Marketing AI in A Time of Hope and Fear

This poses a serious communication challenge for organizations that have AIrelated technology and services Is saying your offer is AIpowered a good thing or a bad thing Will it raise outsized expectations or send people running for the hills The answer unfortunately for marketers is yes to all of the aboveWe surveyed members of ouramp160Innovation Forum Insight Communityamp160about AI The Innovation Forum is a community of people united by an interest in technology and media These consumers views of AI are deeply divided To better understand these divisions we segmented people using cluster analysis This revealed three distinct schools of thought on AI Optimists Pragmatists and the FearfulThe Optimists see nothing but blue skiesWhen asked what describes AI the Optimists pick words like quotproblem solverquot quotvaluablequot and quotexcitingquot They believe quotAI will allow the human race to advance in ways we39ve never seenquot And they agree more moderately that quotonly good things can happen as AI technology gets smarterquot They expect quotAI provides more benefits than risksquot and that quotAI will create many new jobsquotUnlike the others they also agree strongly that quotAI is becoming extremely prominent in my lifequot This is perhaps because they are more aware of the ways in which AI is currently being used One in three Innovation Forum members is an OptimistFacebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was speaking as an Optimist when he said quotWhenever I hear people saying AI is going to hurt people in the future I think yeah technology can generally always be used for good and bad and you need to be careful about how you build it amp8230 if you39re arguing against AI then you39re arguing against safer cars that aren39t going to have accidents and you39re arguing against being able to better diagnose people when they39re sickquotThe Pragmatists see a few clouds on the horizon but they are not sure if they are storm cloudsThe Pragmatists see more shades of grey with AI Like Optimists they see AI as a quotproblem solverquot But they also picked words like quotmysteriousquot quotcomplicatedquot and to a lesser degree quotscaryquot as describing AIThey moderately agree quotAI will allow the human race to advance in ways we39ve never seenquot but they also lean towards believing that quotAI will cause many people to lose their jobsquot And while they tend to think quotAI provides more benefits than risksquot they acknowledge quotthere are downsides to AI technology getting smarterquot Just over four in ten Innovation Forum members are PragmatistsFormer US President Barrack Obama was speaking as a Pragmatist when he said quotWe39ve been seeing specialized AI in every aspect of our lives from medicine and transportation to how electricity is distributed and it promises to create a vastly more productive and efficient economy amp8230 But it also has some downsides that we39re gonna have to figure out in terms of not eliminating jobs It could increase inequality It could suppress wagesquotThe Fearful see the Apocalypse on the horizonThe Fearful see only negatives with AI The words they choose to describe it are things like quotscaryquot quotinvasivequot quotintimidatingquot and quotuncontrolledquotThey firmly believe quotAI is threatening the existence of the human racequot and that quotthere are downsides to AI technology getting smarterquot The Fearful think quotAI will cause many people to lose their jobsquot and that ultimately quotAI poses more risks than benefitsquot One in four Innovation Forum members is FearfulPhysicist Stephen Hawking was speaking as one of the Fearful when he said quotThe development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race amp8230 it would take off on its own and redesign itself at an everincreasing rate Humans who are limited by slow biological evolution couldn39t compete and would be supersededquotIntriguingly the Fearful tend to think quotAI has had no impact on my life so farquot perhaps because their vision of AI is so different from the Optimists Is the Google search I used in writing this article AI The Fearful who are picturing AI as life in the Terminator would probably say no But the Optimists would likely say yes Such is the division over this loaded term This has important implicationsWhat it means to them is what mattersAI is a term that is a lot like nitroglycerin If you have angina nitroglycerin can save your life by expanding the blood vessels in your heart just when you need it most But if you have a beaker of nitroglycerin and you drop it it can explode and end your lifeSo how do you handle marketing AI Carefully Informed message development and testing is always important but in this context it is critical This suggests that investing inamp160culturally contextualizedamp160qualitative research and message testing with tools likeamp160Message Filteramp160are not just good investments they are essentialClick the social buttons above or below to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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Marketing AI in A Time of Hope and Fear

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Kim Arnold

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Marketing AI in A Time of Hope and Fear

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