On artificial and emotional intelligence – and the case for both

Why I’m not immediately running into the arms of LLMs, and you shouldn’t either 

When does AI become AI for AI’s sake, and when does it actually make people’s work and lives better? If you work in marketing or something adjacent, you’ve seen this debate unfurl. One that pulls at many different strings: livelihood, craft and credibility.

As a writer first and foremost, I can admit that AI has its perks when it comes to writing, because putting words on the page isn’t the only ingredient of writing. I can now collate, structure and transcribe information faster than my ADHD brain ever could. With its help, I can mine for extremely specific, pointed nuggets of research that might help to build a thesis or point of view in a way I’ve not been able to practically do before. I can ask it to sense-check my grammar, or show me dots I haven’t connected (I can also choose to ignore them). I’m fine with it getting me where I need to go quicker, so long as I’m still the one in the driver’s seat. 

This part of its evolution feels acceptable – inevitable, even. In the same way that I would probably choose to not live without a dishwasher, because it is simply too convenient and gives me one less chore to worry about. I am fully aware that AI can slot into my life quite effortlessly while giving me more time for things that really deserve it. Equally, I am not swooning over its existence or expecting it to change everything. Though it is, obviously, changing everything.

This mode of discernment is something I exercise aggressively. Because before you’ve formed a single genuine thought, prolific AI use has already cheapened the grit and the meaning behind the writing process. And while there are lots of valid use cases (stretching far beyond our marketing bubble), there’s a simple reason why so many writers, who also happen to be strategists and creatives, refuse to just accept the one-track ‘AI or die’ narrative: emotional intelligence. Writing that is unequivocally human cannot be separated from the act of thinking, of being challenged. AI tools are a threat to this; they make writing look easy.   

The land before language models

Historically, people have hired people to write like humans, because there was undeniable value in that, or so we thought. It’s now overwhelmingly apparent that volume at speed, framed as efficiency, is enough for some. If that’s the case, maybe content agencies are not for them.

Photo by Hannah Pemberton on Unsplash

The word ‘content’ in this context has always felt vague, generic and therefore reductive. It implies information but lacks conviction. So perhaps all of this is a serious push in a better direction, an interrogation of the term and its value; after all, something AI can’t generate is source material. That which makes something unique, irrefutable and, in this line of work, commodifiable. At a top level, that has always been and should still be the essence of what marketing people bring to the table.

We’ve inadvertently marketed insight and substance as production, and become more focused on output than influence. Clicks, views and content plans have clouded the thinking, context and positioning which drive them. Lately, we appear to be confusing the concept of scaling with accelerated production. The two are used interchangeably, though they refer to different things. This is dangerous territory. 

Human thought is not a corner to cut

There are plenty of worrying side effects to the overly processed slop that editors (rightly) complain about. One of the most jarring is something State of Brand describes as the Great Flattening. It’s where AI makes every company sound the same. And because large language models (LLMs) can’t make up new thoughts or glean from lived experience, they have nothing new to say.

This fact is often disregarded because of the belief that AI is a time-saving hack for maximum impact at minimal expense, but that will never quite be the case. Not just because you can’t expect to cut corners and achieve half-decent results, but because we know for a fact that AI slop harms your business. Yet, there’s a pressurising notion within the B2B marketing space that perfecting prompts will harvest better outputs, that if you just tweak this and that, you’ll get something mildly resembling creativity. This has been debunked. 

There are definitely instances in which speed is valuable and produces better outcomes, where it may even determine the outcome. But real depth, credibility, words worth consuming – all of these things take time. That necessity negates speed. When time and space for words to ferment isn’t given – just hurtling towards a non-existent finish line – you get a pile-up of enough haphazardly placed buzzwords to fill a corporate bingo card. When speed is overprioritised and human intervention takes a backseat, what you’re left with is something unremarkable. Substance and craft are nowhere to be seen. 

Side note: lazy writing and marketing existed way before AI did, obviously. What we’re living through has just made it much, much harder to ignore – as it has done for the value of hiring humans. There is pretty telling evidence of this, too: AI companies themselves are offering between $320k and $400k for strategic content roles.

Photo by Kaptured by Kasia on Unsplash

We’re living in a very weird time where wanting to still do meaningful work that requires discipline and struggle are less valued than the idea of AI inevitability. Where those who resist AI, or at least appreciate its nuance, are perceived as difficult or naive. Rather than just believing AI technology is inherently bad, it’s more about getting comfortable with asking, ‘at what cost?’ 

Artificial intelligence x intellectual humility 

I recently heard someone say that ‘tech follows culture’ during a conversation about Meta glasses. At the very least, it felt like a weak attempt to pacify people in response to concerns about consent. I wholeheartedly disagree with this notion. We, as a society, haven’t asked for this. And we have a choice – that’s the principle.

The need for human input is not as strong as the need to appease expectations around AI. Whether that’s in the form of agencies performing AI-forwardness for clients, or brands eager to prove they’re part of a conversation bigger than them. It leaves us in this murky middle where no one can be expected to be 100% informed in their AI strategy, but doing nothing supposedly isn’t an option either. 

People and organisations should reserve the right to discern what they use AI for, if they even choose to use it at all. We should ultimately be building things that would survive the impact if AI was to be banned tomorrow while operating under the assumption that it’s here to stay. That doesn’t have to mean knowing exactly where culture is going to land next or having perfectly packaged answers to uncomfortable questions, but it should mean leaning into our humility; rebuilding and redefining our worth, standing for something and putting out signals which reflect this, but not claiming to know everything.

When it comes to anything editorial, however, we do know a fair bit. If there’s something you want to know, we’d love to chat.