Generative AI: Our Road to Eurovision
You’ve probably heard a lot about Generative AI lately. It’s the ‘it’ girl of 2023. The être en vogue. The flavour of the moment…
We are here for Generative AI. Not because it’s a trend, but because of its immense potential. And at AxiCom, it is one of our five strategic tech topics.
We believe it’s important to stay on top of the tech trends, particularly if they are challenging the value of our skills, so we set the team at AxiCom a topical challenge. To create a Eurovision-worthy hit in partnership with the free Generative AI tools available….
Don’t believe the hype
In 2022, Gartner predicted that Generative AI would plateau in 2-5 years, following its Hype Cycle theory, which drills down into the key phases of an emerging technology’s life cycle. It predicts that following the ‘Peak of Inflated Expectations’, which sparks significant publicity, we can expect to enter a ‘Trough of Disillusionment’ where the initial over-enthusiasm disappears marked by impatience for results, slow adoption and a failure to meet revenue expectations.
Generative AI is currently in the full hype cycle and if you believe everything you read in the media, it would have stolen our jobs already.
What’s all the hype about?
I would be lying if I said I hadn’t dabbled in a little *a lot of* Generative AI recently. I’m curious to understand its potential, but also (perhaps more self-serving) help make life easier and more efficient. From helping my teen with her science homework, through to professional life, OpenAI’s ChatGPT has quickly become one of my first points of call for sourcing information.
But should we, as communications pros always outshine the machines, or should we embrace them? If AI can help us, and ultimately our clients, to be just that little bit more efficient every day, allowing us more time to be more strategic, then I for one am down for the ride.
Over the past few months, we’ve seen AI Drake and the Weeknd’s “new track” go viral, sparking debate about copyright and creativity. Sports brand Asics calling out AI imaging platforms, like Midjourney, for generating unrealistic ‘healthy’ body images. And even an entire South Park episode dedicated to the topic, with ChatGPT responsible for writing sections of the script for an episode, aptly named ‘Deep Learning’.
Alongside all this hype, there is also fear in the air. An impending doom and existential threat that artificial intelligence is now at the stage where it could in fact steal our jobs – with investment banking firm, Goldman Sachs, estimating that AI will replace the equivalent of 300 million full-time roles, and a quarter of all work tasks in the US and Europe.
We are now at a tipping point, and there is a lot to learn and explore.
Our Eurovision challenge
Eurovision is just around the corner and in line with its 2023 theme, United by Music, we united a band of tech communications specialists from across the agency.
Spanning multiple areas of expertise including content, design, creative, and PR, we will see if AI lives up to the hype by creating an unofficial Eurovision entry – generated solely using AI platforms – and will blog about our experience.
ChatGPT, create an award-winning Eurovision Song Contest entry…
Can Generative AI really produce a set of Eurovision-worthy lyrics that convey the human emotion and richness of our favourite songs? Will it spit out a number one single that connects with listeners, within a matter of seconds?
Can we create a No.1 hit, or will it be a case of “pass me the noise cancelling headphones?”
Stay tuned to find out…
Cover image by Austin Neill on Unsplash