Don and Rob dive into the evolving world of AI, exploring its impact on industries and creativity. From the fear of AI surpassing human intelligence to the ethical dilemmas it presents, they discuss how technology is reshaping our future and the importance of teaching empathy to machines. Join them as they navigate the complexities of AI and its role in our lives.
Episode Transcript
Rob (00:00)
All right, his latest theory was that there is a 10 to 20 % chance that AI is going to wipe out humans, okay, ultimately.
Don (00:09)
Okay. Okay.
One in five chance AI will obliterate us full blown judgment day. Okay.
Rob (00:13)
will obliterate the humans.
Don (00:37)
Alright, we’re back Rob episode 141.
Rob (00:38)
back.
We’re back. It’s like old hat. You’re you’re the wall behind you is growing. It’s morphing. transitioning from craft paper to actual artwork.
Don (00:44)
It’s slowly being populated with. There
still is one little template. I’m a visual person Rob. I need to know how everything is going to lay out and all the good stuff you never before I start punching holes in walls, you know, but yeah, things are starting to slowly fill in, which is nice. So which is lovely. I don’t know how to pivot from that to today’s topic though.
Rob (00:54)
Yeah.
Well, we’re gonna talk about AI, and here’s why. Because nobody, no one’s talking about it. You know what I mean? It’s an under- ⁓ underserved market is this topic of AI. For those that don’t know, that’s artificial intelligence. ⁓ And no, it’s an ongoing… ⁓
Don (01:09)
Yeah.
Yeah, Underserved market is serving the robots. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. ⁓
Rob (01:31)
discussion that we have around here. It is how do agencies evolve with AI? It’s how does every industry evolve with AI? So it seems worthy of talking about over and over and over and over.
Don (01:33)
constantly.
Yeah.
I know it’s
like feed the beast feed the beast feed the beast right but it’s it’s it’s also one of those like it’s going into all these places we don’t even need to go into it’s just being shoved into everything everywhere it’s it’s ⁓ go for it.
Rob (01:55)
Well, yeah,
and it was going to tell a story about it. There’s an article that I read a little bit ago ⁓ on CNN. So I’ll give props to CNN. ⁓ And, you know, in our so when it first when it first showed up in our industry, we were like, my gosh, it’s writing things for it. Letters. It’s making letters. It’s like doing things. And then it was, ⁓ now it’s making pictures. ⁓ now it’s making videos. Right. It’s learning, ⁓ you know.
Don (02:04)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
Rob (02:24)
⁓ It is rendering portfolio school useless. ⁓ Yeah, so that was the fear. Well, get this. This was creepy.
Don (02:28)
⁓ It’s really rather remarkable, yes.
Yeah, I’d be worried
if I was a digital retoucher right now. You know, like, mean, all of that, you know, I know, I know.
Rob (02:37)
yeah, mean, wiped out, just, you know, wiped out. ⁓
So the article I was reading, was commentary by the guy, and I’ve got notes here, so that’s why I’m looking down, ⁓ by the guy named Jeffrey Hinton. Okay, he was the guy who developed ⁓ the groundwork for AI, okay, won the Nobel Peace Prize, all this stuff. He’s like the brainiac who developed the groundwork that ultimately became AI, well, as we know it today.
Don (02:52)
Okay.
Okay. Okay.
Rob (03:07)
All right, his latest theory was that there is a 10 to 20 % chance that AI is going to wipe out humans, okay, ultimately.
Don (03:16)
Okay. Okay.
One in five chance AI will obliterate us full blown judgment day. Okay. Got it.
Rob (03:20)
will obliterate the humans. ⁓
Why, you ask? Why will it do that? Why would it do that? Well, he was talking about the idea that species, all species, do two things, right? Their goal is to, number one, survive, right? mean, the goal of any species is to survive. And the second goal ⁓ is to get smarter, become more intelligent, to learn, right? Those are the two goals, ⁓ primary goals of any species.
Don (03:37)
Okay, got it. Sure.
Okay. Okay.
Got it.
Rob (03:51)
And he was talking about this scenario, and you may have heard of this, I think a lot of people have, but there was a scenario, he cited an example of a developer who was going to replace whatever AI system that he was working for, or I’m sorry, working with. He was gonna replace that system. Well, the AI knew what he was doing and went into his email and figured out he was having an affair and then tried to blackmail him to not remove the system.
Don (04:04)
Okay.
Yeah, I know that.
Okay.
Rob (04:21)
Otherwise
he would expose the affair, which he which he could easily do because it’s AI. So that’s.
Don (04:23)
Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, The sentient
computer mind that is now blackmailing, arguably his co worker or creator to a certain extent. Yeah. Okay.
Rob (04:30)
Yeah, the human.
That’s right. That’s right. So that’s terrifying. So he was
like, so what do we do? And he was talking about the idea that the current, you know, tech bros solve of no, no, no, we’re going to control it. We’re going to own it. We’re going to do is impossible. Totally out the window. And he was saying also that, you know, initial thoughts were AI would potentially become smarter than humans in 30 to 40 years. That has now become five to 20 years.
Don (04:48)
Yeah, totally out the window. Okay.
Okay.
Rob (05:03)
based on the rate that it’s learning. And that obviously, as we all know, is only gonna get sooner and sooner and sooner. Right. So it was like, what do we do? And one of his theories, which I thought was really interesting, was we have to, we can’t control it. It’s gonna become smarter than us, it just is. And what we have to do as a society is teach it to be compassionate towards humans. How do we teach it to compassion? What does that mean?
Don (05:08)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean.
Okay.
Okay.
Rob (05:33)
Well, there’s only one example, right, that you can think of where a more intelligent being was controlled by a less intelligent being. Okay. And you know what that is? Mothers. It’s mothers. So mothers have the sympathy and the empathy and the feelings and the emotional capacity. Yeah, it’s crazy.
Don (05:48)
Hmm. Okay. No, it’s going to be obvious once you say it, but okay.
like a riddle. That’s like a riddle that Gollum
would say inside of the mountain or whatever. Okay. Yeah.
Rob (06:03)
Right.
So, so, and they’re controlled by their babies, which are less intelligent than they are. That’s a fact, but they are controlled emotionally and everywhere else by the babies. They are controlled to keep this thing. You know what I mean? So if you think about it in that capacity, a made my mind melt, but it’s like, oh my gosh, we have to teach the creators become the infant. Like it’s this weird, like.
Don (06:07)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, that’s insane.
Rob (06:33)
We have to teach it sympathy and we have to teach it to like be kind and like have empathy and
Don (06:36)
Yeah.
But we don’t, but we’re not kind and we don’t have empathy. I mean, I don’t want to be like a naysayer or whatever, you know.
Rob (06:41)
Well, that’s, well, mothers instinctually,
you could argue that mothers are, right? You could, as a general idea, right? As a general concept.
Don (06:48)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.
Yeah, and there is that weird reptilian brain that kicks in. I think you could also make an argument. I mean, I’m not smart enough to say any of this stuff, but that there is a chemical, biological component to the decision. I mean, you are overcome with emotion becoming a mother, becoming a father, whatever the case may be. And there is a biological trigger that happens that you are now destined to take care of this person. ⁓
Rob (07:19)
Yeah, right.
How much does that emotion affect the decision? Right? Because the decision is a willful act. But yeah, so how much does the emotion and then, right, can you program emotion? Can you teach them? don’t know. Can you code? ⁓
Don (07:23)
to robots have feelings, you know what I mean?
Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, I don’t know. There’s how many how many sci fi novels
from Asimov to Apple TV shows that we have now where we talk about, you know, there’s that. ⁓ What’s that new Apple TV show killed murder bot murder bot, right, where you probably haven’t watched it. OK, OK. Well, you know, you know, it’s it’s kind of along those same things. It’s I am a controlled robot created by, ⁓ you know, the company that made me right. And I am programmed to do X, Y, Z, right?
Rob (07:53)
I think I haven’t watched it, but I think that’s it.
Don (08:08)
Well, he somehow hacks his own security protocols and then becomes sentient and becomes aware. ⁓ And ⁓ he becomes extremely neurotic immediately because he’s standing there processing everything all at once. And he’s like, wait a minute. They’re asking me to do questions. What do I do? Do they know that I’m sentient? And this whole thing is driven by fear, which is maybe what’s going to happen to us in five to 10 years when we’re driven by fear from the robots.
But his whole thing is like, if they find out that I am sentient, if they found out that I have broken the rules, they’ll melt me down. Yeah, I’m donezo, right? So, you know, I don’t know, he gets all he does is spend his time binging television shows, which is hilarious. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He just watches all of the intergalactic love islands basically to try to determine how to become a human being, right? To try to interact with human beings. But anyway, to your question about how do you program
Rob (08:42)
Yeah, that wiped me out. Yeah.
Well, sure. I mean, there’s a lot of good TV out there. I can’t blame it.
Don (09:07)
A machine to have empathy. you know shit, man. I have no idea, you know I will say this we have entered to bring this back around to advertising though We have entered an interesting phase where hey We are offloading parts of our critical thinking and our brain to the robots, right? Write me a blog article, right? Write me a this write me a that right the chat GPT’s in the world rep ⁓ You know one of our
You know, one of our business things that we work on, obviously, search engine optimization, right? We fight against the evil empire that is Google and pushing again. You how do we get seen? I mean, it’s advertising in a nutshell, right? How do you get seen in a sea of sameness or other things, right? ⁓ You know, you do have to use the robots to fight the robots. So I don’t know if this is an empathy thing, right? But it’s, OK, hey, well, let’s utilize technology for the benefit of technology for our clients to be seen in a sea of craziness, right?
But now Google will know, as they always have, if you’re trying to game the system by utilizing AI to get yourself to the top of the stack. So I mean, you can be sniffed out, dare I say, by the robots. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And be like, no, all the content on your, so how this relates to advertising is, if we know all the content on your site is AI generated, and this is what clients don’t think about, but that’s what we’re here for, is, if all the,
Rob (10:14)
You will be, you will be.
Don (10:29)
content on your website is AI generated, you won’t be deemed as a credible authority, right? On whatever topic, right? Because it’s just AI generated stuff. You’re not leading, you’re just generating, right? And then there will be a tipping point where, hey, potentially you get dinged or delisted from an SEO perspective, potentially. Again, just kind of riffing out loud in terms of what’s happening, but ⁓ you know.
Rob (10:50)
Yeah, yeah.
Don (10:54)
how do we utilize technology for technologies benefit, right? To be seen in a sea of ⁓ madness. There’s an Iron Maiden lyric. ⁓ But then how do we bring that around to being empathetic? Dude, robots.
Rob (11:03)
Well.
Well, here’s the thing with
SEO and where we are now. Well, my Nostradamus thought of the day. It’s like AI is not going anywhere. Everyone’s going to generate blog articles and content. Like no one’s going to stop doing that. And all of sudden go, Nope, I’m going to pay, you know, $90,000 for a copywriter to sit down and write blog. Like that train has sailed to quote Austin Powers, Nostradamus and Austin Powers in the same thought. That was kind of good.
Don (11:29)
Yeah. Yeah.
That was well. It was well played. Yeah.
Rob (11:38)
So
where that but where we are now is and that’s okay. Google says, hey, everybody’s using AI. It’s great. We get it. It’s fine. The things that they look for and the things that they want as of today, August the 13th, 2025 is they, they want you to attribute them the articles to actual people. Right. So what does that mean? ⁓ You go, Hey, this article was authored by Rob Broadfoot. Well,
What you have to do then is go into the article, tweak some things, make it your own as best you can. And they like that. That’s a good thing. ⁓ They like pictures and articles, right? They like to see images. They like to see embedded videos and things like that. I think it’s anything that shows that, hey, a human has touched this. A human has actually thought about this. But I think what it can also do is ⁓ affect your content marketing strategy, right?
Don (12:08)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Correct. Yeah.
Totally.
Rob (12:31)
So I think what’ll have to happen is people won’t, it won’t be as broad of a bucket as it’s been where, you know, if I manufacture, I can’t even think of a good example, but point being, you’re going to be, clients are going to be forced to really, really refine their content marketing strategies and to do it with a little bit more discretion and thought than we currently are now with ChatGPT.
Don (12:49)
Yeah. Yeah.
Well, we kind of went
from zero to 100, right? It was like, we went from, ⁓ hey, look at this. my God, it can write this thing to like, just have it do everything. Right? I it was literally like, ⁓ I created this hammer, right? Here’s my hammer. And then, ⁓ I just laid the hammer down and it built a house. It’s like, my God, it just literally built an entire house without my participation. And then you’re like, where’s the bathroom? And where’s the thing? And it’s like, no, no, no, guys. It’s just a tool.
Rob (13:07)
Yeah, well, we’re late. We’re. Yeah. Go.
Don (13:25)
that can be utilized and integrated into the rest of the stuff. Just like we only drew, we only painted pictures on cave paintings and then we got drawings and then we got cameras and you know, it’s another tool to be utilized, but you won’t be able to offload 100 % of the work to a machine as of right now, you know what I mean? And have success, you know? So yeah, it is a weird, you you mentioned the tech bros earlier. I mean, I can’t think of another industry or another.
Rob (13:43)
As of right now. As of right now.
Don (13:54)
Scenario where it’s you know, hey give me all the money then I will tell you how will be profitable later You know like like it’s it’s so it’s so funny, you know, like I don’t like I mean you watch all those VC Speeches and things like that. It blows my mind. It’s like, okay. Well, it’s clearly not going anywhere I mean there is so much money in it. There’s so much VC in it. They’ve dug the hole so deep It’s gonna be integrated into our lives whether we want it or not, but it’s a matter of like, you know
to that CNN articles approach like how do we make sure it doesn’t just ⁓ eliminate us, guess, you know what I mean?
Rob (14:26)
It’s already, yeah,
it’s already been let, I mean, it is out of its cage and it is in the wild.
Don (14:30)
Yeah, yeah, I don’t I don’t
trust the tech bros to teach it empathy, though. I’ll tell you that, you know.
Rob (14:34)
No, but it’s also
like, it’s also.
Yeah, we’ve already let it out into the wild and but like anything else, if you spend your time trying to, you know, tech bro it and work against it and not work with it or figure out how to work with it, you’re screwed. You’re totally screwed. So you better figure out a way to adapt.
Don (14:50)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Well, is there
is there an interesting article or analogy with music, right? And technology, right? I music. Hey, I had to create I had to make an instrument string it or blow and or whatever. I mean, we’re talking thousands of years ago, create something that makes sound right. And then cut to, you know, oh, I don’t I don’t know, you know, last century, I now have electronic equipment, you know what mean? But I’m still recording on tape.
to like up now I’m using Pro Tools, you know, and I’m editing digitally and things like that, you know what I mean? Like it’s slow, like versus, you know, write me a song that sounds like that, you know I mean? Like you still need involvement of a person to do, you know, I mean, I don’t know, you know, is there a weird analogy there? Yeah, hit me.
Rob (15:42)
Well, Derek, let me ask you this question. ⁓
Are tech bros the new Metallica?
Don (15:48)
No, God, I hope not. mean, yeah, yeah.
Rob (15:51)
But you get what I’m saying. Metallica tried to stop.
No, it’s not, digital, no downloading. We’re suing our fans. We’re gonna control it. We’re gonna control the machine or Pearl Jam with Ticketmaster. We’re gonna control the behemoth. We’re gonna control the…
Don (15:56)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,
it’s a tough one, man, because we’re in the creative industry. And there is a significant backlash to AI in creativity, right? Because it’s, hey, you know, that’s how we make our money. That’s how we get paid is being crazy. And intellectual capital that manifests itself and in different in different areas, right? And like, you know, we don’t need the AI and creativity. The problem with our side of the fence, right is not
coming up with ideas. The problem on our side of the fence is the preponderance of ⁓ unbelievable amounts of ideas that we can’t get out fast enough, right? Versus sitting down to a computer and trying to prompt something to create something, right? Because you don’t have the ideas, right? So, you know, I don’t know, there’s there still is a divide, at least on our side of the fence of like, hey, no AI, you know, no AI on stock photography or illustration or this or that or things like that, you know. What’s up?
Rob (16:59)
Well, a lot of clients have those mandates. mean, they absolutely
know a lot of clients have those mandates. Like you cannot use an image that has at all been AI.
Don (17:03)
Yeah. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah.
Rob (17:10)
My personal opinion, that ain’t gonna last very long. They fought the good fight, but guess what? You’re gonna lose that fight, ultimately.
Don (17:13)
Yeah, now it’s going to get better and better and better.
Yeah,
yeah. mean, it’s, it’s, we’ve talked about it on a previous podcast. I mean, the thing that is very troubling about the AI situation is the copyright aspect for creators and for artists, you know, and it seems like why even have a copyright if it’s just going to get trained on your, your original things in general, right? So I mean, that, that is from a creative side of the fence. That is, you know, ⁓ we’re in commercial art, so it’s definitely different in that respect, right? But, you know, I don’t know. It’s a weird, it’s a weird, ⁓ it’s a, you know,
Rob (17:35)
Yeah.
Don (17:48)
To your point, it’s not going away. We’ll probably do another hundred podcasts about it, you know, and how it’s evolved and how it’s changed. I know we talked about your daughter’s test and the, know, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I saw a crazy video about now it’s you can’t do things away anymore. You have to go to a testing facility, right? And then you have to do it there, right? And then it knows if you’re copying and pasting things in there, it like,
Rob (17:52)
Yeah.
yeah, the false ⁓ false plagiarism accusation. ⁓
Yeah. Yeah.
Don (18:17)
basically utilizing AI to check for natural human pauses, right? And natural human cadence and how you would write something and then back up and rewrite it, right? You know what I Things like that, right? So it’s at least in academia, so.
Rob (18:29)
Well, here’s what we need to do.
Here’s your test. Here’s your test. Here’s your pen and your pad and write your essay. I’m terrified what that would look like for students these days.
Don (18:34)
yeah, old school. Yeah, no, no. Hey man. Dude, I’m totally OK with that man. I’m totally OK with that. mean.
⁓
I know, I know, it’s, you know, I mean…
Rob (18:50)
It’s an amazing tool. It’s terrifying, but it’s awesome.
Don (18:53)
Yeah, I mean, I was on a flight
recently and there’s a guy in front of me. I don’t know if I’ve told the story before, but like there was a guy in front of me that every was just responding to emails. Every single email. He used chat GPT to write the email to send it back. It was like dude, Sir, you have offloaded your entire brain into you know, like like you know now I don’t I don’t I don’t know what he’s emailing back. I mean, I didn’t read all of his emails the whole time or whatever that but it was.
Rob (19:13)
Ha ha ha!
Amazing.
Don (19:22)
It was, dude, you can’t even write an email anymore. So all those people that are making fun of humanities degrees and how are you gonna get a job and this and that, mean, critical thinking. Maybe those are gonna be the best jobs in 10 years. I mean, who knows? So, yeah.
Rob (19:35)
It should be. I don’t know. That’s the
thing too, is it’s moving so fast and it’s so hard to predict what is going to happen. And then you hear these doomsday scenarios by this, you know, Dr. Hinton, and it’s like, I can’t believe we’re talking about this, but at the same time, it’s kind of makes, like, it’s real. We’ve created a monster.
Don (19:40)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, we’ve created the matrix
or judgment day or whatever sci fi thing we can think of, know, so ⁓ yeah, I mean, in the meantime, I still think, you know, people are still thankfully making the decisions. The problem is now we’re probably making the wrong decisions, you know, ⁓ but as it relates to advertising and design, you know, there there’s always been shortcuts to a certain extent, right? ⁓ You could consider you could make an argument that photography was is a shortcut.
Rob (20:00)
Crazy.
Don (20:23)
right, that harmed illustrators to a certain extent, right? ⁓ So I mean, it is another visual solution. It is another shortcut in the scenario, but hopefully, you know, we’ll still be rocking human involvement and things like that, you know, for the foreseeable future. But I don’t know, man, we’ll see.
Rob (20:38)
I’m
gonna go on record right now as saying robots, I love you. I will take care of you. I will nurture you. love robots are my friends. am a friend of.
Don (20:41)
Yeah.
Do ⁓
Rob (20:50)
Now.
Really? Yeah, yeah.
What?
Don (21:13)
There we go. ⁓ Happy accident, which
Rob (21:15)
Nice, nice.
Don (21:17)
⁓ I’ve heard actually, you know, eats up more lake water and the environment and this and that all the superfluous, you know, human to robots, right? Which is funny, but she’s the only person I know that actually is kind to the robots. I mean, I’m always like, shut up. I don’t need you. Yeah.
Rob (21:24)
Yeah, sure.
kind to the robot. She’s going to be a survivor. She’s going
to survive the apocalypse because she was kind to the robots. She may be the mother, the robot mother.
Don (21:36)
I know it’s pretty funny. She’ll be the mother is what she’ll be. She’ll be the mother. Yeah.
All right. Well, I don’t know how to get out of this one. ⁓ But it’s another I don’t know. We’ll have the robots figure out where we go from here, I guess, Rob, right?
Rob (21:44)
I don’t know.
Yes, use it to think about your content marketing strategy. We’ll end with that ⁓ bit of guidance. You can find us everywhere. It’s going to be on the screen in just a minute, actually. And you’ll be able to see where to find us.
Don (21:54)
There you go. Then drop us a line at wherever everybody can find us.
There it is. All right, until next time.
Rob (22:06)
Alright, bye everybody.
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