That’s my question and the centre of gravity of this post:

What can AI do for us?

Well, with a little prompt, it can create pictures for us, write pieces of content, answer our questions etcetera etcetera.

Yes, we all know that. These are really amazing and a lot of fun, not to mention the amount of time that is saved, thanks to AI.

But what can it really do for us that will upgrade our lifestyles?

Let me rephrase my first question:

On a commercial level, what can AI do to bring about a noticeable and positive change in our lives?

Before we dive into the depths to find the answer, shall we take a moment to sweep across the blanket of controversies that AI has produced on different levels? Let us, please.

Where do I even begin?

First and foremost, there is this long-going debate about whether or not AI-generated content, especially images, are ethical. The outputs are, after all, bits and pieces of art that other artists have toiled their blood and sweat into, and put up on the internet. And the original artists are not even getting due credits for it!

I found a couple of discussions and articles on the internet where people are expressing their fears on the dominance of AI in every little thing and thus robbing actual content creators — human content creators — of the very platform they live for!

Maybe you have read about it or maybe you haven’t: recently one Jos Avery became quite famous as a portrait photographer. The speciality about his portraits is the crisp, close-up shots that he presents in black-and-white format. Here is what his Instagram feed looks like:

Joe Avery’s Instagram Feed

Impressive, right?

His posts earned him a great fan following. When asked by anybody in the comments, he used to say that those pictures were clicked using a Nikon D810. All his posts were accompanied by a short description of the person — their lifestyle, hobbies and so on.

As his followers and their appreciations increased, a guilt started rising in him, which eventually made him lose sleep.

Well, there is another speciality about his photos.

All of them are AI-generated images. Surprise!!

Yes, none of these images that he claimed shooting on Nikon D810 are real photographs. He generated images using Midjourney and added some final touches on Photoshop.

Okay, I must say that he did a great job at whatever he did! Using the right prompts to generate images that you need, working on Photoshop — well these need patience, practice and talent.

But I can never accept the fact that he masqueraded as a photographer to earn followers. His Instagram profile now has over 52,000 followers. If you check the latest post (as of date), you will find that many people have praised his “photography” skills and have inquired about the equipments that he uses. It is only in one or two comments that he has told the truth about his work.

My point is:

Avery confessed out of guilt. What if there are others out there just having fun with AI and not even telling the truth? Where does it put real photographers who toil under the sun and in the rain, waiting for hours, travelling and taking up all that pain to get one good shot?

There was another incident, this time with a writer, that actually had me worried.

I’m an avid follower of people’s words on Tumblr. Yes, I meant “words” as in “work of words”. That is, I follow some really talented fanfiction writers on Tumblr.

Now, recently one of them have expressed their fear about the way AI is overtaking the world of content. It is fascinating, I think, the way AI can produce top-notch pieces of content based on any rough piece of writing that one provides.

But at the same time, isn’t it a bit scary to think that some day non-content-writers might just jot down some information and feed it to AI to receive a glorious copy that would have taken a human content writer at least a day or two, if not more, to produce? And all that for the price of peanuts compared to the fees of the content writer!

Here’s what my fellow-writer wrote on the microblogging platform:

“People on tiktok are saying that they prefer talking to Ai than reading fanfic… I have tested out some Ai stuff just to see what I’m potentially up against but it all felt really inauthentic to me. I got very bored very quickly.

As fanfic writers, should we be scared?”

And another mutual replied:

“I feel like a dearth of creativity through ‘traditional’ means is probably coming. Five years, ten years, twenty years. No ‘real’ art, or fiction, or music, or journalism..or anything really. At least not on a wide scale like we have now where an individual is the artist, poet, author, screenwriter, journalist, musician..

Not that we can’t do those things. But it’ll feel like there’s no point sharing it.

And then the novelty of ‘perfection’ will wear off, because humans. And we’ll realise that we’ve sacrificed our creative soul and ability to express and the old industries built up around it won’t exist and perhaps it might be too late to remember how we used to do these things. How we used to create.

It’s sad.”

I’m with them on this one.

As a tech person, I’m amazed by the genius minds that brought AI into the world. ChatGPT, MidJourney — these are wonders and I’m not exaggerating! But to rely totally on them at the cost of kicking out real human talent would be utter foolishness.

AI can give you beautiful compositions but humans can give you emotions. And what is this world if not run by emotions?

I mean, c’mon! What is the base on which user experience design, content marketing, digital marketing, branding (just name it) stands?

Emotions!

You tap on the emotions of people, they give you what you want. (Talking absolutely in business terms here!)

So, AI is great (yayy!) but to shun real human talent for it would be a shame!

I just hope that people remember that.

So, that brings me back to my original question:

What can AI do for us apart from producing frauds, fears and stuff for entertainment?

In my opinion, here’s what AI can do:

Inspire and Promote Growth

Imagine a digital agency. Imagine a product manager working in that agency who is great at their work but not so great when it comes to expressing their feelings about the product design.

This person is confident about their work. But their inability to elaborate feedback through written words makes them a subject of comparison with their peer who is great at elaborating.

Enter AI, their saviour!

Now this person writes their feedback in their own words and pastes it in ChatGPT to get a better version of whatever they have written. The output produced is impressive! With a couple of tweaks here and there, this product manager now shares this upgraded feedback with the team.

And guess what! They are all surprised!

Gone are the comparisons and complaints. The product manager can work with their with renewed confidence while simultaneously learning how to compose sentences in a better and more eye-catching way.

(This has been inspired by a true story.)

Turn a Newbie into a Professional

We all know that AI platforms like Midjourney and DALL-E can generate images based on prompts. These include webpage designs and mobile app designs, among a myriad of other things.

Imagine a newbie designer trying to learn on their own. Let us assume that this person is pretty good at UX architecture and design but is still an amateur when it comes to designing the UI. Of course, there are popular platforms like Dribbble, Behance and Pinterest to take inspirations from.

But sometimes when a lot of information is provided to someone, they are unable to decide which one(s) to settle on. Isn’t that right?

That is exactly what Hick’s law in UX design states.

For every non-artist, a blank page is a nightmare! The picture that they want to create is always clear in their minds but the question that always comes forward is:

“Where do I start?!”

And if they are given multiple examples to take inspirations from, the nightmare just worsens, doesn’t it?

Coming back to our hypothetical protagonist, our designer in question wishes to create an UI design that is different from the other designs on the internet; something unique, they say.

Welcome AI, in the form of Midjourney — another saviour!

With the right prompts, this would-be UI designer feeds their ideas to the AI generator. What comes from the other end is a totally new design, unique and inspiring. But it needs tweaks here and there.

A question that might pop in here is, “Isn’t that copying work?”

See, there would always be people who copy other’s stuff in the blink of an eye. But an honest designer would never do that. They would take inspiration and create something of their own.

This piece that has been generated with the prompt can help the designer to take inspiration regarding the layout, the colour, the font and so on. It is, basically, a picture of what they were thinking, right? The prompt was their idea and it was as if the words were printed in the form of an image. You get it?

No matter how many images one generates using AI, ultimately a great user experience rests in the brains of humans; machines cannot overtake that. Yet.

Earn More in Less Time

We know the wonders ChatGPT can do with words. It can morph a petty set of sentences into something so beautiful that it feels like music to the ears!

So, imagine what it can do to a professional content writer! A content writer has to understand the requirement, do a lot of research, set the tone and eventually write, review and edit the content to fit the requirement.

Now, using ChatGPT, they can get a major part of the research done. Not only that, they can even get an initial draft for the piece. This can save them hours of rigorous work, leading to more production in less time.

Ultimately, this can help them earn a lot more in a given period of time than what they usually do!

Again, while ChatGPT can generate awe-worthy content, it can never replace the hard work that a content writer puts in analysing and understanding the requirement, research and editing. We shall always need humans for that. Hopefully!

Create Mind-blowing Ads

Out of the many possibilities that AI can open for humans, one of them is the creation of digital content like never before!

What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of a tourism ad?

I remember a slideshow of spectacular scenary with a beautiful and energetic music, accompanied by some captions maybe, and concluding with a message like “Visit XYZ”.

Denmark tourism has recently uped its game by creating an ad that surpasses all other tourism ads till date. Watch it for yourself:

Great, right?

They gave AI a silly-sounding but smart prompt:

“Imagine that you are Mona Lisa. Write a speech on why people should visit Denmark instead of standing in line to see you.”

And AI scripted that awesome ad for them! Using deepfake technlogy, they created the masterpiece.

For those of you who may not have come across this yet, Coca-Cola has launched a new ad with a similar background:

Looks cool, doesn’t it? I fell in love with the ad the first time I saw it!

An even more interesting thing about this ad is that it has been scripted by AI. Remarkable?

Absolutely!

Humans and AI have worked hand-in-hand for this ad, with the script written by AI and the VFX done by a team of humans.

So, okay, big brands are using AI but how does it affect life for common masses?

It’s more like a cycle. Better ads means more engagement, more demand-and-supply chain, better economy, better lifestyle!

Conclusion

There are so many possibilities with AI, and these above are just a few! While AI will always keep the window of digital theft and unemployment open, when used smartly, it will open up new possibilities for a better lifestyle!