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We’ve set ourselves the goal of making ONE an AI driven 100% Studio one day. Does that mean there will be no humans involved at all?
For sure there will always be clients, the people asking the questions and setting the challenges. Everything about the Virtual Strategy Studio will be designed around meeting their needs.
But for the Studio itself? The answer is… we don’t know. But by setting ourselves the ambitious goal of 100% virtual we will be constantly testing the boundaries of what’s possible. Never assuming with each challenge ‘only humans can do that.’
So much of the work on AI in the insights industry at the moment seems to be focussed on boosting productivity around existing processes. We want to try and reinvent the world of insight and brand strategy agencies from the ground up… to see what’s possible.
But there will be limits, and we think in the end exploring these limits will be liberating. Our inspiration for this view comes from work done by the neuroscience researcher, Dr Iain McGilchrist which I came across on Jon Evans’s excellent Uncensored CMO podcast.
This work gives a more nuanced understanding of left brain Vs right brain theory that goes beyond the over-simplistic logic vs creativity view. It points to where the real limits of machine Vs human truly lie, and why finding those limits could help create a better future for us all.
Here are some thoughts from what I’ve read so far…
The LEFT brain is about models, not logic
As I understand it, our left brains aren’t about logic per se. That’s an outmoded and debunked concept. The left brain is about making models of the world, structuring it and simplifying it to help us predict what might happen in the future and adapt our behaviours accordingly.
It’s … analytical, detailed, rational, linear, explicit, narrow, static, abstract, focussed on non living and mechanical / man made experiences, based on decontextualised models
This can be hugely useful of course. If we treated everything we experienced as a something totally new and unique it would be hard to make sense of the world. The danger is that by reducing our world of experiences to a model we diminish it.
The RIGHT brain is about human experience, not creativity
In the same way, the right brain isn’t just about creativity, although it’s a fundamental contributor to it. The right brain is about lived experience and the reality of things.
It’s … inclusive, integrative, live, complex, embodied, holistic, realistic, uncertain, ambiguous, flexible, the embodied self, sensorial, the bigger picture, the whole, uniqueness, about context, intuitive, insight, individuality, social understanding, empathy, emotion, music, compassion
This is the stuff of life… living in the moment and experiencing it, rather than being stuck in the boxed-up world of simplified rules and theories. The right brain is inherently what we think of as being more ‘human’, but perhaps without the left brain to bring order this part of us is too unpredictable.
The two sides work together to solve problems and be insightful and creative
The reality is that with any situation we aren’t just tapping into one of our left or right brain. Both are needed to help us to successfully navigate the world. Yes in some people one is emphasised over the other. And in some situations one plays more of a leading role than the other. But they do work in unison. Both are needed. whether it’s solving a problem, digging for insights or being creative and developing ideas we are tapping into BOTH sides of our brains, left and right
Our society is becoming more left brained
The argument goes that urbanisation and the proliferation of man made things, the increased digitisation of our lives, the focus on analysis, measurement and metrics, the need to categories and quantify the world, all drives our culture to be overly concentrated in the left had brain. And we’re suffering as a result of it, in our work and our day to day experiences. We’re moving away from what it inherently means to be human and suffering as a result.
This assertion perhaps goes beyond the neural research on which the left and right brain theory is based. But it’s an intriguing concept with much in the world that seems to support it, even if it isn’t proven
AI is by definition left brained - it’s a model of life, not life itself
When I look at what AI is doing the left brain description seems to summarise exactly how it works… reducing life to a model that can be used to measure, predict and generate shadows of the real world. And AI can do this at a greater speed and scale than any human left brain can do. It’s a left brain super power.
That doesn’t mean AI can’t be creatively, it’s already being used to do so successfully. But it’s fundamentally doing this in a left brain way, harnessing models to simulate creativity. Not drawing on human experience to be innately creative.
Does that mean AI could set us free?
So what if, as we push back the boundaries of what AI can do and apply these left brain models to a wider range of challenges we are taking the load off of our own left brains? Reducing the need to model, process and simplify the world ourselves. Freeing us to live more of our right brain lives, in our work and beyond.
To me this is an exciting prospect. AI freeing us from the left brained models and frameworks that threaten to overwhelm us. And so free our time and focus to bring the real world human experience of our right brains to bear on everything we do.
This might be an optimistic view of the future impact of AI. But it’s certainly a world view that motivates us as we push the boundaries of what AI can do in the insight and brand strategy space.
I would love to think that there is some truth in it.
