「R/GA」亚洲副总裁Anthony：AIGC并非取代人类，而是补充创造力
2023开年，ChatGPT带来的人工智能话题成全球核心议程，对此领域的关注与讨论热度居高不下。在广告营销领域，这样的浪潮将给产业与个人带来怎样的机遇与威胁？我们在工作中应该如何更好地认知、理解并应用这样人工智能革命？
为此，TOP君特别邀请到一位在技术与设计领域非常顶尖的重磅嘉宾——R/GA亚洲副总裁兼首席技术总监Anthony Baker先生，他为我们带来了自己对于AIGC产业趋势的独到见解。
Anthony Baker
Anthony Baker，现任R/GA 亚洲副总裁兼首席技术总监，是一位拥有20多年从业经验的技术专家，带领全球财富500 强公司进行数字化转型与创新咨询。他还是R/GA 日本创始成员，在日本建立和发展技术、策略、视觉与体验的设计制作业务，为R/GA建立了亚洲技术中心。服务客户包括资生堂，谷歌，日本 Mori Building 与迪士尼等。
Anthony表示，如今人工智能在许多情况下确实远远超出了人们的想象，这一趋势还会在未来进一步的发展：AIGC工具势必会融入到我们的日常生活和工作中，变得无处不在。历史告诉我们，技术创新会颠覆许多现有的工艺、工作、行业和流程，因此，在未来的两到三年内，人们的工作也会被AIGC的发展迅速改变、破坏和创造。
从事创意工作的人所积累的才华和努力，能够被AI经过训练后轻松获得，产生会被替代的恐惧，是正常的。
然而，虽然人工智能生成的内容在某些情况下可能会令我们印象深刻，甚至在某些领域呈现了十分突出的表现，但它永远不能取代人类的创造力和表达。正如计算机在几十年前就能生成音乐，但我们还是会花钱去听音乐会；就好像许多交通工具的速度早已远远超越了人类，但我们还是会因为田径运动员打破纪录而赞叹不已。
Anthony强调，广告行业代理商应该把AIGC看做是提高效率和利润、克服各种危机的一种工具。AIGC是对创意的产出和过程进行改变与发展，而不是取代人类的内在经验。从长远看，那些帮助员工、合作伙伴和未来新聘员工接受、理解并更好地探索和利用AIGC工具的公司，将会取得更大的成功。
以下为Q&A实录，文末附英文采访原文。
TOP君：目前AIGC的创意创作水平如何？
Anthony Baker：AIGC已经发展了很多年。然而，由于有了令人难以置信的大型数据集和计算能力，大型语言模型、大规模神经网络和人工智能算法的发展进展迅速，使得像Open AI、Midjourney、Google、Runway和Stability AI（仅举几例）这样的公司能够创建令人印象深刻的AIGC工具。Open AI的GPT4、Runway Gen-2和Midjourney v5是最近的例子，说明这些工具已经取得了多大进展。ChatGPT现在可以帮助开发人员共同创造和修复代码，Midjourney使新一代的数字设计师和艺术家能够想象和创造数字作品，在许多情况下远远超出了想象，而Runway Gen-2则准备颠覆视频制作过程。
微软、Adobe和谷歌正急于将AIGC工具整合到他们的产品套件中，而一大批科技界领袖和学者，包括Elon Musk（Tesla、Twitter、SpaceX）、Steve Wozniak（Apple）、Emad Mostaque（Skype）和Craig Peters（Getty Images）等人发表公开信，要求AI发展暂停六个月——可以说是为了给领导者和公司时间来整理他们的东西并赶上。
AIGC的现状是不可否认的。数字设计可以在几秒钟内从文本提示中创建出来，用一些松散的指令就可以写出工作代码，用一些聊天信息和迭代就可以写出不同语言和风格的文章，视频由AIGC 来创造也必会成为之后可预见的现象。AIGC工具未来势必在我们的日常生活和工作中，变得无处不在！只要看看没有任何行业参与和技术知识的人在日常琐事中与ChatGPT互动，你就很容易明白这已经成为我们社会结构的一部分。
Anthony Baker利用Midjourney创作的数字艺术
如果你还需要看到更多关于AIGC的例子，只需看看Hugging Face开源人工智能平台，就可以看到数百个人工智能模型、
转化器、数据集和演示，任何人都可以免费使用。虽然其中大多数不会达到OpenAI 和Midjourney的水平，但也相差不远，而且它们是完全开放的，任何人只要愿意学习如何使用它们就可以获得。通过历史，我们看到，无论何时，只要开源和闭源的创新达到那么大的规模，就一定会发生大的转变。
TOP君：创意人如何看待AIGC所带来的机遇和威胁？
Anthony Baker：技术和工具的这种大转变会产生带来各界不同的反应回响，这并不奇怪。在人类历史上，我们已经看到它一次又一次地发生。每当技术创新有了大的飞跃，它就会颠覆很多现有的工艺、工作、行业和流程。这已经在发生了，在未来2-3年内，工作将被AIGC的发展所改变、破坏和创造，速度非常快。
从事创意工作的人，无论是创意想法、创意设计、创意文案、创意战略还是创意编码，都对他们的作品充满热情。他们为掌握自己的才华付出了如此多的努力，以至于如果一个工具威胁要更快、更便宜、更大规模地完成同样的工作，就会产生恐惧，这很正常。
我通过在线社区和社交网络观察到的情况相当有趣。有一波新的人群，他们也许没有创造性的工作或技术，使他们能够作为艺术创作者充分发掘自己的潜力，而通过AIGC工具，他们现在能够创造出他们从未想过的东西。还有另一派的创意工作者一直处于创新的前沿，他们把对AIGC工具的探索作为他们追求创意和表现创意的另一个方法。还有另一群人，他们把这些工具看作是他们的作品和收入来源的线索。我猜测这些人是因为担心由于AIGC工具和缺乏时间和资源（包括他们的公司缺乏培训和提高技能的承诺）而失去收入。
然而，和其他技术工具一样，机会在于把这些接受这些创新工具并共同创作。编码员和设计师不应该担心这些工具在做平凡和重复的任务时比他们更好，他们应该为这些工具如何将他们的技能和创造力提升到前所未有的水平而感到兴奋。
我们应该反过来看，汽车比人快，但我们仍然去看人跑步。音乐可以由计算机生成（几十年来一直如此），我们几乎可以随时随地免费播放，但我们仍然要花钱去听音乐会，看音乐家的现场表演。大多数艺术创作也是如此。
虽然人工智能生成的内容在某些情况下可能令人印象深刻，而且在某些领域甚至会表现得更突出，但它不能取代人类的创造力和表达。人工智能模型仍然受到训练它的数据和所使用的算法所限制，而且它们缺乏人类创造者的情感和直觉能力。
Anthony Baker利用Midjourney创作的数字艺术
此外，创作过程往往涉及一系列人类的经验和情感，很难用人工智能来复制。因此，人工智能生成的内容应被视为人类创造力的补充，而不是替代。
TOP君：AIGC的未来方向和趋势是什么？
Anthony Baker：我相信3D物体的创建和完整的视频和CGI生成是AIGC的下一个前沿领域，以及能够基于较小的人类思维和对话数据集来制定大型语言模型。
虽然目前的很多AIGC令人印象深刻，并能创造出令人惊艳的内容，但它们仍然缺乏大量的个性化和细微差别，而人类可以将其嵌入到创意内容中，以适应特定的环境、品牌、受众、产品等等。
Anthony Baker利用Midjourney创作的数字艺术
大型语言模型和一般的AIGC工具在使用数据方面的效率非常低。它们需要大量的数据和计算机能力来进行训练，并且在小数据集的基础上适应某种行为模式的效率相当低，这使得它们在这种情况下的效率非常低。这可能会在未来几年迅速改变，并将由大公司和小公司的开源和闭源创新来推动。
我们将看到的另一个潜在趋势是所有这些工具之间的协调和全方位渠道的创建。未来会出现许多公司和平台，负责连接不同的AIGC，以提供完全集成的内容制作解决方案，在那里你将能够输入一个提示，并得到一个完整的CGI视频，以你想要的风格，与你想要的虚拟角色，与你想要的标题和语言。即使离完美还很远，仍然无法与完整的AAA级游戏或好莱坞电影竞争，但它将进一步颠覆内容和视频制作。
TOP君：对于AIGC未来的发展还有什么意见和分析？特别是在代理商方面，AIGC将如何影响代理商？
Anthony Baker：代理商需要谨慎面对AIGC发展。AIGC不是一种潮流或营销炒作。人工智能已经发展了70多年了。理论从根本上说是相同的，但我们现在拥有有效创造通用人工智能（general AI）所需的所有资源。社交媒体平台是第一波人工智能驱动的平台，但在这上面做得并不出色。这第二代人工智能平台将在我们的生活中产生更深更多的破坏性影响。
Anthony Baker利用Midjourney创作的数字艺术
我相信许多代理商将把AIGC工具看作是提高效率、获得更好的利润率和推动克服过去3年由于疫情、乌克兰战争、利率上涨和通货膨胀造成的全球经济不稳定的一种方式。许多公司正在研究利用AIGC使企业更赚钱的可能性，这是可以理解的。
然而，我相信，那些投资于帮助员工、合作伙伴和未来新聘员工来接受、理解并更好地探索和利用AIGC工具的公司，从长远来看将是更成功的。ChatGPT、Stable Diffusion、Gen-2的领域将会发生非常迅速的变化。代理商与其考虑用AIGC工具来取代人力，不如考虑如何培养人才，让他们更深入地了解这些工具，并学会使用AIGC工具来度过这波职场颠覆浪潮。
创意和情感是人类经验的内在因素，但这并不意味着创意产出和过程不能改变和发展。我们只能根据我们目前的经验和知识来判断，所以我们需要赋予人们和我们自己更多了解和体验AIGC工具和平台的能力，这样才能超越我们目前的极限，发挥更大创造力。
附：英文采访原文
TopMarketing: What is the current level of creative creation in AIGC?
Anthony Baker: AI generated content has been in development for many years. However, the rapid progress in the development of large language models, massive neural networks and AI algorithms thanks to the availability of incredibly large data sets and computing power has enabled companies like Open AI, Midjourney, Google, Runway and Stability AI (to name just a few) to create impressive AIGC tools. Open AI’s GPT4, Runway Gen-2 and Midjourney v5 are recent examples on how far these tools have gotten. ChatGPT can now help developers to co-create and fix code, Midjourney is enabling a whole new generation of digital designers and artists to imagine and create digital creations in many cases far outreaching imagination, and Runway Gen-2 is poised to disrupt the video production process.
It's no coincidence that Microsoft, Adobe and Google are rushing to integrate AIGC tools into their product suites, while a large group of tech world leaders and academics including Elon Musk (Tesla, Twitter, SpaceX), Steve Wozniak (Apple), Emad Mostaque (Skype) and Craig Peters (Getty Images) among many others published an open letter to ask AI development to pause for six months - arguably to give leaders and companies time to get their stuff in order and catch up.
The state-of-play of AIGC is undeniable. Digital designs can be created out of text prompts in seconds, working code can be written with a few loose instructions, articles can be written in different languages and styles with a few chat messages and iterations, and video is about to be no exception. To think that these tools are not here to become ubiquitous in our daily lives and work is folly. Just look at folks without any industry involvement and tech knowledge interacting with ChatGPT for everyday chores and you will easily get how this is already becoming part of our society’s fabric.
If you want any more assurance, just take a look at Hugging Face open source AI platform to see the hundreds of AI models, transformers, datasets and demos available for free to anyone out there. While most of these won’t be at the level of Open AI and Midjourney, they are not far, and they are completely open and accessible to anyone that cares to learn how to use them. Through history we have seen that anytime that both open source and closed source innovation reaches that much scale, big shifts are bound to happen.
TopMarketing: How do creatives view the opportunities and threats posed by AIGC?
Anthony Baker: It’s no surprise that such big shifts in technology and tools create a lot of different reactions. We have seen it happen over and over again throughout human history. Whenever technology innovation makes a big leap, it disrupts a lot of existing crafts, jobs, industries and processes. This is already happening, and jobs are going to be changed, destroyed and created by the AIGC developments, in a very rapid way over the next 2-3 years.
People that do creative jobs, whether that’s creative ideas, creative design, creative copywriting, creative strategy or creative coding, are passionate about their craft. People have put so much effort into mastering their disciplines that it’s normal that if a tool threatens to do the same faster, cheaper and at a larger scale, it creates fear.
What I have observed through online communities and social networks it’s quite interesting. There is a whole new wave of people that maybe didn’t have the creative job or craft to enable them to explore their full potential as artistic creators, and with AIGC tools they are now able to create things they never thought possible. There’s also the camp of creative creators that have always been at the forefront of innovation, and they embrace the exploration of AIGC tools as just another step in their pursuit of creativity and expression. And there’s the camp where they see these tools as a thread to their craft and income source. I would suspect that many in this field are worried about loss of income because of AIGC tools and the lack of time and resources (including lack of their companies commitment to training and upskilling).
However, as any other technology tool, the opportunity lies in embracing these tools as co-creation partners. Coders and Designers should not be worried about these tools being better at them at doing mundane and repetitive tasks, they should be excited about how these tools could take their craft and creativity to levels never seen before.
Think about this. Cars are faster than humans, but we still go and see people running. Music can be generated by computers (and has been for many decades) and we can stream it almost for free anytime and anywhere, but we still pay to go to a concert and see musicians play live. The same can be said for most artistic creations.
While AI-generated content can be impressive and useful in certain contexts, it is not a replacement for human creativity and expression. AI models are still limited by the data they are trained on and the algorithms they use, and they lack the emotional and intuitive capacities of human creators.
Additionally, the creative process often involves a range of human experiences and emotions that are difficult to replicate with AI. Therefore, AI-generated content should be seen as a complement to human creativity rather than a replacement for it.
TopMarketing: What are the future directions and trends of AIGC?
Anthony Baker: I believe 3D object creation and full video and CGI generation are some of the next frontiers for AIGC, as well as being able to personalise large language models based on smaller datasets of human thinking and conversations.
While a lot of the current AIGC are impressive and can create impressive content, they still lack a lot of the personalisation and nuances that humans can embed into creative content to fit a particular context, brand, audience, product, etc.
Large language models and general AIGC tools are very inefficient in how they use data. They need massive amounts of data and computer power to be trained, and are pretty inefficient to adapt to a certain behaviour of pattern based on small datasets, which makes them really inefficient in that context. That's probably going to rapidly change in the next few years, and will be fueled both by open source and closed source innovation by big and small companies alike.
Another potential trend we will see is the coordination and creation of full stack pipelines between all these tools. Companies and platforms will emerge connecting different AIGC to offer fully integrated content production solutions, where you will be able to enter a prompt and get a full CGI video out of it, in the style you want, with the meta human character you want, with the caption and language you want. Even when far from perfect and still not competing with full AAA games or Hollywood movies, it will disrupt the content and video production even further.
TopMarketing: Any other comments and analysis of future AIGC development? Especially on the agency front, how will AIGC impact agencies?
Anthony Baker: Make no mistake. This is not a fad or a marketing hype. AI has been in development for more than 70 years. The theory is fundamentally the same, but we have now all the resources needed to effectively create general AI. Social Media platforms were the first wave of AI powered platforms, and we didn’t do great on it. This second generation of AI platforms will have an even deeper and more disrupting impact in our lives.
I believe many agencies will see AIGC tools as a way to become more efficient, get better margins and push forward to overcome the last 3 years of global instability due to the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, Interests hikes and inflation. It’s understandable that many companies are looking into the possibilities to leverage AIGC to make businesses more profitable.
However, I believe that it will be the companies that invest in helping their staff, partners and upcoming talent to embrace, understand and get better at exploring and leveraging AIGC tools will be the ones with more success over the long run. This field with ChatGPT, Stable Diffusion, Gen-2 is going to be changing very fast. Instead of thinking about what the agency is replacing with AIGC tools, the better bet is on how to nurture talent that will get deeper into these tools and learn to ride the disruption wave one tool at a time.
Creativity and emotion are intrinsic to human experience, but that doesn’t mean that creative output and process cannot change and evolve. We are only able to judge based on our current experiences and knowledge, so we need to empower people and ourselves to know and experience more with these tools and platforms so we can be creative beyond our current limits.