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This week’s most CONTROVERSIAL AI marketing campaign 😲

This week’s most CONTROVERSIAL AI marketing campaign 😲

Plus, the fragmented future of LLMs

Charlie Braithwaite
April 21, 2023

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AI Marketing School Newsletter #15

Controversial AI Marketing Campaign of the Week – Stable Diffusion X Peter Gabriel

Peter Gabriel, original lead singer of rock band Genesis, released one of the most innovative music videos of all time with Sledgehammer. This was back in 1986, when stop-motion was considered cutting-edge.

Look how far we’ve come.

And he’s now dipping his toe back into the world of avant-garde, tech-inspired music videos.

Gabriel has recently partnered with StabilityAI to run a competition inviting participants to submit an animated video generated by AI, inspired by and set to Peter Gabriel's music. The video will use Stability AI’s technology through Stable Diffusion, its industry-leading open source suite of imaging models.

The Good

With some fearing that AI could replace creatives outright, this competition is a stark reminder that the true gold dust lies in combining AI with human creativity.
Oasis’s Liam Gallagher is certainly a fan, reacting positively to the AI-generated ‘ASIS’ album mimicking the band’s work.

The Bad

Some, however, want to keep AI as far away as possible from the creative process. This competition will only increase some people’s fears that the end of human creativity is around the corner.
For example, musician Nick Cave recently said “in my humble opinion ChatGPT should just fuck off and leave songwriting alone”.

The Ugly

Peter Gabriel has been forced to defend the competition amidst significant online backlash.
In his words, “When the future has shown itself so clearly and is flowing as fast as a river after a storm, it seems wiser to swim with the current. AI is here. Let’s learn what we can and how we might adapt and evolve it to better serve everyone.” Hear, hear.

This Top YouTuber Gave ChatGPT the Reins to His Vlog

YouTuber CaseyNeistat has built an enviable audience of 12.5 million subscribers with his daily vlogs, covering everything from snowboarding in New York during a blizzard to meeting the Indonesian President.

But now, he’s given up. Or rather, he’s given up creative control to ChatGPT.

Neistat recently asked GPT4 to help him create a vlog touring NYC—and he followed every shot and line of dialogue it suggested to the tee.

Our Verdict

GPT4 obviously couldn’t match Neistat’s usual creativity. That said, it did a fairly decent job overall.
It proved that AI can be a great springboard for producing videos, helping creatives plan which shots to use and what dialogue to follow.
However, there was one element missing: soul. It was fine as a basic travel guide. But if you’ve got a following of 12.5 million people, you need to do better than just ‘fine’.
As Neistat put it, “The greater humanity that is embodied within that creative expression, the more it means to you, me, the viewer, the listener…”

Losing their voice

Voice actors have expressed shock at finding that AI tools are copying their speech and tone—without them being paid for the privilege.

Unfortunately, many fear they’re unable to stop this due to contracts they signed with tech companies back when AI was just the perennial ‘next big thing’.

As Remie Michelle Clarke, voice actor and unwitting voice of Microsoft Bing in Ireland, explains, “There's the initial worry of people using your voice for different work that you're never getting paid for and the loss of earnings that go with that. And the potential loss of maybe a career down the line when AI voices become more sophisticated”.

Worrying times for voice actors indeed.

The Fragmented Future of LLMs?

Until now, LLMs have been trained by being force fed information from all over the internet.

But tech giants are now beginning to wrestle back control over their data.

Reddit is fighting back with its plans to charge companies for access to its API, which has been used by Google, OpenAI, and Microsoft to develop their proprietary giant artificial intelligence systems.

And Elon Musk has recently founded X.AI, which he hopes will compete with Microsoft-backed OpenAI. It’s clear he’ll want to protect Twitter’s data goldmine so that only X.AI can use it.

In fact, he’s even threatened to sue Microsoft after they used Twitter data for their AI projects.

What This Means for Marketers

This is not good news. With every tech giant fighting over their slice of the pie, it appears the LLM market will become increasingly fragmented.
Marketers will therefore have two options:

1. Sign up for multiple LLMs to access as broad a spectrum of insights from across the internet
2. Pick one (or two) providers that provide the broadest coverage—but accept that these tools will lack data from some of the internet’s most vibrant platforms and communities.

Check Out This AI Marketing Design Concept

Designer Marco Simonetti used AI-generated designs to create a Jacquemus x Nike pop-up concept. The results are pretty wacky, in a good way.