As I write, I’m reminded of a quote from the great author, William Faulkner: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” And how, as you get older, that becomes ever more true.
Books, whether they’re historical, fantastical or fictional, are always the greatest teachers.
Take AI. In the very first pages of Dune, written in 1957, Frank Herbert was delivering this portentous warning:
“Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them”.
The century’s greatest thinkers, from Orwell to Huxley, gave us the gift of story to highlight potential risks. From the dystopia of Brave New World to the authoritarianism of Big Brother in 1984, we can’t say we weren’t warned.
Yet, still, here we are. The ‘great AI revolution’ already guides our every move on the internet via algorithms, which, let’s face it, rule the world. An algorithm somewhere determines what we read, what we don’t. What we wear, what we don’t. Who we date, who we don’t.
But do we really want it to take over the human world of writing, creativity and books? Surely, this is the most elemental skill that defines us as humans. Great stories, from One Hundred Years of Solitude to The Bonfire of the Vanities, are all about making sense of the human condition. Do we surrender that most precious gift that sparks our minds and souls into life to faceless bots and clip armies?
I hope not. I’ll state this here: I’m not some anti-AI dinosaur hankering for the good old days. I don’t believe we’ll soon be overrun by Terminators or Blade Runners.
I know the positives it can bring. Medical breakthroughs, early diagnostics, economic growth in the trillions of dollars, productivity hacks, and addressing global challenges such as food insecurity and climate change.
But in an increasingly complex world, as we wrestle with the potential seismic impacts on jobs, Universal Basic Income, ethics, and vast data centres guzzling water and enough electricity to power the city of New Orleans, we must be on our guard. And yet, governments are simply not doing this. Guardrails to protect us from very real dangers and future abuses don’t exist, while the tech bros are allowed to continue unchecked in the race for the modern Holy Grail: AGI.
So yes, I’m wary of AI. Not because I fear the march of the machines, but rather, our own unchecked impulses—greed, control, and dominance—that endanger us the most.
And I’m not alone. A recent YouGov/Economist poll showed that most Americans (71%) think AI is moving too fast, and twice as many are AI pessimists as AI optimists.
History will not be kind, I suspect, when it comes to writing this coming chapter in the human story.
A Little Bit of History Repeating
A student of history and politics at university, I have a strong connection with the past, and this weekend was all nineties throwbacks as I met up with old college friends. Amongst the flashbacks of snakebites, Monday night discos and 3 am kebabs, I was reminded of how easy the past is and how stories still, after 30 years, connect us so deeply. Tales of mixtapes, landlines and night buses brought much merriment.
To be honest, most of the nineties were a ‘blur’. It was the end of the century; we were all indie kids, and vaping meant something else entirely! So much of growing up is making an arse of yourself, whether at school, at uni or on the dancefloor.
And we all reflected, after much pink prosecco, on whether that particular delight is being lost to new generations as the anxiety of social media makes everything so much more ‘public’. Those mistakes we all made in the 90s never really happened because there were no smartphones to capture the moment! And for that, no small mercy, Generation X is eternally grateful.
Life on campus revolved around four things: 1. Begging in vain for essay deadline extensions 2. Endless trips to Londis to stock up on the essentials: Findus Crispy Pancakes, Birds’ Eye Potato Waffles, Heinz Baked Beans and multipacks of ‘Lilt’ (even back then, I was thinking in brands!) 3. Queuing for the hottest ticket in town, which was the university’s miniature ‘computer room’, and the marathon sprint across campus to get my end-of-term paper in on time (which usually meant stuffing it into a pigeon hole and praying it would get to the named recipient). 4. Avoiding the playful affections of dodgy, drunk rugby blokes in the student bars. Oh, those were the days!
A good dose of nostalgia helps us make sense of the present. Who we are, how we got here, where we’re heading. And so too, as a country. Nostalgia is very much a driving force in our fragmenting politics. See Reform Party. See Brexit (and there, I’ll leave it for now before this becomes a political thesis/rant/ diatribe no one wants to read!).
History is all about learning from the past – but sadly, all too often, we don’t learn those lessons. And the older you get, the more you realise this. The Middle East, Arab-Israeli tensions, the Cuba question, Ebola outbreaks, war games, political corruption, corporate greed, stock market bubbles… It’s all there in the history books. Again and again.
Reshaping PR in the Age of AI
Nothing has changed. Yet everything has changed (or is about to).
Not since the Industrial Revolution have we faced a challenge and opportunity on the epic scale of AI. It will totally upend the world of work in the next few years.
Like so many other professions, the PR industry stands at a crossroads. AI is here to stay, and it can make our working lives better.
Every marketer, every PR pro, every creator needs to know what AI can do, both its benefits and its limitations. Our collective future job security depends on it. Entry-level jobs in the profession are already disappearing as machines take over admin tasks.
AI is a game-changer. It can pull vast amounts of data, quickly spot trends, conduct basic research, generate ideas, provide background, reshape workflows, fast-track media discovery, and boost productivity by freeing us up to be more creative.
No doubt, it can be a great ally, helping comms teams overcome many challenges.
But, but, but, we must future-proof ourselves. And in this industry, that means not losing sight of the importance of connection and human storytelling. We cannot rely on AI to write press releases or pitches. Humans must always hold the pen.
AI spits out random facts, is prone to hallucinations, and the clunky repetitive copy often doesn’t flow. All too frequently, it uses odd tell-tale phrases and reads like a boring shopping list.
A machine doesn’t get nuance or context. The context gap means an AI might easily beat the world champion at chess, but fail to understand why a child might let their younger brother or sister win a game. This is the real stuff that makes us human.
Whether cultural, political, or economic, it can’t provide proper contextual analysis, empathy, accountability, or the ability to make real-world distinctions. Creativity and storytelling should remain in the realm of the human mind.
Which brings me full circle to those great visionary masters of the past who wrote about the challenges that lie ahead for the human race.
Their words of warning echo through the ages:
“People will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.”
– Aldous Huxley
So, if the aim is to build a ‘brave new world’, it must be one that doesn’t rob us of the capacity to think, to create great works of art and literature and to be free to make our own (good and bad) decisions.
At GoFetchPress, we specialise in writing press releases – without the use of AI. Find out more about writing press releases in our previous post here.
For more on how we can help your business with PR strategy in a fast-changing world, please click here.
