Do you remember this picture?
Well, this image was generated using Midjourney, an AI image generator. And, you can't deny that, at the time, you didn't think, at least for a second, that it was a real photo.
AI has come to revolutionize creative processes and the way we create. But, amidst all this excitement, one of the expressions I've heard the most is:
"AI is going to take away all our jobs!" And I wonder: Is it true?
Since Artificial Intelligence became more accessible to everyone and started being used to streamline creative processes with tools like Dall-E, ChatGPT, or Midjourney, there has been a collective fear about the future of those of us who make a living from creativity.
Is this the end for us? Will marketing campaigns now be exclusively directed and executed by these new artificial intelligences? What are we going to do for a living?
Here, I'll tell you what I think.
My first experience with AI was in 2022 when I started asking questions to ChatGPT.
Months later, I discovered Midjourney, a tool that blew my mind with its agility to create what I imagined. With it, I learned to prompt and understand a bit of the machine's language. At the end of that year, I used it as assistance to create an entire art proposal for a project.
But the truth is that Artificial Intelligence has been with us for much longer. It was in 1952 when Arthur Samuel created software capable of learning to play chess autonomously. In that same decade, the term "Artificial Intelligence" was first used, and from then on, it has been a topic of conversation and research.
When you ask Alexa to play a song or ask Siri for the definition of a word, you are using artificial intelligence, and we've been living with it for decades.
It was in the 2010s when the topic boomed with the well-known Deep Learning, a process in which machines started solving complex tasks of pattern recognition and decision-making. But in recent years, its presence in our lives has become increasingly evident.
You feel it even more when you discover that its learning ability is so fast that today it can create videos, generate completely realistic images, and write texts so convincing that almost anyone could think they are "real."
Of course, if you look at all this in perspective, it can be scary, but we must not forget that it is still a tool created by humans and it is in our hands to learn to use it and unleash its full potential, especially if it involves speeding up decision-making processes, conceptualizations, or aesthetics.
But then, are we going to be left without jobs?
At least for now, AI will still need a human to interpret what the client wants, conceptualize the idea, put it into words or prompts, and give the machine the first guidelines; in other words, someone who can create from zero and imagine by their own will. That's something only humans can do.
I don't think we'll be out of jobs. What I do believe is that our roles will probably change, just as they did when the camera, the cinema, or the computer came along.
In conclusion, it's in our hands to learn to use the tool and understand that it's almost like a new assistant that has come to accompany us in our jobs.
I invite you to explore these tools, allow yourself to understand how they work, and even dare to bring them into the workplace. I'm sure you'll be surprised at what you can achieve with them.
