Right turn, Claude.

AI can write the brief, map the terrain, and optimise the output (I mean, it wrote a large part of this intro TLDR) — but it can't replicate the irrational, emotional spark that makes people feel something. That spark is still exclusively human. And it's below.

The living world has gone mad for Artificial Intelligence.

A computer can now write a 4,000-word essay on the mating habits of the Peruvian llama in three seconds.

A global positioning of a multi billion dollar conglomerate can be fully analysed, written and full rationale delivered before you’ve finished reading this sentence. The Silicon Valley geeks are weeping tears of joy into their oat-milk lattes.

Feed the machines. Feed the algorithms. AI is the answer.

Human thought is obsolete.

Um, wrong.

The humans are still here. Certainly for the moment. And that’s my point.

Asking AI to generate ideas is all very well, but there’s a teeny weeny bit of a snag. AI treats human beings like logical, predictable robots. And we aren't (although I’ve worked with a few).

Back in 1980, the legend Bill Bernbach stood up at a conference and delivered a speech called “The Facts Are Not Enough.” His argument was beautifully simple: you can have a mountain of raw data so high it has its own weather system. You can have the most scientifically accurate facts in the universe. But if you tell your story in a pedestrian, predictable way, you will bore the audience to death. And a bored consumer never bought a single thing.

If your marketing’s boring, you may as well gather your company’s cash, stack it in the car park, and set fire to it. Like the KLF. Google / ChatGPT that.

Fast forward to the present day. We’ve ignored Bernbach’s warning.

We have given the pedestrian thinkers the ultimate weapon. AI.

This is the fast track to producing digital landfill.

Ask an AI to write a campaign, and it spits out something grammatically perfect and mathematically optimised. It’s sensible. It’s right. And it’s entirely soul-destroying. Because, well… it has no soul.

It behaves like a modern, ultra-efficient, sensible electric car. And no, I don’t mean like driving an iPad. I mean it’s safe, but devoid of passion. And passion is infectious.

AI doesn’t know what it’s like to have a hangover. It doesn't panic in realising it’s left its passport on the kitchen table when it’s sitting in the airport lounge. It can’t even hold a passport.

AI hasn’t climbed a tree. Or watched Withnail & I. Or fallen off a snowboard. Or listened to a blackbird at sunrise after experiencing the heart thumping optimism and colossal crashes of watching Scotland lose a World Cup game.

Nope. None of it.

It doesn't understand the bizarre, the erratic, the chaotic, beautiful mess that is human behaviour.

I walked my dog yesterday. She’s called Bea. She decided to wander off for a minute, so I called her repeatedly, shouting ‘Bea!’ to the weird looks of other walkers and cyclists. But that’s the reality of my life. Short for Beatrice by the way….

Without really thinking, I realised that to get her to come, I did something really simple. I walked away. I shouted Bea a little quieter each time. She came bounding round the corner when she thought she was being left behind. I gave her a biscuit and was really happy to see her. All of this happened in minutes, incidentally.

If AI had been involved, it would have spat me an absolutely correct factual direction based on Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and Operant Conditioning. We’d get into establishing the Discriminative Stimulus (SDSD), leveraging high-value Positive Reinforcement (R+R+). The Premack principle (or Grandma’s Law). Utilising a slot machine effect (variable rewards to keep them keen). The list would go on and on.

It’s the world of the complicated.

Us humans work out behaviour in milliseconds.

The best ideas in the world don’t come from a computer. They don’t come from being right. They come from the irrational. The emotional. Humans have an amazing ability to look at a cold, hard fact and grasp around to find the emotional friction. The instinct that knows how to touch a reader's humanity, disrupt their routine and force a genuine reaction.

That’s why our creative briefs are called spark briefs.

So, to all the corporate middle-managers and tech-bro optimisers who think they can prompt their way to creative genius: please stop. You are polluting the internet with stuff. Dull stuff. Churn. Slop. Tummy rubbish. Pish. Wallpaper. Chewing gum for the eyes. Call it content if you must. I’d prefer you called it what it actually is though. An email. An ad. A film. A banner ad. A soulless Google ad with no image.

Think harder. Produce a piece of communication with a 100% engagement rate (yes it is possible). Say….a shoe in a box. A glorious piece of DM to disrupt their day, or their scrolling for 5 minutes. Then call them and offer them the other one. Start a real human to human conversation. Because they’re already smiling.

Sure, use the machine to map the terrain and dig up the facts. But to find the spark that really makes people feel something, step away from the keyboard (or take your dainty digit off the screen) and remember you’re a human being. One who has the power to really understand the chaotic art of being alive.