with Janine Adamson
It seems AI-generated posters and social media content continue to plague me. Every corner I turn, ‘our bro’ ChatGPT is there. Even my beloved Pilates teacher is using it; love you, India. In fact, seeing such content turns me off – I’ll make it my mission to NOT go to the event or pay any attention to the messages being conveyed. So if it wasn’t for already enduring India’s excellent pain for gain sessions and sunshine personality, I’d be skipping by.
Like all new toys and gadgets, these things inevitably become abused. I feel AI is at risk of being in that category. It’ll be over-used to the point of becoming fatigued, when really, its core purpose could be very useful to society.
Why is it in our human nature to do this? Why can’t we be more measured and pragmatic, rather than pile in with herd mentality? I’m not sure I can answer that one.
At times, I’ve been guilty of being swept along with a fad or trend, not that I believe AI is a flash-in-the-pan necessarily. Does anyone remember Beanie Babies? The little cuddly soft toys that society was conned into believing would become our future fortunes? Guilty – I have a box full of those in storage gathering dust. Still, very cute mind, and if anyone has a Brownie the bear lying around, you know my email…
Equally, I have some questionable tattoos from earlier seasons in my life; I’ve binged a viral Netflix series like the next person; yes I’ve tried Dubai-style pistachio chocolate (what was the point of that?). However, no, I will not use ChatGPT to generate ‘creativity’ on my personal behalf.
I’m so proud to say that our cover this month was taken by an actual person, featuring a real person, real soil and real sky. The only time I’ve used AI on a cover of CPM was to ‘cajole’ two worms to form a heart shape back in August 2024. I’ll hold my hands up on that one, but the text and everything else was human, and the inside certainly was.
Now, there are instances where I appear to be unwittingly using AI, oh noes! That’s because if we’re honest with ourselves, even spell-check in software such as Word is AI-driven. So too is the transcription for the voicemail on my mobile phone… it’s literally everywhere. My beef is where it’s impinging on personality, whether that’s for an individual, brand or other.
There’s a popular song by Groove Armada that seems appropriate to quote: ‘If everybody looked the same, we’d get tired of looking at each other…’ – yep, give Andy Cato another 50p. Anyway, isn’t that the joy of being human? We all bring our own level of sparkle to the farm party. Last time I checked, I don’t think bots can quite do dry sarcasm like us real folks.
So let’s keep the uniqueness going strong, the dodgy MS Paint-style graphics, the cut-and-shut Photoshopping. If nothing else, it’ll make this cynical girl smile.
This article was taken from the latest issue of CPM. Read the article in full here.
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