The F Word: Creatives’ Relationship with AI

Image source: SuttleMedia via Pixabay​

A few weeks ago, I was sitting with a strategist and a copywriter, and we were using WPP’s Open to think through a creative solution for a brief, when the copywriter turned to us and asked, “If I’m not polite to the robot, will I be the first to die when they take over the world?” We laughed, but I saw an element of earnestness in her eyes. Will the robots give preferential treatment to human beings who said ‘please’ and ‘thank you’? Or will manners really make a difference when we’re Total Recalled?

I’m the CCO of john. St and T&P, two full-service advertising agencies in Toronto Canada; both are a part of the WPP network. WPP has an Ai Tool called Open. Open is “the engine that supercharges our own creativity and productivity, the platform that helps our world class talent solve our clients’ biggest and most complex challenges on a global scale” per Cindy Rose, WPP’s CEO.

As a leader of creative people whose job is to think of ideas no one else could ever think of, as a leader of a group of producers whose job it is to make those ideas tangible, our tectonic plates shifted when Open showed up. With its introduction into our daily work, the departments felt like a roller coaster inching up a towering hill. What began as collective anxiety and uncertainty soon sharpened into a singular, undeniable truth: fear.

The robots will destroy us. We will lose our jobs. We won’t be able to keep up. We won’t understand. Our minds will turn to mush.

So much to be scared of.

And yes, we have all been told that overcoming our fears is the only way forward. A great active verb, overcome, but it exists in the past. Generally, you don’t realise you’ve overcome a fear until you’re already out of the forest.

So, let me ask: what if we were Open (pun intended) to fear being something else entirely? What if there was a way to use fear to our advantage?

I realised the work I am most proud of has been born of fear (most often my own, but sometimes a client’s fear, other times, a collective fear).

PFLAG Canada’s Nobody’s Memories was born of the fear that I would never be seen as equal (I’m a lesbian).

HP’s Plant a Tree with Jane Goodall was born of the fear that our world might burn down, and humanity might burn with it.

lululemon’s dupeswap was born of the fear that imitations of a product might have the
power to overshadow the real thing (spoiler: they didn’t).

Equality California’s The Fight was born of the fear that Trump would get voted back into office (spoiler alert: he didn’t in 2020 but...well, ...you know).

Home Hardware’s Home Team was born of the fear that the Blue Jays would not finish first in their division (they realllllly kept us guessing until the 162nd game of the year).

In these examples, fear became a mechanism. It powered creativity, and ultimately, it powered successful, unignorable campaigns.

The tricky thing will be applying this learning to my people and their interactions with Open. I hope to encourage people (myself) to use their (my) fear of Ai, to unlock surprising parts of their creativity and abilities. I want them to feel their fear, channel it, and then engage with Open when facing a tricky brief, when they need to understand a certain demographic better, or when they need help articulating the images in their mind.

An industry friend of mine told me that the difference between network agencies and independent agencies is that networks run on fear. At the time I regarded it as negative (she meant it as such) but I wonder if fear really is such a bad thing.

​Taj Reid, global CCO of Burson, says a CCO’s role “is to provide clarity, energy... (to) build the culture for everyone to feel safe and to thrive”. Maybe the safest space we can create for creative people is one where everyone’s fear is not only accepted but used in a productive way. Imagine what might happen if we didn’t ignore our fears, but used them to craft, explore and create whatever comes next.