Issue #48. The Prodigal Newsletter

On today’s quest:

— Ad agencies are embracing AI
— Why one creative executive changed her stance on AI
— AI is taking over some social media
— New outlets sue Open AI, but another lawsuit was just dismissed
— AI and creativity: It’s complicated

Ad agencies are embracing AI

Forrester reported that in June, 78% of large ad agencies and 53% of small ad agencies are using generative AI. Some of the activities mentioned include storyboarding and remaking commercials for audiences that speak other languages. — Marketing Brew

Why one creative executive changed her stance on AI

Samantha Enslen’s original policy at Dragonfly Editorial was “No AI. Full stop.” But in the last year, her firm has started experimenting with the technology. I interviewed her on the Grammar Girl podcast to find out why.

I think I forgot to share my interview about AI writing with AI expert Christopher Penn here back in October, and it was also fascinating. If you have time for more listening, you can find that conversation, “Can AI really write? A no-nonsense discussion,” on YouTube and Apple Podcasts.

AI is taking over business/hustle social media

AI detection tools are notoriously inaccurate, but two recent articles in Wired report a huge increase in AI-generated content on LinkedIn and Medium:

More than half of LinkedIn posts may have been written with AI. I don’t find this surprising since LinkedIn has a “Rewrite with AI” button right in the box where you post. Also, LinkedIn favors the type of business-y content that seems to be AI’s strength. “It’s the place where people strive to be the most anodyne versions of themselves, pleasant and inoffensive,” said the article’s author, Kate Knibbs. — Wired

Nearly half of posts on Medium may be written by AI. The analysis company said the percent of articles popping as AI on Medium is dramatically higher than the percent on the wider internet. The CEO of Medium countered that most of these articles have zero views on the platform, so it doesn’t matter. The posts most likely to be flagged as AI were those about NFTs, web3, ethereum, AI, and pets. — Wired

AI lawsuits: Growing but also reigned in

Canadian news outlets band together to sue OpenAI for using published work without permission — Toronto Star

Raw Story Media’s lawsuit against Open AI was partially dismissed after a judge ruled the company failed to show concrete harm. Raw Story does have a chance to amend the suit, but a copyright lawyer thinks the ruling could leave similar suits on shaky ground. — Copyright Lately

AI and creativity: It’s complicated

What happens when an AI skeptic finds AI to be unexpectedly useful? Journalism professor Josh Baum wrote an interesting thread about being an “AI refusenik” but finding Claude unexpectedly useful for developmental feedback on a book project. He was essentially just running a little test, but then he got such productive advice that if it had come from a colleague, he’d thank them in the acknowledgements. He can’t unsee the advice, so now what does he do? — Mastodon

A study on AI and human creativity found that when people had large language models help with creative tasks, they came up with more and more varied ideas — essentially their output was more creative. But when the AI was then taken away, people were less creative than the control group that had not been exposed to AI. I’m wrapping my head around this by comparing it to the way I’m no longer good at doing multiplication on my own because calculators are ubiquitous, but the results are probably more complicated than that. You should read the whole thing if you’re especially interested in AI and human creativity. — Arvix (preprint)

Quick Hits

AI publishing deal tracker — Pete Brown (h/t Jane Friedman)

The editors protecting Wikipedia from AI hoaxes — 404 Media

Open AI’s transcription tool hallucinates. Hospitals are using it anyway. — Wired

The Beatles’ AI-assisted track “Now and Then” is nominated for two Grammar Awards — TechCrunch

How AI can fool you, and why a human editor is best — Lisa Cordaro

ChatGPT is biased against resumes with credentials that imply a disability, such as the “Tom Wilson Disability Leadership Award” — University of Washington

What is AI sidequest?

Using AI isn’t my main job, and it probably isn’t yours either. I’m Mignon Fogarty, and Grammar Girl is my main gig, but I haven’t seen a technology this transformative since the development of the internet, and I want to learn about it. I bet you do too.

So here we are! Sidequesting together.

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^{Written by a human.}