's get clear on the AI basics so you can tell yourself where the opportunities lie and if when the doom mongering might actually be Appropriate. So what is AI? The term was first coined by John McCarthy in 1956, who simply defined AI as the science and engineering of making intelligent machines. In 1969, Shakey was the first purpose built AI robot. He could only really push boxes around, but it was a start. And that's basically what I do in the gym, so we're not too different. Anyway, in 1997, Deep Blue defeated grandmaster Garry Kasparov in a game of chess. Then in 2002, the world's first guided vacuum cleaner went on sale. As you can see, AI is great at methodical logic based tasks, which is great for everyone, unless you're one of those people who actually enjoys vacuuming. And now we're here. AI has come on a huge amount in a pretty short amount of time. And now the innovation is skyrocketing in a way we haven't seen before. All of this is possible because we've created intelligent machines that can recognize human speech, objects can learn, plan for the future and solve problems like humans like you and me. AI mimics the neurons of a human brain, capturing information and passing it through a series of layered neurons to create a specific action. Right now there are four main types of AI. The most basic is reactive. Like the friend who's had one too many drinks on a Friday night, this AI has no memory and doesn't plan ahead. Whoopsie. Instead, it purely reacts to stimulus in the same way. Again and again, it observes and acts. This makes it perfect for specializing in one field. Sounds simple, but this is the AI that defeated our friend Gary back in 97. Next is limited memory. These machines capture previous data and use it to inform future recommendations for future actions. So if you need a good movie recommendation, the AI will look at previous films you've watched and recommend based on your activity. If you have Spotify, you know that your discover weekly isn't always something that you want to discover weekly. You know what I'm saying? That's limited memory, my friends. Theory of mind. All right, now we're getting into movie territory, but this is coming. Theory of mind is when a robot has the capacity to respond to emotional cues from a human. If you've seen iRobot, you'll know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, it's essentially robots manifesting alongside humans to attend to their emotional needs. Self aware. Okay, now we're in full blown sci fi territory. Think Skynet in the Terminator franchise, but hopefully less scary. You may have heard of the Singularity, a machine that is super Intelligent and sentient. That's the closest to what we call consciousness. None of us can be quite sure what'll happen when these guys first turn up. Those first two AI types are already at work in factories, online and in your home. Reactive and limited AI are what we call weak AI. They can imitate a human, but can only ever act like a human. Theory of mind and self aware AI are strong AI. They have genuine agency over their own minds and can process information like a human can. And I'm sure you're thinking to yourself, but Jamal, what does this all actually mean for marketers? I'm glad you asked, because great marketing comes from a blend of creativity, the right brain and analytics, the left brain. For a long time, humans had to run on both. You know what I'm talking about. Looking up duplicates in your leads list, fixing typos everywhere. The list goes on. Did you enjoy doing any of that? Probably not. It's the vacuuming and washing dishes equivalent of being a marketer. As we've seen, AI is brilliant at these repetitive, mundane tasks. It loves it. That's why factories are using AI machines to carry out the same tasks day in and day out. They don't complain, they don't get sick, they just do. Now AI is freeing up marketers and a lot of other business folks to focus on decisions at the strategy level. That means you can tackle tougher problems without taking the time to do the dishes, so to speak. It's also giving marketers access to previously untapped information which can help you deliver more targeted and smarter messaging. Things like predictive analytics, clustering, recommendation engines, natural language processing, psychographics. All of these tools are helping marketers be better at their jobs and unleash their creativity more effectively and consistently. That's a win for you and for your customers. So what's next? Well, first the bad news. AI is leading to more jobs being lost. Then create it. This is becoming more true by the day. Factory workers were the first to suffer and professionals are beginning to feel the squeeze. AI is brilliant at breaking down complex tasks into tiny repetitive tasks. The likes of ChatGPT are starting to impinge on creativity, copywriting, voice automation, even filmmaking. Now, a lot of this work is shaky at best, but at the rate of improvement, that won't be the case for long. That's why marketers remits are going to start to change. Exactly how remains to be seen, but we're already seeing an evolution in things like workforce management. When assigned to a project, the AI analyzes where automation is needed and where people are needed. It then analyzes worker productivity and hires and fires accordingly. Yikes. There's also workflow optimization. AI watches the most productive people work and then learns to do it itself. Essentially, people are teaching the machine how to do their jobs. Again, this leads to a bunch of people probably being replaced by AI. It's inescapable. There are machines and programs in getting as good or better than humans. So look, I won't sugarcoat it. AI is profoundly changing the world that we live in. It underpins how businesses and customers interact every single day. It's going to change how you communicate with people, how you buy things, how you teach, how you learn, how you travel. The list goes on. While that can feel intimidating and the future is far from certain, it's important to figure out how we can use it to get the most out of our lives. We're going to be sharing a lot more about the latest in AI and marketing trends. So if you want to stay up to date, we're going hit that subscribe button. Until next time, my friends. I can find this client info have.

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