We Let AI Loose On Our Social Media: We Won’t Do That Again…
By Chris Spillane
After ChatGPT exploded into life late last year, my colleague Konstantin Vinogradov challenged me: Let’s give AI the keys to our social media.
We let the algorithms run riot. The AI chatbot ChatGPT would handle words and while Midjourney would generate images from the text.
All AI needed was a topic. I work for a VC firm (Runa Capital) and we are always looking for promising companies. So I asked ChatGPT and Midjourney to simplify the process — tell me what the perfect startup founder is, and I’ll post it.
Within seconds, ChatGPT described the founder of our next unicorn as someone with:
- a compelling vision
- a strong work ethic
- a high degree of technical and industry knowledge
- a track record of success
- and the ability to lead a team.
It’s generic but broadly accurate. So I turned to Midjourney to complete the post. The results emerged moments later. At first, the picture was hazy, but soon the perfect startup founder came into focus.
Oh dear… This is not what we’re looking for.
And according to AI, the perfect startup founder is a man.
And not just any man. A white man with a luscious head of hair, a sharp suit and designer stubble.
Every time it was asked, a man appeared.
It was as if AI had imagined a stock image of “Man, Wall Street, Financial Crisis”.
In other words, AI’s hunt for perfection omitted at least a decade of public discourse and culture wars about privilege, unconscious bias, and discrimination. Unless gender was specified, AI would consistently produce a young, wealthy-looking, western male.
This isn’t an indictment on white men (like me), those with luxuriant locks (like me) or even suit wearers (definitely not me). Nor is it a rallying cry for wokeness.
It’s an example of the shallowness and indifference of AI. Especially when using AI to cut corners.
In fairness, it’s also hard not to be impressed.
Take a child’s very first steps. It’s incredible to see, but they are not Usain Bolt. And if you tilt your head and squint, AI is kind of the same.
Take our ChatGPT-authored LinkedIn post about Quantum tech predictions in 2023.
The post was well-written and looked authentic with a sprinkling of emojis. However, there are more rocket emojis (one) than insights (zero). The accompanying image by Midjourney is pretty cool and could easily double as an NFT but the whole post felt askew.
We even mimicked Spotify’s #unwrapped to reimagine the average startup founders’ challenges during 2022. We asked ChatGPT to be funny (it was) and Midjourney to be inspired by #unwrapped’s branding (it was).
As a year-end experiment, it was fun and thought-provoking. More than 65 people reacted to posts about our investment in Altris AI and the IPO of our portfolio company MariaDB.
Did these people have any idea AI was the author? Were they fooled or just forgiving of the odd syntax? Are Midjourney’s obscure, ethereal images the 21st century’s answer to Roy Lichtenstein and #Web3?
Eagle-eyed readers would have spotted the hashtag #generatedbytech, which ChatGPT helpfully created. However, It begs the question, does anyone truly read social media before they react?
That’s a question for the nearly 13,000 people who viewed our seven AI-generated posts on LinkedIn.
Like all advances in tech, commentators are quick to call time on the status quo.
Amid all the noise and hysteria around ChatGPT, I think Matthew Boyle, my former colleague at Bloomberg, put it best. He challenged AI to
“break some news on an impending M&A, or convince a factory worker who’s terrified about losing his job to do an interview about unsafe working conditions.”
AI is not the end of marketing or #journalism. It will make the process faster and more affordable. Startups, in particular, will be able to support their growth with a content #marketing strategy that doesn’t take valuable dollars from other parts of the business.
Marketing is rapidly becoming a role where marketers manage a suite of tools and not a room of people. So #CMOs should get ready to hear that they can do more with less. And yes, your sales team is already using ChatGPT to produce thought leadership.
Chris Spillane is Head of Communications at Runa Capital
Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com
