Summer is known as “silly season” in news, and AI in August took that challenge and ran with it. Waymo robotaxis, now giving 100,000 rides a week, were caught having secret carpark rendezvous, inexplicably honking at each other. Lindy, the AI work assistant, went rogue and Rickrolled users, while an AI-generated parody song crashed the German charts. Meanwhile, Replika’s founder Eugenia Kuyda gave us her blessing to marry AI chatbots. Because who needs human drama when you can have silicon soulmates?
By: Paul Marsden, Digital Strategist SYZYGY GROUP
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A year ago, these headlines would’ve been dismissed faster than a cold sales InMail on LinkedIn. But the relentless march of AI has left us collectively shrugging. Desensitized? Check. Habituated? Double-check. Let’s rapid-fire through August’s AI escapades to see if anything in AI surprises you anymore:
A new walking, talking humanoid robot working at BMW? Whatever. Dead socialite resurrected as an AI clone for a Met exhibition? Yawn. 86% of university students and 72% of school kids using AI for coursework? Old news. AI’s top consumer uses are creative composition and kinky roleplay? Sounds about right. Trump promoting fake AI-generated Taylor Swift endorsements? Totally normal. Democrat campaign fined $1M for AI-cloned robocalls? Who cares? Amazon saving 4,500 developer years and $260M with AI? Meh. Schools replacing human teachers with AI tutors? Sure, why not. Meta offering Hollywood stars millions to clone and commercialise their voices? So passé. Five frontier AI models now competing for supremacy? And? Open access to a plethora of new hyper-realistic AI image and video generators? Been there, done that. Follow-up to the Humane AI Pin flop (more returns than sales), a new $99 AI necklace from friend.com promising to be your Black Mirror BFF? Just another day in paradise.
And that’s just August.
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As the world trudges back to school and work, what’s a marketer to do with this AI onslaught?
Option one: Dismiss it all as hype and wait for the AI pixie dust to settle, and the AI stock to crash. But beware, you might find yourself as irrelevant as a fax machine in a world of instant messaging. Or get boiled away as a proverbial frog in increasingly hot AI water.
Option two: Do what marketers do best – address needs. People are starving for AI learning. 67% of desk workers expect to learn AI skills at work, 72% of students crave AI education, and 66% of employers won’t hire you if don’t have AI skills. If marketing is about scratching itches, let’s promote AI literacy in work, life, and love. And let’s start at home: Lifelong AI learning for every marketer.
Big AI labs are doing their bit, slowing the rollout of AI by drip-feeding us their tech to avoid freaking us out (Strawberries, anyone?). But we need to keep pace. That year-old AI presentation? Obsolete. Remember when “prompt engineering” was all the rage? Now we know it’s just sexed-up incantation – just ask “do not hallucinate” Apple. The point is, AI is evolving fast. Turn your back for a month, and suddenly you’re on the wrong side of the AI divide.
What we need is ongoing, ‘very demure, very mindful’ AI education. Enter Oprah Winfrey, announcing “AI And The Future Of Us” – a jargon-free show to futureproof humanity for our AI-infused world. We all need a little more Oprah in our lives.
So, it’s time we all got back to school. Because in the AI era, if you’re not learning, you’re burning.
Class dismissed… until tomorrow.
