Artificial Intelligence — The Pros and Cons

A Powerful Tool — When the Human Stays in Charge

Over the past two years, I have worked extensively with Artificial Intelligence in graphic design, marketing, research, website development, image creation and content production. It has changed the way I work and dramatically increased what one person can accomplish.

But I've also learned something equally important: AI is a tool, not a substitute for experience, judgement or critical thinking.

THE PROS

AI can dramatically accelerate research, brainstorming and routine production work. It can help analyze marketing data, develop concepts, troubleshoot websites, explore audiences and turn rough ideas into workable starting points in minutes rather than hours.

For an experienced creative or marketing professional, that can mean spending less time on repetitive tasks and more time making decisions, solving problems and producing the final work.

THE CONS

AI can be confidently wrong. It can produce generic work, reinforce a bad idea, misunderstand context and make something appear finished long before it has actually been tested against the real world.

Perhaps its greatest danger is becoming too easy to trust. When AI starts doing the thinking instead of assisting the thinking, productivity can increase while judgement decreases.

MY APPROACH

I use AI extensively, but I've learned to challenge it, verify it and sometimes completely ignore it.

The person using Artificial Intelligence still needs to be the intelligent one.