AI studied your soul, then sold it back to you—shrink-wrapped, personalized, and one-click away.
Wow, what an opening! I wish I could write like that! Unfortunately I can’t. I wrote an initial introduction to this piece, but it sucked, so I outsourced my artistic duties to a good friend of mine, ChatGPT. My instructions: “write a 15 word opening to a story about AI in advertising.” As much as I hate to say it, it did a better job than me. Good job AI (I HATE YOU AND I’M GOING TO KILL YOU).
As a Communications student with a particular interest in screenwriting, conversations about AI are something I encounter a lot. On many occasions, friends and family have tried to gently nudge me towards other areas of study because “AI will be making all the movies in ten years time.” I always find this funny—not just because it implies that Communications students expect to get a job after they graduate, but because people seem to think that the future of film will be nothing more than a series of lazy prompts typed into OpenAI by an unpaid Warner Brothers intern. My problem with this assumption is quite simple, and something which I think most people tend to overlook: the average person—regardless of their career, age, gender, ethnicity—cares deeply about real, human art. That’s right, even your mate who thought Thunderbolts was a “gritty social commentary” would be livid at seeing an awful, AI-generated sequel to Spirited Away on the big screen. The day that Fox Studios fires its screenwriters and announces its first AI-generated feature film, the finance bros and latte artists will lock arms and set fire to Fox’s Moore Park offices together.
I think AI poses a more imminent threat, however, to the film industry’s more sensible, pragmatic second cousin. The industry I am referring to is the destination for many people who want to pursue a creative career, but are also keen on moving out of their parent’s house and maybe even owning a home one day; I am referring to the world of advertising.
There has been a recent upsurge in AI-generated commercials. Just last Christmas, Coca-Cola collaborated with Real Magic AI to produce their first fully AI-generated commercial (and believe me, it shows). While watching Game 6 of the NBA Finals (Pacers in 7), I was forced to watch an AI-generated advertisement for a sports-betting platform. Even my mobile data provider, Amaysim, has hopped on the bandwagon with their first ever AI commercial. Each of these commercials was cheap, sloppy, and boring.
Some people like to make the argument that AI in advertising is no big deal. After all, advertising isn’t really art anyway, it's just the pretty face that hides the ugly organs of consumer capitalism. Like AI, advertising relies on deceit, manufacturing desire in consumers to make them buy things they don’t need or even really want (at least that’s what I learnt from a two month binge of Mad Men). I’m sure some of our friends in the UTS Socialist Alternative would like to see the advertising industry done away with entirely. I, however, do not agree. We live in a culture of consumerism; I can’t really do much about that. In my opinion, advertising is the only thing that makes capitalism somewhat palatable and, dare I say it, sexy.
My dad worked in advertising his entire life, and I was often a captive audience to his stories. Back in his day, advertising was a fruitful collaborative process which involved the tireless work of art directors, writers and producers. The results—according to him—were (mostly) well-thought-out ad campaigns which attempted to evoke genuine emotional reactions from consumers. Even if these writers and artists were in the business of manufacturing artificial desire, there was room to appreciate their efforts in doing so.
AI-generated advertising is an insult to the everyday consumer. Not only does it put talented artists out of work, but it epitomises the contemptuous belief that billion dollar companies do not need to put money or effort into convincing people to purchase their products. Yet we, the everyday consumer, are not the cheap philistine they believe us to be! I don’t want to order at the Maccas drive-thru, I want to be wined and dined! I don’t just give it up for anyone! By God, if I can’t fix capitalism, I’d at least like to be seduced by it!
The good news is this: I am not alone. Everyone else is just as annoyed by this recent shift towards AI in advertising. The YouTube comment section of Coca-Cola’s AI Christmas ad was flooded with keyboard warriors criticising the billion dollar company’s refusal to hire animators. I personally enjoyed a comment which described the commercial as “the best ad for Pepsi” they had ever seen. People are pissed off, which is a good thing. Literally no one is happy at the implication that machines can do the work of artists. And in the words of the forever quotable Don Draper: “advertising is based on one thing—happiness.”
And now, we reach the end of this piece and it’s late at night and I can’t really be bothered to write an ending. Let’s see how ChatGPT does:
The machine creeps into art, stealing jobs and silencing sparks. Creativity fades, lifeless under code’s rule—unless humanity fights back, reclaiming its irreplaceable soul.
Fuck. Pretty spot on.
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