Transcript
The following is a transcription of the video excerpts provided:
And and really these tools should be allowing us the capacity to create time for you know creativity and curiosity and you know wonder. That is Brooke Hill, I am Stuart Pete Turner and this is the Flow State podcast. Welcome back, I’m very pleased to be talking to Brooke again. We first spoke in the implications of AI over 18 months ago. We’ve all been on a bit of a journey with our AI friends since then so we’re going to catch up on what it means for brand and copyrighting and content. Welcome back Brooke, welcome back to the Flow State podcast. It’s been a, what, like over a year now since we last spoke. I think for those who may not have heard of you by reputation, would you like to give us a quick a quick intro to who you are and what you’re up to? Sure, well thank you so much for having me. So I am Brooke and uh the last time you had me on we were called the contented copywriter but we have recently rebranded to wonder things. So uh we are uh an agency of expert uh strategic storytellers and we help uh Brands and businesses uncover and craft and share their very best stories through wonderful content.
Awesome, that’s very cool and look I assume given that you put the effort into rebranding the AI has yet to destroy the copyrighting industry which is reassuring news because I know we talked about that last time. Um, we’re all still here. I’m keen to, yeah well I’m very glad to hear that. Um, otherwise I’d, you know, I’ve been running it in on people to talk to so that’s that’s reassuring. I think look I want to, you know, I want to get into that as well, like I’d love to talk to you more about like three run because I think it’s pretty exciting but hold that thought because I thought by way of a quick intro it’d be fun to just revisit a few of the points that we discussed last time. So um as I’m sure you remember from our previous conversation many many months ago Brooke, the last time we spoke we were talking about whether AI was going to ruin writing broadly for everybody. Now I don’t know if you’ve had the same experience but I have found AI to be somewhat of a disappointment in the old writing front. Um, I know people are using it a lot everywhere but I know one of the the key takeaways from you was that it was only as good as Junior copywriter a year and a half ago or whatever it was we last spoke and it needed a lot of coaching and guidance. Um, I don’t think that’s changed dramatically having tested quite a few. Do you think that it’s moved forward from when we when we made that bold claim a year ago? Did our predictions come true?
Um, yeah so I so not significantly I would say. Um, so it’s uh, the I mean the answer is yes or no. Like it definitely we use Chat GPT uh for, rather Chat GPT 4. So that is a mark improvement on Chat GPT 3 and our team are getting it to do some pretty wonderful things so we can create, you know, said wonderful content um through AI. We are getting some really really great results. Um, but it still requires a lot of work, you know, it’s still um it it’s still we we work hard at it put it that way. So, you know, it requires really training it up in brand voice, it requires um, you know, training it in terms of the kinds of um outputs you need. Um, very all the specific idiosyncrasies. So I mean I guess you could if we’re going to continue on that Junior copywriter analogy it’s like it’s kind of like anything or anyone, if you invest the time then you know that Junior copywriter last year is probably getting a bit more experience now and they’re probably getting a little bit better. They but they still need, you know, a editor editing eye and they still need fact-checking um and all of those sorts of things. So yeah the answer is yes it’s improving um but it you know it it still takes the work and that’s what you know that that’s what we spend a lot of our time, you know, investing in.
Yeah, well, yeah like okay I think that’s, I mean there’s a few interesting points you raise there actually which um I’ll try to go through in some kind of order because I think the point you made about you know kind of fact-checking I think it’s an important one. Because I’m sure like everyone who’s who’s tried AI tools is um has either seen by accident or done on purpose like some mad you know some of the Mad hallucination stuff that they can come up with. And it was interesting the point you made about you know obviously using GPT-4 versus just any of the the freebies because the I assume the you know the assumption is that it would be slightly better and there might be some better fact checking going on. Um, like have you found that to be the case, do you find it actually does source and sight things more effectively or is it something that you guys are still having to do manually yourselves?
Sourcing is still, I mean I think regardless as um, you know, pe as people who do this for a living like it’s incredibly important that our sources are correct. Right so I don’t know if we would ever have full trust that that is the case. So like, you know, that’s what we’re here to deliver to their clients. But um and so um but yes we still seeing um, you know, sources not being um correct. So for example um, you know, I I was do I was researching an article and I really wanted um some specific data um to support some of the um some of the points that I was making. And so um I asked it, you know, I’m looking for statistics like this is there anything available and it pulled it it pulled out these great statistics and I was like this is amazing. And then I said can you with the source? And so they provided me with the source and then I and then um I clicked on the source and it went nowhere. And so I said look that source isn’t working can you give me another source? So it give me and this and that went back in four three times before it eventually admitted that the source didn’t exist. So I brill, I think that just points to, you know, it still needs to be checked. It still is of the who thinks he should be running the company, you know. And I was going to say yeah it’s like some sort of mad overeager like new new staffer who’s like I I’ll just make up the sauce quoted by by me. Yeah, 100%. People hallucinate too, people have as well, you know.
Yeah, look I think um I mean I know I know part of the Mad the Mad panic when all this was sort of first emerging was that um not to buy too much into you know the conspiracy side of like you know like dead internet Theory and stuff but I know everyone was like ringing their hands a lot about this you know torrent of like fake content that was going to be everywhere which I I don’t think I haven’t actually seen that. I don’t know if you’re seeing anything different but I think the point you raised is the more concerning one that if you do have people in your team or you’re not engaging, you know, people like us like are there people that are actually checking this stuff? Because it’s so easy for those types of things just slip through the cracks in like a big marketing team where you know someone just chucks something into a free re Chat GPT or you know Claude or whatever you’re using and then suddenly you’re just spitting out all this like nonsense and because it’s got a URL and no one’s checked like it’s now out in the world. So I think I don’t know I I think that’s still quite a concern stuff snuck out. There’s been a couple of stories in the media about it. Um, are you like, you know, are your clients kind of concerned about that, are they seeing those issues themselves in their in their teams or are you keeping a close eye on them to avoid that happening?
Well yeah so I mean um most of our clients have pretty good rigor around it. I would say that um I actually think that some of the barriers with AI are still actually companies fully using it or know knowing how to use it um or using it right ways. Um so that’s one of the things that we um are helping our clients with so AI strategy. So it’s um helping them identify because because people are still holding back right? So there’s some that are going on their merry way and creating content and that’s awesome but also to your point like are they making sure that things are fact checked and you know that they’re still you know running over it with an editor’s eye and all of those sorts of things? And then you’ve got the other end of the spectrum where um people are still hesitant to use it. You know, maybe they’re super experienced copywriters who kind of know that they can actually just get it done quicker themselves because they um, you know, they have the skill uh that they already have that skill set. Or interestingly I was having a conversation with another um agency owner just yesterday and she was talking about how her interns aren’t actually using it. Um and she was like what surely aren’t you being taught this at Uni like an like you are the generation like aren’t you? Yeah, yeah but what I but what I found so interesting about about that what we were discussing is is that a they’re pro probably a bit discouraged from using it during University but also um they don’t know what good looks like. Yeah, so if you’re not an experienced copywriter you don’t know, you don’t have um you haven’t developed discernment yet. You don’t know what good looks like. So it’s a little bit with AI it’s a little bit um like giving um because we talk about how it’s a tool right? And so it’s a bit like giving a um a paint box um to um to somebody who’s not an artist and sending them dark room and saying paint me a picture. Like unless they know, unless they can see what good looks like and they know it and they understand it like how are they ever going to feel confident using it? And so I think that’s probably why the interns aren’t using it because they’ll create something and then either they’ll look at it and think it’s not great or somebody will tell them it’s not great so they like well I’m not getting anything good out of it.
So I don’t know so again when back to AI strategy it’s like and and training it’s like part of the thing is yeah yes training it on how to prompt and how to you know like training people on how to prompt and all of that kind of stuff but also training people on what good content looks like and how to get something from A to B. How to, you know, how to polish the potential turd that came out of AI. How you actually, you know, take it take it from here to there. That’s the bit that people don’t know and that’s actually at the heart of what good writing and good content is and what good copywriters actually can do. Like so that’s why the value of yeah of copywriters is still very much there.
That’s yeah I obviously I mean, you know, I’m biased anyway but obviously agree with that. I think like the I think the point you raised though is is an interesting one that um the the output that you often get if you’re not really thinking about what you want from those chat models is like super generic. Like I always, you know, to your point I always find that it’s quicker just to write stuff myself and then use it as an editorial assistant to be like can you make this clearer can you like you know sort of make it more more pointy or whatever. But whenever I’ve tried to get it to write something more um sort of significant I always end up just being very dissatisfied with the output because they all seem to have that same generic structure. Like it’d be like oh here’s five points about this thing that you made but they’re all a bit unsubstantiated. And like I think obviously partly that is maybe I’m just being lazy and not sort of briefing it to the level of detail that would be required but it just um it does feel like you know to your point it’s one of those things where like well it actually is quicker for me just to write it myself and then have it kind of spruce up the clarity or you know tweak it for a particular audience or something. Um which is quite funny because I hadn’t really thought about that but then obviously that’s probably because I’ve been you know writing stuff for like well a very long time now I guess since graduating and like writing it for like search engines for people for like different use cases you you kind of forget that those you know you sort of don’t know what you what you don’t know I guess is to your point when you start. Um which is weird hey because you would expect people to be getting across that stuff either when they get into work or when they finish school but maybe maybe they’re not. Maybe that’s where AI now the New South Wales government have launched their AI teaching assistant. Maybe that’s where that’ll fill the Gap. I forgot to mention that actually I don’t know if you saw that story. It’s um yes being rolled out currently. What are your what are your thoughts on that Brooke? What do you what do you think about AI basically assisting teachers?
I think teachers probably need all the help they can get um, you know, uh I mean anything that’s going to help um help a teacher um has my full support. Um I I just I think but that’s the thing I think with so much of this stuff the devil’s in the detail. Like how how do it help helping and you know what are the what is the tradeoff? Um, you know, and and and and what are the tasks that it’s helping um us for? You know, and I think just so um so so that that would be my interest in terms of okay how is it actually applying and yeah what are the what are the trade-offs what are the impacts? Um, but kind of circling back to what you were saying before in terms of when you’ve been dissatisfied with AI. I think as well and that’s where it comes um into being really intentional about what you um are using it for. Um I would imagine that that a a bulk of your content probably comes sits into two camps. One which is highly technical and um and comes from um, you know, and and and and has Superior knowledge. I’m flattering you now but you know like has, let’s pretend that that’s true but you know you’ve got Decades of experience right and knowledge that um would that that that you know needs to be um that that that AI might not necessarily um understand yet because it’s a very Niche field that you work in. So possibly it’s not going to be that useful on that. And then the other part of the content that you probably would use are your own ideas which it hasn’t thought of or your own personal stories which it doesn’t know. So to think about so it’s probably not going to be particularly useful for any of those things.
Yeah and and like I think that’s um so I want to get on to one of the one of the points you raised around around critical thinking in a moment but I think that’s where to uh not just to you know to pile on AI completely like I’ve actually seen um some more useful sort of more specific models emerging over the course of the last year. So I know my um business partner in the US like really loves um Ask Wonder which is like the um I forget the company that that built that one but it’s like a research sort of specific um AI model that’s supposed to you know kind of be more geared around that like you’re trying to find things out and it’s kind of pulls together much more, you know, to your point much more useful typically more well-cited, you know, kind of examples of information. Uh so she’s been really liking that just to sort of do groundwork for we’ve been doing a lot of market research for the um the new business that we’re launching. Um and that’s actually been surprisingly good just to whip through a quick like, you know, to your point if you’re like I need to find out a ton of information pretty rapidly previously you’d probably sit on Google and just you know be doing it yourself right just going through the does this seem like a good source where have these guys found this from? But um I found from playing around with it a little bit as well it actually does pull together a really good like you can just say look insert tell me about you know this audience in this market and get quite specific and it’ll come back with a pretty detailed array of different sources and facts and you know kind of again it’s all in like the briefing but the stuff she’s provided is really good. And you can actually go in and you know find out if it has cited something useful. It’s like I haven’t seen any made-up sources yet but I’m sure there’s a few in there. Um so that one’s actually been really good.
Um and there’s been a couple that are just very functional but like the one in ClickUp that we use it’s called Brain. Um just summarizes stuff really well. So like basic admin jobs like writing standups, finding out what like your team’s working on, finding out what I should be working on it can do in like 30 seconds which is really good. So you can literally be like write me a stand for today and it’ll be like here’s your tasks here’s what’s over you here’s what people have asked you to do which I find like super helpful because otherwise again you’re just fishing around for hours just trying to put that stuff together. Um so yeah it’s um I think, you know, the one that one earlier example of look like if you are thinking critically about exactly what you want there’s there’s a couple that are emerging that seem better. And then there’s just I think the rest just seems to be just stuff just faster but it’s not like it’s not setting the world on fire for me at the moment. I I don’t know I don’t know about you.
Well yeah I mean I I think a lot of those predictions about how you know these whole industries will fall apart by you know 20 whatever and then you know um anyone can develop that’ll be it. Yeah like I have not seen I I think the change is there but it’s incremental. You know it’s not um it’s not a revolution um put it that way.
Yeah and look I think what I was what I was quite excited about about your um, you know, your own sort of brand journey and where you and your team are at now is that um the because this came up in the previous conversation in this series is like obviously human human behavior does not change as fast or as dramatically as people like to tell themselves it does. Um and it takes quite a long time for like technology to really be adopted in everyone’s day-to-day lives. Like if you look at like um, you know, mobile phones in their current form they, you know, what are we on like 25 30 years or something probably since their first uh, you know, proper sort of smartish phones were coming out. Yeah, yeah and like and where we now, you know, people still don’t like really know how to use them effectively. Like it’s taking forever like the primary F still call them a phone like it’s basically a computer in pocket but you know most people don’t use it like that. So it’s just, you know, it’s it just takes ages right for people to really get this stuff. Um and I’d be interested to see actually you know for predictions from from from now um given that Apple are sort of now finally throwing their hat in the ring as well obviously to sell like yet another iteration of the iPhone. But I think um if they if they stand up to their usual pretty high standards of design first philosophy I’d be pretty Keen to see how they deploy it across iOS because I actually quite agree with the fact that they haven’t rushed in because they’ve watched everyone else do stuff and fuck things up so far and then be like what, you know, what do people actually want from an AI assistant? Um so I’m quite key to see what that looks like. I don’t really want to buy another iPhone but um hopefully I can see it from somewhere else. Um but uh look the rambling point here was just leading through to your your next point. I think um you know you mentioned in uh in the notes before we jumped on that like discernment is key which I wanted to kind of talk to you a little bit about. Because that whole piece around critical thinking and and how you do that I think is obviously where you’re still continuing to deliver a lot of value to all of your client relationships. But like do you think our previous prediction that you know and the general Panic about people just not being able to think properly is still a real issue or is that just like a bit of a a hand flapper for the media and that the real issues are a bit more nuanced in marketing in particular? I guess I should just qualify that with rather than just like the entire world.
Um yeah look I I I do think that um I do think as you say a lot a lot of it isn’t about creating something that’s new it’s about um making things that we already do work um happen faster. Right so you know if you think about the time that it used to take to build an ad campaign all the time you know or or or measure results or what have you all of those things are getting considerably faster. And so um, you know, that that means that um, you know, there there is an opportunity to have more content and you know more marketing but what it does mean is is that there’s an opportunity to um really think about what makes impact and really create stuff that actually has, you know, yeah genuine value. And I think that’s where um, you know, that that’s where that critical thinking that strategic planning um and you know and and really these tools should be allowing us the capacity to create time for you know creativity and curiosity and you know wonder. I mean that’s obviously in in our in our brand name but that’s what that’s what these tools should be um would be enabling should be enabling us to do. There you have it, paraphrasing my old mate Abraham Maslow, if all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail. Join Brooke and I again next time as we dive further into the world of Wonder think and how we can all leverage the tools we have to become better communicators and unlock that space for creative thinking.