Episode #3 Balancing Generative AI with Human Creativity Transcript
Brian (00:00):
Rather than throwing our hands up and saying, I guess this has just passed me by and there's not a place for me, but really claiming a seat at the table and figuring out, okay, how can we ensure that we're using these tools responsibly and that we continue to advocate for the work that we're doing and the value that we bring to that work?
Voice Over (00:17):
You've tapped into the Divine Spark Podcast from Paulsen. Join us as we explore a refreshingly human first approach to using AI in marketing, business development, and more in the ag, energy and rural sectors.
Sara (00:34):
Welcome to this episode of The Divine Spark. I've got a couple of course, very special guests because we all get a chance to work together here at Paulson. And I want to introduce to you Jake Zastrow, our creative director,
Jake (00:48):
Hello,
Sara (00:48):
And also Brian Paff, our content writer.
Brian (00:51):
Hey,
Sara (00:51):
And Brian and I have had a lot of really, really interesting conversations about what Human First might mean and what this means to the workforce, and I'm excited to ask him questions. Jake and I have just been working on tools back and forth together, and so he's going to have a very different perspective or who knows, maybe a similar perspective on it, but we'll dive right in now and I'm going to just ask each one of them. What do you think about when you think about generative AI and human first AI? Brian, let's kick it off with you.
Brian (01:22):
Alright, well, I'll jump in. I'll be honest. I think when Chat GPT first hit the public space, and I think you even just kind of drop that bomb made reference to it, that bomb in an all staff meeting, this kind of rush of confusion, fear, anxiety, kind of ran through my body. I didn't even know what to do with it at that point. It was just so new and obviously had heard reference to AI, had watched films about AI for years, and so I suppose always knew that it was a possibility, but never knew exactly what that would mean for the world as we know it. And then particularly being a writer, what that would look like for me. And to be frank, I had been using tools such as Grammarly and Jasper
Sara (02:24):
AI tools
Brian (02:25):
Right before Chat GPT hit, and all of a sudden it was every single news article. You couldn't go a day without having references to it. And so it's been a journey for me, and I still don't know exactly where I fall. I know that I'm using tools on a very regular basis. I mean, just the other day I had an article to write and didn't really know where to start. It was a little bit of a foreign topic, had done some research but didn't know exactly how to organize my thoughts. And so I used chat GPT and Perplexity to formalize an outline, and that was an immensely helpful thing for all those writers out there. Your biggest enemy is obviously going to be writer's block, right?
(03:15):
The blank page prompt the blank page best, what do you do with it? Right? And I still have tremendous misgivings about just having the machine write things for me, but being able to take a bunch of information that might be maybe outside of my realm of expertise and or comfort zone and to get that framework started hugely helpful. And so provide the outline, okay, now I know what I need to fill in here and I've got different bits of information that I can plug in and I can put my personal touch on it and make it sound authentic and real and true to me.
Sara (03:53):
But is that where you started?
Brian (03:55):
No, no, no, no, no. And I'm saying even in spite of my misgivings, I am using ai. But yeah, I mean, it calls into question, is my role going to be obsolete? And I think that's the question that people in a variety of industries have faced over the years, right? Auto workers, grocery store clerks, you name it, customer service representatives on a call center. So much of that has been automated and or has shifted, but that hasn't reduced the need for people. And so that's kind of where I'm at in terms of trying to process that.
Sara (04:32):
It's a big shift for a bunch of us, and I certainly didn't start my journey out thinking, hooray, this is great. And if you've listened to any of the other podcasts, I started out being flat out angry about it. And how can you take people who have created original work and have worked their entire life times building up a body of work and then dump it into an LLM, and then someone who has no relationship with an artist gets to just step up and prompt out something that looks usable? Maybe so, maybe not, but pretty infuriating. And I get the sense that you maybe felt a little bit that way too.
Brian (05:13):
Yeah, and again, I still feel that way and I'm kind of smack dab in the middle of my career here without divulging my age or anything like that. But I, I've been working in marketing communications for 15 years and I've probably got another 15 to 20 left in my career. And so I feel very much in the middle here of like, okay, I've got to shift the way I view my work and I've got to figure out how am I going to continue to be relevant and find meaning in my own work for the next 15 to 20 years. So it might feel different if I was right at the beginning of my career. And it's just like, okay, well this is, we're towards the end. This is the new normal and this is going to be my future for the next whatever.
Sara (05:59):
So do you feel like this has been the biggest shift you've seen in your career or have you gone through this before with a different shift?
Brian (06:05):
Oh, for me, I think, yes, definitely, but I think back to this is I guess pre-care, but when I was in college, I mean, again, I'm going to divulge in my age at this point. So I started college in 1999, and that was the first time I ever had an email address. So I am right at that cusp of kind of started to learn how to use the internet and America Online a OL. But that was obviously a cataclysmic shift, but I wasn't in the workplace at that point. And so okay,
Sara (06:40):
Got
Brian (06:40):
It. You know what I mean? But if I try and put myself in those shoes, if I was just a few years older, imagining that shift of, yeah,
Sara (06:50):
I can tell you exactly what those
Brian (06:51):
Shifts were because I was there. You've heard ever, you and Mike and others here have been working at Paulsen for 25, 30 years. You lived that. And so I kind of accepted that as just, well, I guess this is just how we evolve. It feels way different at this stage of life. And obviously, I mean AI is, we're always prisoners of the moment. So right now it's like, oh my gosh, AI is so much more life paradigm shifting than the advent of the internet is. But I don't know if that necessarily is true. It feels that way right now.
Sara (07:29):
Yeah, it feels that way to me. Even just having made the shift from key lining, not doing any of my job with a computer at all to having a computer all of a sudden and having it be literally starting with dos prompts and thinking, well, this isn't going to go anywhere. And then the apples came out, I got my first Mac and I'm like, wow, I can iterate so much faster. I can bring so many more ideas to bear in the same amount of time. It was just miraculous. And then pretty soon you're taking it for granted just because that's what everyone does. But I remember people who dropped out who literally left their careers because of that. And I see that now people who have decided, I'm not going to go down this path. It's just taking all the fun out of it or whatever. It's not ethical or I feel immoral using these tools or whatever their thought process is or just not.
Jake (08:22):
But even going back to when desktop publishing started, I mean basically our tools went from very basic to very complicated so quickly and every year we were just constantly changing all these different things
Sara (08:35):
And
Jake (08:35):
It got so much different so quick. And I came up in the infancy of that. I got a little bit of it on the print side of the line type and shooting stuff and working with guys who actually stripped in things for newspapers,
Sara (08:50):
Old timers,
Jake (08:51):
You
Sara (08:51):
Can
Jake (08:51):
See it, print, direct a plate. It was we film and then they'd expose it and they'd do all that, and then it went direct to plate, then it went just all digital and then it went just,
Sara (09:02):
Yeah. So I think there's a really interesting parallel in the desktop publishing world because I remember to the chat GBT world, so if we don't know where our value is, so when PageMaker came out and even Word gave you the ability to do some things in it, there was just this tsunami of bad looking work out there so bad because it was an equalizer. Everyone could use the tool, but not everyone was good at using the tool. And I just see this incredible parallel to what's happening right now. There is so much garbage out there that people have done just because it can generate garbage for you.
(09:45):
And
(09:46):
If you're not discerning and not everyone is, or they're too busy or for whatever reason, but I just see this perfect parallel to all the really bad desktop publishing stuff that came out. And then the pendulum swung back, came back to the people who actually were really good at designing, who knew how to communicate an idea and a concept and move people emotionally to act. And that did not come out of desktop publishing. It came out of the people,
Jake (10:13):
Came out of people
Sara (10:14):
So human first, even way back then. But I completely see that parallel happening now.
Jake (10:21):
It did go to a point where it was losing craft. I remember when Photoshop came out too much and it was like everyone photoshopped everything so much. There was drop shadows, bevels layers,
Sara (10:32):
Bevels.
Jake (10:32):
My theme, I love the Bevel, it was how many effects can we use? Can we poster it? Can we liquefy it? It just became filter right mass.
(10:46):
And then coming from an era where it was very craft-based into that craft went away to the simplest click of a button, we can add all this stuff. Something got lost in that. Immediately you're getting that. And then the parallel came back around of like, oh, we can get craft in here a different way. And when I look at AI and I look at mainly image generation and things like that, you can see things, but then you miss that craft. You miss that personality. Things are maybe too perfect. Things are how can you skew it back to that?
Sara (11:21):
Start with a pencil and a piece of paper was always what I learned from Mike Dowling. Don't start staring at the computer monitor with a blank.
Jake (11:30):
Same thing. I mean to me, from my workflow, a lot of it's used for idea generation and how you can evolve it. And a big part of our role as creatives is how can we sell creative to people who are traditionally non-creative and are going to get hung up on things so we can create very basic mood boards, very basic things, whereas beforehand, we'd have to search thousands of images to find things to somewhat tell the story, and it was never quite right. So I think going back to that desktop publishing analogy, I see it's going to shift into people, the tools getting better and being able to do that. But I still think there's got to be the human aspect. There's got to be that creative part of it, and we can get a baseline for things, but we never really push it past the baseline if we just rely on that tool a hundred percent. And I don't see that going away. I see it again, the same with the desktop publishing thing of starting out with all this visual vomit I'm going to call sometimes that we get on these things and how can you distill it down to a finalized, crafted, thoughtful piece that's going to actually resonate with human versus just a quick fix
Brian (12:49):
Done. It's worth noting too, when you think about consumer audiences. So we're talking about the craft, right? But when we think about consumer audiences and what they desire, I mean, I think you've seen this movement and say skincare and beauty products where you know what? We're going to stop airbrushing out imperfections and we're going to stop using just the ideal model to try and sell our products. We're going to actually depict real people. And I'm sure that there are layers to that process and how that gets vetted, and is it still kind of under the control of the agency or the brand that's putting that imagery out? But I think that people actually starting to push back on this idealized perfection that was being presented in creative ads. And it was like, you know what? No, we want to see real life. And I think it's helpful to remember that as well when we think about moving forward.
(13:48):
And so we have these tools that are going to produce something that is far quicker to produce and maybe even produces better results than what a human could do, certainly given a finite amount of time. But I would argue that I think people are going to be able to spot like that doesn't seem real. Sure, that sounds great. The words that flow on the page that Chatt PT spits out in a fraction of the time that it would take me to write still at the end of the day, I think people are going to be able to see that didn't really come from a person though. And I think that we crave authenticity and real life, and there are certain things that, you know what? Automation is great, but if I'm trying to get an answer for something and I'm either chatting online or I pick up the phone and all I get is a machine, I get frustrated. I just want to talk to somebody who can help me solve this problem. And I think that being able to keep that front and center for us as we're creating and asking ourselves, what do people really want here? And keeping that authentic real perspective in terms of what we're putting out, not just how we're creating it, but also what's delivered ultimately in creative is helpful.
Jake (15:11):
That human connection, that human, it's hard to verbalize
Sara (15:15):
Yes, that, yeah, I think it'll be a pendulum too. Look, novelty will wear off to a degree. I think people get maybe a little bit more serious about what they do, but certainly you cannot deny the headlines. So Sam Altman comes out and says, well, we're going to get rid of 90 blah, blah, blah percent of the people's jobs and we're going to need a universal basic income because people aren't going to have work. And I know you shared an article with us, Brian, about essentially the workforce. And I don't know, what did you find in that article that was compelling?
Brian (15:51):
So yeah, this is an article by Tim Ringle, he's the CEO of Meet the People. And this was in the drum, and the title of the article was Take a Step Back, creatives, no More Fear Mongering Over ai. Basically the gist of it was really looking at, sure, AI is streamlining things, and there might be the same anxiety that I expressed earlier of, is my work relevant? Do I have a place in this industry at this point in time or moving forward? And he really, I thought brought forward some really good points about, yes, this is changing the landscape, but there still is a need for creative people to continue to drive this process, this craft that we're talking about. One of the quotes that really stuck out to me was businesses will always find ways to operate at the lowest cost possible while producing the highest volume of work.
(16:53):
AI is simply the latest way our industry is moving to achieve these aims. The quicker we accept this and create a seat for ourselves at the table, the faster we can balance the forces of displacement and increased profit and new role creation. And I think what spoke to me from that particular quote was just this idea of rather than throwing our hands up and saying, I guess this is just passed me by and there's not a place for me, but really claiming a seat at the table and figuring out, okay, how can we ensure that we're using these tools responsibly and that we continue to advocate for the work that we're doing and the value that we bring to that work.
Sara (17:34):
Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that is at the core of thinking about it in a human first way, that value cannot be replicated by ai. It just will not be. But it can be a great tool.
Jake (17:49):
And I think even just going back to that desktop publishing thing, and I don't mean to beat a dead horse on that, but
Sara (17:54):
It is a dead horse. It's
Jake (17:54):
A tool. Yeah, it's a tool. And I think AI is a tool as well in that we're never going to eliminate that craft. That craft is what make things amazing. So when desktop publishing came out, it minified the paper and pencil world to a degree, but that craft never went away. It maybe got diminished for a little bit, but then it uplift. I think that you had mentioned earlier, there's going to be this pendulum swing if we're going to see so much AI produced work and we're going to get numb to it, to the point where as consumers, we're just going to go, oh, that's ai, blah. Block it out. And what's going to make a biggest splash is when that human comes back into it with that craft, with that other thing. So I think we'll see that weird.
Sara (18:42):
Yeah, absolutely.
Jake (18:43):
Play between it.
Sara (18:43):
I think we're already seeing the deleterious effects of what it did to Facebook. So you like one AI generated image and pretty soon that's all you see. So people don't like that and people leave the platform, they go someplace else and people will, they'll vote with their behavior on how we think this is working, but I would really like to see more people step up and just say, what is right is human first. What is right is actually that craft that you talk about and that human creativity and that divine spark that has to be in intentionally respected in the workforce. And I think that's something we'd like to see people join us in embracing step forward and be the good person that embraces it.
Jake (19:31):
And I think we'd all agree that the difference between good advertising and great advertising is nuance. And then nuance is where we crank that craft up because general imagery and general things we can get out of it are great idea starters and great baselines for things. But where things become better is that like little 6%, 7%, sometimes 2% where you crank it up and there's something witty or there's something different that the nuance just isn't there yet. Maybe it will get there, maybe it won't, but I still think there's going to be a human aspect to it that makes that come to life, versus it just always being a tool that does that.
Sara (20:12):
Alright, will, let's share one last thought from each of you. And just because we've had internal conversations, and I have a sense of how you guys think about this, I just want you to be really, really, really candid because I think the conversations we're having here, other people want to hear and they want to be affirmed that maybe I feel this way about it and I don't think anybody else does. So Brian, I'll start with you. Be really candid about how you think about this change.
Brian (20:37):
Yeah. Well, I mean, I alluded to this earlier. I think for me it has been a real struggle, particularly when I hear about and or I just think about the fact that anybody can just swap out what I've poured my heart and soul into for something that an AI tool has generated that creates a lot of anxiety for me, and I continue to sit with that. And I think to try and put a positive spin on that is I think there's still a lot of opportunity. And I try to imagine myself 20 years earlier, let's say I was really good at researching stuff and all of a sudden the Internet's there and I'm like, but I was really good at pulling books off of the shelf and reading and getting into the crux of an issue and doing that research. But the advent of the internet and access to information with a few clicks changed the way people could go about that and probably amplified their ability to do that. And I'm hopeful that I can continue to find ways where AI can support me and maybe get some of the hard work out of the way and allow me to really pour myself into writing even more. And so that's where I feel a lot of anxiety, but also there's a lot of hope and optimism for ways that I can fit into that,
Sara (22:04):
That's encouraging to all of us. Jake, how do you feel?
Jake (22:09):
From my perspective, starting from the beginning, I feel like art has always inspired art. I think when AI originally came out or it was kind of introduced to me originally, it was, oh, well, it's essentially copying things and restructuring them and doing this. And it was more of a philosophical part of like, oh, well, basically it's stealing these ideas. And not saying that creative is all stealing ideas, but a lot of it is inspired by itself. So really going through the explorations of it and seeing how you can use a tool to basically generate inspiration from things is really intriguing to me. And I am super excited to see how it not only pushes our industry forward and pushes companies forward, and just to really see how it evolves from where it is now and what I feel like is going to be the awkward Photoshop phase of everything's thrown on a piece of paper to more refined, more tool-based solutions that really not replace parts of people's role, but really simplify that process to get to it. And I think it'll be really intriguing to see what creative does and how people stand out here going in the future.
Sara (23:30):
Absolutely. Thanks guys for sharing your thoughts on Human First and The Divine Spark. I've been looking forward to this conversation for a long time because I know we're all kind of on this journey and we've just had these sidebar conversations that I think everyone is having that's in our industry, and I think it's important to shine a light on it and bring it forward. So thanks for joining us, and I hope you'll join us again for the next episode of The Divine Spark.
Voice Over (23:53):
Thanks for listening to The Divine Spark. Be sure to subscribe using your favorite podcast platform and visit us at Paulsen.agency with any questions or ideas for future episodes.