To be successful in brand marketing, one must excel at understanding the customer’s mindset, values and behavior, ideally identifying new insights that will lead to creative ideas to enrich a promise or competitive edge. These skills of creative thinking and emotional intelligence are essential for truly understanding human nature but aren’t provided by Artificial Intelligence (A.I.).
Preparing for A.I.
No doubt, A.I. will vastly improve the speed and efficiency of most human tasks; it will revolutionize how we work and especially help solve complex technical, scientific and medical problems to improve life. For several years, pollical and business leaders have been questioning the value of a liberal arts education (e.g. too soft, useless. no longer relevant, not practical, etc.). Instead, the growing consensus was that mastering science, engineering, math and technology would be more important for future success.
The downside of a future A.I. world is the expectation of extensive layoffs in the workforce. According to The Economist, seven in ten Americans think A.I. will make it harder for people to find work, and nearly a third fear for their own jobs. The danger is that young people will struggle to navigate uncertainty and adapt to a shifting labor market. While the market may find new uses for human labor, the quality of those jobs and the same wages are not guaranteed. Job protection is a major issue, even China has urged its companies to adopt A.I., but not to lay off workers.
The Need for Human Creativity
Because A.I. is powered and sourced by information that already exists, it does not produce fresh, creative ideas. Brainstorming involves going beyond an analysis of available information to generate original and useful new ideas. In a study by Georgetown University neuroscientist Adam Green of essays from 370,000 students before and after the introduction of ChatGPT, essays using this A.I. generated diverse and colorful language, but lacked truly creative ideas. In another study there, human written essays offered up to eight times more new ideas than those produced by A.I.
Even the tech gods now recognize the importance of learning about the human experience from courses in art or philosophy. Instead of focusing on computer science, studying the humanities (e.g., English literature, history, music composition, journalism, etc.) will prove to be an invaluable asset in the coming A.I. revolution. Here are some noteworthy endorsements from technology leaders:
- A Founder of Anthropic (Daniela Amodei) – “the things that make us human will become more important…. studying the humanities is going to be more important than ever…there are things that make us uniquely human – understanding ourselves, understanding history, understanding what makes us tick.”
- A Founder of Netflix (Reed Hastings) – “for students and parents, the best defense today is to be broadly educated so they can adapt to the changes coming…A.I. is better at rational thinking than it is at emotional depth.”
- Mark Cuban – “Humans are humans…curiosity is the greatest skill you can have in an A.I. universe.”
While A.I. will help rapidly solve all kinds of problems, it won’t replace the things that are specifically human: originality, courage, imagination, emotion and compassion, even the dos and don’ts of decency and dignity. However, a liberal arts education will help ensure we have the creative thinking that can weather the changes A.I. will bring, including its inherent limitations for deeply understanding human nature, relationships and behavior so critical for brainstorming new ideas. Future brand marketing needs this human perspective and fresh insights.
