AI – the new industrial revolution

SHC Senior Consultant Bill Bruce considers the impact of artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence, or as Donald Trump recently prefers to call it: ‘superintelligence’, is everywhere, quietly working behind the scenes in the apps, devices, and services we use every day. Clients see AI as a great time and cost saving tool, and so do we creatives. Used properly, AI can save useful time to redirect towards unique content creation.

The opportunities, challenges and potential threats that AI presents are not really new. We’ve been here before.

The first industrial revolution (before my time), transformed a handmade, agricultural society into a machine-driven, urban one. Jobs disappeared as machines took over tasks previously done by people, but goods became cheaper and, as industrialised nations grew wealthier, living standards and incomes eventually rose.

It wasn’t painless. Early factories meant long hours, low pay and dangerous conditions. Rapid urbanisation brought overcrowding, poor sanitation, smog and disease. Those conditions helped fuel the rise of trade unions, campaigning for better pay, safer workplaces and an end to child labour. At the same time, advances in medicine, food production and public infrastructure gradually improved life expectancy.

They say that ‘change is good’, but it takes time.

The communications revolution

The next great acceleration came with the railways. They transformed supply chains, made it cheaper to move coal and iron, and meant perishable food could reach growing cities before it spoiled. They also changed how people travelled and even helped standardise time.

Then came the telephone, radio and television. Communication became faster, distances seemed smaller and the pace of life quickened again.

I’ve seen plenty of that change in my own lifetime: the space race, supersonic flight, cheap air travel and, eventually, the internet.

I remember when my first fax machine made responding to enquiries almost instantaneous. I even put a sign on it saying, “Does it really need to go today?” It was meant as a joke, but it captured something real: as technology made communication faster, thinking time was becoming a luxury.

Then came mobile phones and the internet – and the pace accelerated again.

Now we have AI. And once again, technology is changing not just how we work, but how quickly we are expected to think, respond and adapt.

First-hand experience of technological change

I started my career in the mid-1970s as a commercial artist. The label ‘graphic designer’ was still finding its feet. Everything was labour-intensive and time-consuming; scalpels, glue, Letraset, huge drawing boards with parallel motion, and hours spent on colour mark-ups. By the mid-1980s, my business was employing several talented people and we had invested heavily in typesetting equipment which, at the time, seemed to be the best way forward.

When the Apple Mac came along, I was an early adopter. I needed to be part of this new desktop publishing revolution and this shiny new tool – well, actually, it was beige! – would change my world. It cost a small fortune to replace the drawing boards with desktop computers and, at the beginning, they didn’t really do all the things I’d hoped they would do, but it started to save me and my team precious time.

My typesetting equipment began to gather dust (though I was still paying for it!) and I was under pressure to grow the business to keep my team fully employed. With the arrival of QuarkXPress and Photoshop, we found a new freedom. Some complained that it stole their jobs. Airbrush artists, colour separators and pre-press specialists complained at first, but everyone I knew quickly adapted. Printers began to see demand for ink and paper diminish as people’s expectations for digital content increased.

It was an expensive roller coaster with lots of thrills and many spills. But looking back, it was fun and we certainly used this new tool to our advantage.

I’ve always been open to new technologies and – at 70 – keen to stay relevant by understanding how each new gadget or gizmo can save me time or help me do a better job.

In my non-SHC life, I am a musician and at a recent gig, I described how, at the age of 16, I had learned a particular tune by simply listening to the record and painstakingly transcribing what I heard. Now there’s YouTube and all sorts of digitally available material and with access to these resources, I feel I can finally play the same tune properly!

Am I worried about the impact AI will have on my work or career? Not at all. It’s just a new tool to learn. Bring it on.

So, what about AI and PR – and SHC?

At SHC, we use AI where it saves time or makes our work smarter and more efficient – but never where it compromises originality, judgement, confidentiality or client trust. Every piece of client-facing work remains subject to human creative direction, editorial judgement and approval.

SHC has produced a white paper called: AI and PR – The next chapter in creative communications. Download it here.