It’s been a fun year, I’ll say that; And not because it has not been free of difficulties, hardness, intensity, threats… but because it has not allowed us to stop or stop learning; At this stage of my professional (and also personal) life, to continue learning and having fun with what you do and what you are involved in, seems to me a luxury;

I have asked our friends, the intelligent but artificial ones, to tell me what they think are the barriers we have been working with this year and the challenges for the coming year; And, it turns out that for these girls, the past and the future are similar; This we are told: “the fragmentation of the media landscape, making it difficult to reach target audiences with traditional methods such as advertising; the increasing use of social media and other digital platforms by consumers, requiring communications and PR professionals to be more innovative in their approach; and a shortage of talent, as there are not enough qualified professionals to meet demand”;

Grammatically correct, I think this approximation could be an approximation for last year, for this year, for two years from now… Although it can serve as a reference, that is not what I was looking for; I wanted enlightenment and this, I’m afraid, comes from our experience, our work, our research, our practice… That AI is here to stay, there is no doubt about it; But it is firmly linked to two coordinates that we must not lose sight of:

1. The danger of content by weight: quality versus quantity? And what will make us able to distinguish the true origin of a content?
2. Will it mean the disappearance of content creators (read writers, journalists, bloggers, editors, designers, artists…) I’ll leave it there and go back to the subject of this last post of the year: perspectives of communication 2023;

Communication challenges in 2023

1.- Uses of technology

To continue to deepen in identifying how all these new tools are transforming the practice of our profession; and, as a by-product, whether we professionals will be prepared to face the multiple challenges;
With regard to the use of artificial intelligence, I think it explains it perfectly calvoconbarba in his last post. Beyond the coordinates outlined above, we will see how it can change the way we interact with information and how it will affect our decision making; I worry about whether we will be able to tell when we are being sold a bill of goods; We will have to be more awake than ever and never stop learning;

2.- Sustainability, transparency and accountability

Can these words be more beautiful? Brands are (or should be) striving to communicate more clearly and transparently their commitment to ESG in the broadest sense of the word, not only in their speeches but also in their actions; Consistency is going to be closely monitored. The Global Alliance’s annual report explicitly states: “Knowing how to detect, analyse and counteract these unethical techniques has become key to maintaining trust and reputation in the long term. Trust and reputation are strategic issues for companies; Ethics must always be at the heart of our actions: integrity, objectivity, honesty; ESG criteria are here to stay and it will be the territory of communication to ensure their identification, performance and transmission;

3.- Data, data, data

Increasingly, communications work requires a deep understanding of data to demonstrate its true impact; Professionals will have to know how to interpret them appropriately and to make the most of them in an efficient and effective way; With data, possibly, we will be able to demonstrate the value of intangibles whose management depends directly on our work and which is not always sufficiently valued; Just look at the communication and marketing budgets; There is much to be done here and the work of associations such as ADC is going to be essential;

4.- Innovation and creativity

Our ability to imagine, to create narratives that capture the dialogue between technology and creation, adapting the content to the logic of the digital but without losing the essence of humanism, will be fundamental to break the limits and self-imposed rules; But “The challenge of innovation in the sector remains enormous.” and requires a change of beliefs; Are we prepared? Are we ready?

5.- Real-time communication

Agility; Everything is moving too fast; Although, as Mario Tascón (Prodigioso Volcán) in the latest episode of El elefante verde, “Thinking requires stopping. If you don’t stop, you don’t think”, companies must become more agile and be prepared to respond to social, technological and economic changes in a fast and at the same time effective way;

I could go on and on, but I think that with five references we can mark the challenges on which we should not lose focus in the year that is about to start;

From comma, with all the passion for communication that characterises us, we wish you a good end of 2022 and a powerful energetic charge to put the power of conscious communication at the service of people and the space we inhabit during 2023;

La entrada Five challenges for communication in 2023 se publicó primero en Agencia comma.

But, in addition to research, we are experimenting and, from this experience, we have drawn some conclusions;

For this we are going to write this post with the help of two collaborators (with the permission of Pedro Almodóvar):Pepi, generalist AI platform, and Luci, AI vertical platform specialised in the generation of structure and texts for blogs;

Thinking about what we want to do

Before, when you had to write something, the first thing you had to do was to face a blank page; now you face a blank digital space; So far, so little change; What is relevant in both cases is the idea, the question whose answer is the beginning of what you want to write; The question is and will remain part of singular rather than artificial intelligence.

Once the first step is solved, comes the análisis, the conformity with what is happening. Finding the answers (from oneself or from my friends Pepi and Luci) and that these are appropriate (through critical judgement), that allow you to flow and find the story to the ideas; This is still part of the singular intelligence, but the artificial one can give us unforeseen alternatives and, in some cases, attractive for its originality. This is already part of its usefulness;

The next step is the structure. Reflection on the harmonious flow of what I tell and how to do it; This sometimes comes up and sometimes I plan it precisely; Back to singular intelligence, but I turn toartificial intelligence to see if it whispers unthought-of alternatives or paths I didn’t find when exploring.

Finally, I can present a story, a narrative, whose ultimate goal is to provide value regardless of the amount and origin of the intelligence that goes into it. And that it be of quality, something fundamental as part of the singularintelligence.

An experiment using artificial intelligence

We propose the writing of a text by the hand of a generalist IA and a content IA; I propose to talk about creativity with the use of artificial intelligence;

To do so, I sit down in front of my two friends, Pepi and Luci, and start a dialogue which I transcribe verbatim:

>>> Eduardo:

Hello; Can you explain to me what artificial creativity is?

>>> Pepi:

You may have heard of artificial intelligence (AI), but what you may not know is that AI is being used in very creative ways; This is called “artificial creativity”; AI is used to create unique works of art, music and literature; AI can also be used to automate the creative process, making the creation of art more efficient and affordable;

Let’s start by defining what we mean by “creativity”; Creativity is the ability to conceive new ideas or solutions; In terms of art, creativity can be defined as the ability to create new and unique designs, or to express oneself in a new and innovative way;

So what is “artificial creativity”? Simply put, it is the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to generate creative works; This includes unique pieces of art, music and literature; AI can also be used to automate the creative process, making the creation of art more efficient and cost-effective; The application of AI in content generation is particularly interesting, and has the potential to revolutionise journalism and literature; It allows unlimited communication possibilities;

>>> Eduardo:

How does AI generate artistic creations?

>>> Pepi:

In the context of artificial creativity it should be noted that artificial intelligence has two ways of approaching this issue, one using discriminative artificial intelligence and the other using generative artificial intelligence; Both complement each other, improve the result and we will apply them in the generation of content;

Discriminative AI (DAI) focuses on classifying data into categories and predicting outcomes based on existing data; It is used in tasks such as image recognition, speech recognition and language translation;

Generative AI (GAI) focuses on generating new data from existing data; It is used for tasks such as text generation, image generation and audio synthesis;

DAI focuses more on predicting outcomes, while GAI focuses more on creating new data;

An example of a comparison between them would be like a cook and an artist; The cook is like the IAD in that it uses existing ingredients to create meals; The artist is like GAI in that he creates new works of art from existing materials;

>>> Eduardo:

How does AI help and what are the advantages of AI in the creation of texts in the context of artificial creativity?

>>> Pepi:

As writers, we are always looking for ways to make the writing process easier and more efficient; The advantage of using artificial creativity in the human writing process is that it can help optimise the content creation process;

AI algorithms can be used to generate ideas, research relevant topics and even write entire articles, freeing the writer to focus on the creative aspects of writing;

AI can also be used to analyse content and suggest improvements, allowing the writer to quickly refine their work;

>>> Eduardo:

How will the use of artificial intelligence tools affect the automatic generation of content for journalists?

>>> Pepi:

The use of artificial intelligence tools can help new journalists generate content faster and more accurately; AI tools can quickly analyse data and generate draft stories, saving journalists time and effort; AI tools can also automate tedious tasks such as fact checking, spell and grammar checking and formatting; This can help journalists produce content more efficiently and accurately, which helps them be more competitive in the job market;

Artificial intelligence also has other advantages: it can identify emerging industry trends in the face of a changing cycle to make the best use of available resources, and it can unlock important audience-related information that was previously inaccessible to most people..

At this point I turn to Luci, the blog content and structure specialist; I will give you a brief summary of less than 400 letters so that you can give me alternatives for the title of the post and a possible structure; Honestly, I think the one I have in mind is more accurate, except for the idea of including a conclusion;

This is what I would like to take away from what you have said:

>>> Luci:

Suggested title: Harnessing artificial intelligence for creative production.

He proposes to write the conclusion, I give him more information and he generates this:

>>> Luci:

In short, artificial creativity is the use of artificial intelligence to generate creative works; This includes unique pieces of art, music and literature; The application in the generation of written content, dialogues or texts is very interesting and leads to a paradigm shift in journalism and literature; Enable the unlimited power of communication like never before;

After this little exercise, there is no doubt in my friends’ ability to use data and grammatical quality. However, there is still a need for that other capacity, more related to the craft of the artisan storyteller, capable of endowing any story with soul;

Therefore, conclusions…

As Lucas says (#CalvoConBarba) on the artificial intelligence revolution, “A new world is opening up before us from which there is no point in running away, because it is going to pass over us whether we want it to or not. We have to learn to understand it and to integrate it into our routines, uses and customs”; In other words, AI is here to stay; Another issue is its uses and abuses, and how unnoticed it can be if we are not attentive or minimally trained;

We have seen how questions, critical thinking (versus answers and structures), setting the tone and flow of the story depends more on intelligence singular than other types of intelligences. But (there are always buts) the artificial intelligence can give us light into shadowy areas where we wouldn’t walk, most of the time because we didn’t know we could find a path there.

I have some new friends to have long chats with; I trust we understand each other well;

La entrada Artificial intelligence, an ally of singular intelligence se publicó primero en Agencia comma.