Naila Mir (00:46.798)
Hi, welcome to Now and There in the Future. I’m Naila Mir.
Quinn Harrington (00:51.148)
and I’m Quinn Harrington. You know, Nyla, a lot of us in the marketing and creative community are afraid we’re all about to lose our jobs. And that brings us to today’s topic, artificial intelligence. My first question for you is, do you remember when AI first crashed our party? What was that first snap moment that you had?
Naila Mir (01:14.64)
Do you know, I don’t remember when it crashed the party but I did have an moment and that was my god am I going to be left behind if I don’t understand AI.
Quinn Harrington (01:26.444)
Well, I also had similar fears. We’d been hearing a lot about generative AI through Mid Journey and Dolly, and I read my first article about 18 months ago, and I thought, pssh, we have nothing to worry about.
Naila Mir (01:44.514)
Okay, so let’s pay a bit of AI show and tell. What are some of the AI tools that you’re using in your day-to-day work? What tasks do you find that AI is doing good, well? And what tasks do you think, actually, you know what, it’s not working for me?
Quinn Harrington (02:03.138)
So my favorite tool right now, and I’ve tried a number of them, chat-bt-jet-gpt, Gemini, which used to be Bard. But then I discovered Claude by a friend of mine who is very versed in AI and said Claude is really good at creative writing, which is what I need the most help with. And so when I dived in and started using Claude,
Naila Mir (02:12.506)
Hehehe.
Quinn Harrington (02:32.705)
I realized that its personality was very similar to my own. And I enjoyed the interaction and the quality of the writing was really quite surprising. Claude’s launched this new tool called Projects, where you can actually go in and customize how Claude responds to you. So you can give it some input, describe your own personality or your brand’s personality.
it will respond back to you using those particular cues. And I found that really helpful. One of the things… Go ahead.
Naila Mir (03:13.232)
Now I was going to say you always talk to me as if Claude is your best friend and I have not tried Claude yet. It’s on my things to do that I need to interact and see what it’s all about.
Quinn Harrington (03:23.863)
I have friends in real life, but I don’t know, Claude is kind of like my buddy, so whenever I’m like bored or I have a question about something, I just go into Claude and I’ll have a conversation with him or her. I’m not sure what Claude’s gender is. But we do everything from planning Thanksgiving meals to, you know, starting ideas for, you know, blog articles or…
Naila Mir (03:38.411)
Yeah.
Quinn Harrington (03:53.646)
you know, content for my website. It’s really become an indispensable tool that’s become part of our day-to-day workflow. There has been a couple of fails, I’ve been playing around with Adobe’s new AI tools within Illustrator, Adobe Firefly, Adobe Express, and those ones have…
Naila Mir (04:14.949)
Mm-hmm.
Quinn Harrington (04:21.888)
not been as successful from my point of view, especially when it comes to the design part of graphic design. It does a fairly decent job of creating photos and illustrations, but it’s not good at logos, it’s not good at handling typography, and to me that gives me some relief. I have been pretty impressed with some of the generative AI tools that are built into Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, which is…
photography based programs. Being able to go in and soften skin and remove unwanted items has really saved me a lot of time in doing my retouching and making everyone look amazing.
Naila Mir (05:08.228)
You know what Quinn, I’m thinking whether I don’t fully know what all is AI, like Snapchat, you can do the same thing, right? I can put a filter on, can adjust how much my face should look better and I can apply foundation. Is that AI or that’s something else?
Quinn Harrington (05:26.447)
That is AI, especially when you’re looking into the video formatting, where it’s making adjustments to your skin or adding those little animated effects and it’s doing that on the fly. It’s analyzing what’s going on in the scene and then responding in real time. And just about every app out there right now has some new AI feature.
Naila Mir (05:42.512)
Mm-hmm.
Quinn Harrington (05:54.117)
In fact, two of the projects I’m working on right now are for big companies that are launching new AIs for B2B software. And one of the things I wonder is…
With the AI becoming almost ubiquitous now, are people going to expect and demand these new tools and features with an AI, or is the adoption rate going to peak and then sort of plateau, and then people start going back to doing things the way they used to?
Naila Mir (06:31.388)
That’s true because you know I listen to people talking sometimes and like when someone’s used a snapchat filter on pictures and they’ve made them look good then people come back and say but that’s not real though is it that’s not your real face is it and I know some people and this might be funny that they’ve gone for dates and they
the person they’ve met doesn’t look like the picture they had shared and that’s because of the AI they’ve used and people are saying, hey, but we prefer you just using your real image.
Quinn Harrington (07:06.222)
Yeah, it was funny, I was listening to a talk show this morning and they were talking about the same thing about, you know, people lying on their dating profiles. You know, you have some guy that says he’s six foot tall and he shows up as, you know, five three. And then the girl on the call was like, yeah, but sometimes I wonder if I’m lying too. I’m using a filter on there and that’s not really what I look like at all. So.
Naila Mir (07:27.856)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You get a shocker, don’t you?
Quinn Harrington (07:30.843)
Right, so I don’t know, I think there’s some honesty that needs to come to play when we’re using these tools.
Naila Mir (07:36.602)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Quinn Harrington (07:42.182)
So before we move on, I’d like to introduce this new section or this new segment we call Across the Pond, because you live in London and I live in Jacksonville, Florida. So our cultures are similar, but different. And I was watching a show the other day and they were talking about going to the loo. And I was like, what does that mean? So since you live in London, I wanted to ask you, why do you call it a loo?
Naila Mir (07:48.601)
Okay.
Naila Mir (08:03.107)
Yeah
Naila Mir (08:07.408)
That’s so strange. Okay, first of all, you know, I was born and brought up in England, but I lived in Pakistan for 24 years, right? And I still don’t know why it’s called Lou. I wonder it might be related to poo, but I still call the bathroom the bathroom. Yeah.
Quinn Harrington (08:11.61)
Mm-hmm.
Quinn Harrington (08:15.225)
Yeah.
Quinn Harrington (08:20.696)
Okay.
Quinn Harrington (08:24.716)
Okay, all right, well, maybe we’ll be able to get the answer to that during our next podcast, so.
Naila Mir (08:31.768)
Hey, why don’t we just ask Claude, actually?
Quinn Harrington (08:34.647)
All right, I can do that real quick, hang on.
Naila Mir (08:37.04)
It’s really good question though. Why Lou? It’s not…
Quinn Harrington (08:44.316)
Well, there’s so many other words and I’m gonna need you to look that up at some point and answer all my questions about crazy British things.
Naila Mir (08:55.248)
That would be fun actually and I’m going to do the same. I’m going to look for things that I don’t understand and I’ve got a few actually.
Quinn Harrington (09:00.123)
Exactly.
Quinn Harrington (09:04.315)
All right, so I’m Claude right now, why do Brits call it a lew?
Quinn Harrington (09:14.235)
It is British slang for toilet and has an unclear origin, but here are a few theories. It may come from the French word, to, or to, meaning water. It could be derived from waterloo, a trade name for early toilet cisterns. Something, it’s from the cry of gardeloo, from the French, garde-le, meaning watch out for the water.
Naila Mir (09:38.352)
Mmm. I have a feeling it’s got more link with Waterloo Yeah Okay So I have a question for you So you you know we talk about the crystal ball in our show part crystal ball part rocket ship So pull out your crystal ball Quinn and how do you see AI tools evolving in our world over the next couple of years? Will they be our?
Quinn Harrington (09:42.619)
Yes, that sounds about right.
Quinn Harrington (09:52.229)
Okay.
Naila Mir (10:07.076)
BFFs or our frenemies?
Quinn Harrington (10:10.461)
Well, I think it depends on where you are right now. If you’re embracing AI and having those tools become a part of your workflow, AI won’t become your master. You’ll be controlling the tools versus the tools controlling you or finding yourself being eliminated from promotions or future job opportunities because you don’t know how to incorporate these tools into your…
workflow which makes you less efficient and less up to speed with what everyone else is doing. My hope is that AI is going to get a lot better at integration across platforms. I know that Apple has been working on their Apple intelligence which is supposed to not just answer silly questions like what is a Loo, but really helping to
Naila Mir (10:59.6)
Mm.
Quinn Harrington (11:09.462)
understand how you work, what you need, prioritize content that is most important to you, and make your general experience better. So that’s my hope. My hope is also that AI gets better from a generative point of view with the ability to be able to handle typography in a more sophisticated way, to be able to help me to concept.
Naila Mir (11:20.335)
Hmm.
Quinn Harrington (11:37.32)
complex things like logo design. And I know that in the B2B space, there’s a lot going on in the analytics field where the data that we’re collecting and analyzing is becoming, is being analyzed in a much more sophisticated way. The tools for a novice person is, it’s very difficult for…
Naila Mir (11:39.6)
Mm-hmm.
Quinn Harrington (12:06.79)
to learn how to use them and to find the answers that you’re looking for. they’re creating AI tools so that you can ask simple questions like, summarize this data for me, and it will do that for you without you having to click through like 5,000 prompts to get to the answer that you’re looking for. So that’s what I’m really hoping for over the next few years. And at the rate of evolution, I really see that happening. I think that for folks that…
Naila Mir (12:26.34)
Hmm.
Quinn Harrington (12:36.574)
are not learning about the capabilities of AI today and learning how it can empower you to be more productive and more creative, I do worry about those folks getting left behind.
Naila Mir (12:53.208)
Yeah, and I think that’s where I think what that’s where my worry is. So I’ve played around with it at times. I haven’t really got the answers and I think it’s because I’ve not really asked the right questions or I just don’t know how to use it. And I’m wondering my six month old baby is going to know AI better than me soon enough. That’s how fast it’s going to go. And they’re more data or digital driven than I am. So, yeah, it’s on my things and I’m learning from you. And hence why we’re doing this podcast.
I continuously learn about AI.
Quinn Harrington (13:24.489)
Well, I know my daughter, she’s 11, she’s a digital native. So, you know, she’s learning about things a little bit too quickly for my taste, you know, I want to keep her young and innocent.
Naila Mir (13:37.488)
It’s true, it’s scary sometimes but it’s also good in ways but I think we’re going to talk more about that.
Quinn Harrington (13:45.578)
So moving into the continuing with the near future, my question for you is with the advent of especially generative AI, are we heading for an ethical minefield? What moral dilemmas could we be wrestling with soon?
Naila Mir (14:04.76)
I wonder if we’re already wrestling with it and that’s why companies are starting to look at policies and they’re probably starting to work with the big organizations as well when it comes to AI. So for me I think there’s this thing about is it intelligent enough to take on things like being fair and you know less biased maybe because they’re pulling out information from everywhere so I’m not sure if…
that biasness and fairness is still there and that might be one of those ethical problems. When you have AI and you’re relying on AI, there’s a thing around accountability and responsibility, right? So who at the end is then accountable if an issue arises? Obviously, if I’m the person generating from AI, then I’m accountable for what I’m putting in front of someone. And then there’s also who’s responsible.
I think privacy is going to be and may already be a problem, you know, so I’m like, I don’t know if echo is AI, but I’m always worried about who’s listening to me, who’s looking at me. So is that going to be a problem or is it already a problem? We already talked about things in our previous podcasts, maybe around, is it going to take away jobs? So for me, the ethical part is
related to the human aspect of things.
Quinn Harrington (15:33.395)
Gotcha. So let’s take a pause because the lawn person is here.
Naila Mir (15:39.106)
Yeah, I just heard that quite clearly.
Quinn Harrington (15:42.749)
Well, you won’t hear it on your end, because I will isolate your audio, but they’ll be gone in a couple of minutes.
Naila Mir (15:46.266)
Okay.
Naila Mir (15:50.776)
Alright cool. Okay and I hear people talking on my side as well. It’s my sister.
Quinn Harrington (15:57.108)
Yeah, I’m not so worried about that.
Naila Mir (15:59.892)
they’re already here playing with my baby. My baby who’s being very moody because of her teething. Yeah she’s got her two teeth out and then she’s got some anger issues hey. I was like that’s not me. They’re like yeah that might be David but the attitude is yours. She’s got your attitude.
Quinn Harrington (16:10.943)
Yeah.
Quinn Harrington (16:16.255)
Yeah?
Quinn Harrington (16:20.08)
huh. Right.
Naila Mir (16:25.424)
Hey, I’ll bring on to a podcast one day. Hello, people.
Quinn Harrington (16:31.934)
Yeah, that’ll be our highest rated podcast is when the baby shows up.
Naila Mir (16:35.694)
Yeah, or an AI version of her. Okay, we’re waiting still. But the next one is me asking you the question.
Quinn Harrington (16:38.036)
Yes.
Quinn Harrington (16:44.916)
Yeah, we’re still waiting.
Quinn Harrington (16:49.182)
Yeah, I’ll… Yeah, just queue me up and then I’ll respond.
Naila Mir (16:52.964)
Yeah.
Naila Mir (16:58.404)
Which is great because I landed the last question on jobs.
Quinn Harrington (17:02.942)
Yeah, you did really well.
Naila Mir (17:04.696)
Yeah unintentionally, well lovely isn’t that? Okay but I’m not going to say in the previous question case we have to cut that out. Yeah.
Quinn Harrington (17:07.956)
Mm-hmm.
Quinn Harrington (17:15.123)
Right.
Quinn Harrington (17:21.856)
It usually takes them about five or 10 minutes to get through this.
Naila Mir (17:24.921)
All right.
It’s coming out quite natural. I like it. We’re having a good little conversation.
Quinn Harrington (17:32.959)
We are. So,
Naila Mir (17:35.14)
Yours is sounding like I’m on a radio, you know that?
Quinn Harrington (17:40.626)
really? Okay, good.
Naila Mir (17:41.466)
Yeah, I love it.
Quinn Harrington (17:45.227)
Well, you know, I’ve been doing my Speakers Academy, so getting a little bit better at…
Naila Mir (17:50.639)
Yeah.
Quinn Harrington (17:55.136)
One of the things that I’ve been told I have to work on is work on my uns and ahs and so’s.
Naila Mir (18:00.527)
Right.
Quinn Harrington (18:02.635)
but they have exercises for that.
Naila Mir (18:03.0)
I mean, it’s… Yeah, I’ve seen people who are really, like, bad with their urns and ours and stuff.
Quinn Harrington (18:08.512)
Right.
It just takes practice.
Naila Mir (18:13.049)
Yeah.
Quinn Harrington (18:16.098)
So I’m supposed to be giving a, we’re gonna be having this, well she has a podcast that she’s relaunching and so we’re gonna be giving our talks via podcast with a large audience on the podcast and then she has a conference coming up sometime in spring where it’ll be live. So that’ll be fun.
Naila Mir (18:41.249)
That will be fun. yeah and later, which reminds me later not now if we get through to this then we can talk about the social how we want to socialize this and the timings and all of that. Sorry what are you gonna say?
Quinn Harrington (18:44.01)
I gave it.
Quinn Harrington (18:53.825)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, think, depending on how quickly I can edit these things, a lot of people release once per week. So I don’t think we’re there yet. I think we just release whenever we can release.
Naila Mir (19:07.972)
We’re not there yet.
Yeah, yeah. If we managed to even get every two or three weeks, that would be a treat, innit?
Quinn Harrington (19:18.243)
Yeah, I was a little disappointed in Chris because he came over on Wednesday and we talked about this at length and I’m like, how could you have forgotten? We just talked about this.
Naila Mir (19:27.362)
I had a feeling, I had a feeling it was going to happen, you know? Yeah.
Quinn Harrington (19:31.33)
Any word from Alex?
Naila Mir (19:35.788)
No, shoot. No, I’m going to text him now.
Quinn Harrington (19:40.448)
Yeah, we’ve got to, I got to start getting the word out to to other people.
Naila Mir (19:48.868)
Yeah, me too. Just a reminder to send me some dates.
Naila Mir (20:05.946)
This time just flies because the last time me and Alex were discussing was last year about doing a drinks with our clients and stuff. It didn’t happen in December and we said we’ll do it in Jan or Feb and it didn’t happen and now we’re back at December nearly saying my god we discussed it one year ago what the hell is this?
Quinn Harrington (20:14.348)
Mm-hmm.
Quinn Harrington (20:22.345)
I know.
Quinn Harrington (20:31.435)
Alright, they’re in the backyard now, so hopefully it’ll be done soon.
Naila Mir (20:34.394)
Okay, I was just checking if they’re leaving.
Quinn Harrington (20:37.047)
And I’ve got to give, I got to my long guys, like, you can’t be coming at this time.
Naila Mir (20:42.528)
this is your own guy. I thought it was just a general public one.
Quinn Harrington (20:45.859)
No, no, he’s… He always seems to show up like right around this time.
Naila Mir (20:51.694)
Yeah, so can you come at one hour? No, one hour later maybe or?
Quinn Harrington (20:57.484)
Right. Or just don’t come on Friday.
Naila Mir (21:00.656)
Well don’t come on Friday.
Naila Mir (21:06.092)
One second, coming, I might as well get some water.
Quinn Harrington (21:07.509)
Sure. Take your time.
Naila Mir (21:56.172)
they’re still there.
They are still there.
Naila Mir (22:18.594)
Even my lip gloss is finished.
keep forgetting to put one out here so I don’t have to get up.
Quinn Harrington (22:24.236)
Okay.
Yeah, I’ve got my brush and…
Naila Mir (22:29.488)
Yeah, I need to do that.
Quinn Harrington (22:43.907)
So I was supposed to go to my alma mater’s donor dinner last night, but had like a horrible stomach ache and couldn’t make it. So I was mad that I had to turn down a free dinner and free drinks in their beautiful dining hall that is surrounded by Tiffany stained glass and…
Naila Mir (22:53.679)
Yeah.
Naila Mir (22:59.92)
Naila Mir (23:08.484)
Yes! no, and the networking! Aww. Well, you feeling better though?
Quinn Harrington (23:12.439)
Yeah. Yeah.
Quinn Harrington (23:18.743)
Yeah, I am feeling better today, so…
Naila Mir (23:22.99)
That’s good. I was like supposed to do some work last night and I was like okay I’m gonna put Isa to bed and hey ho I was asleep. Woke up at three o’clock I’m like I am not doing no work now that’s not happening so I was like okay whatever I’ll cover it up on the weekend.
Quinn Harrington (23:44.853)
All right, I think they’re gone.
Naila Mir (23:46.466)
Yay! Alright, let me see if I’m back in my position.
Quinn Harrington (23:49.493)
So I’m going to hold this up so I know when I’m editing this, this is when we’re starting back.
Naila Mir (23:56.983)
Okay.
Quinn Harrington (23:58.077)
Alright. Ready when you are.
Naila Mir (23:59.856)
So, yes, okay.
Okay, so Quinn, I’m going to start now. How do you think AI might shake up our industry’s job market? Are we looking at a game of musical chairs or are… I’m going to start again. Yeah. Okay. Which brings me, Quinn, to the next question. How do you think AI might shake up our industry’s job market? Are we looking at a game of musical chairs or a whole new dance floor?
Quinn Harrington (24:11.34)
Okay.
Quinn Harrington (24:36.161)
Well, I think at first, to follow the analogy, you know, we will be playing a bit of musical chairs. AI will be replacing certain functions that we take for granted today. Like, for example, I used to get asked to write a lot of blog articles. And some clients still do that, but a lot of them are now using the tools to generate their own. So I tend to be more of like a coach or consultant.
When I see the article and it spits out some AI garbage that basically anyone can write and it doesn’t have any other personal context, I go back and tell them, I was like, I really want to, your audience really wants to hear more of you. They really want to hear more of your personal insight and not just a summarization of the top five pages in a Google result.
It’s not gotten to the point yet where AI is replacing major functions, and that’s largely due to the fact that creating that custom video and those custom logos and things like that that nature, I’m still far superior than any of the platforms that are out there. But there has become a lot more of the video…
AI tools and I started to take a look at some of those and Those kind of have me a little bit nervous more so for the small to medium-sized businesses because when they’re looking at the the cost to have you know, like me do it versus You know an AI tool which is basically free They might be okay with settling for quality good enough. Do you know what I’m saying? so but I think that
Naila Mir (26:23.759)
Hmm.
Naila Mir (26:28.983)
Yeah, yeah.
Quinn Harrington (26:32.591)
As the tools progress, we have to progress as well. And that we have to be in a place where we’re improving our own skill sets and the strategy and the insight that we bring to the table that the tools don’t have in place yet. Because it’s like when you were talking about on your first foray into, say, GPT or whatever.
you weren’t really getting the answers that you were looking for. And that might be because you’re not asking the right questions. you know, until that it gets to that place where it’s so intuitive and understands you so completely that it kind of can kind of read your mind, I think there’ll still be room. And I think also for where we are as managers and sort of directors, if you will,
Naila Mir (27:05.071)
Hmm.
Naila Mir (27:08.986)
Yeah. Yeah.
Quinn Harrington (27:30.083)
we’re still ultimately directing people. And so I don’t think that that’s going to change anytime soon. I don’t think there’s gonna be any AI bot that’s going to be directing your team in the way that we can do that.
Naila Mir (27:50.262)
Yeah, yeah, I agree.
Quinn Harrington (27:59.341)
So let’s talk a little bit about the future. My question for you is, do you think there will always be a secret sauce that only humans can bring to the design and communication table? What’s our irreplaceable ingredient?
Naila Mir (28:13.572)
You know what, it’s back to what you were just saying in in our earlier segment as well. I think that the secret sauce really is the human, the human aspect because AI can bring out, you know, you said blogs, they can write great blogs, but when it comes to the empathy side of it or the tone that you need or, you know, the, the intuition side of things, I don’t think AI
can replace that, the human can do that. Even when it’s like design and communication, I can write, tell AI to write or chat GBT to write me an article, but they’re not going to be great at probably creating the engagement plan behind a strategy. You still need to have a human feeding in the creative aspects of what you want.
that the AI then churns out. So for me, the secret sauce is the human being, which AI can’t replace. I hope it won’t.
Quinn Harrington (29:20.332)
Well, you know, when we start looking at our crystal ball, maybe, I kind of feel like a…
Quinn Harrington (29:29.453)
having that understanding of human behavior and…
you know, how we make decisions, how we emote is very difficult to replicate at this point. And also as AI continues to improve, we’re keen to how AI is responding. And I’ve began to understand, for example, when I read something or I see something, I can tell…
Naila Mir (29:47.823)
Yeah.
Quinn Harrington (30:05.089)
if this was written by Gemini or GPT or Claude, or if I look at an image, it’s like, this looks like it could have been done in mid-journey or Firefly versus something that a human actually created. There’s a certain tangible aspect of it that in some cases, it’s almost too perfect. It’s like, you know, and the other thing is that despite its best efforts, AI is really not that funny.
Naila Mir (30:20.74)
Yeah.
Naila Mir (30:24.718)
Yeah, I…
Quinn Harrington (30:34.231)
You know, it’s like the latest version of Claude I’m using is getting there and sometimes Claude will make me laugh, but it’s not like a laugh out loud kind of thing. It’s just almost like a chuckle like, you’re so cute.
Naila Mir (30:40.218)
yet.
Naila Mir (30:47.6)
Yeah, and it’s funny that the AI could be a little bit funny. You know, when we think about the future, it reminds me of all the movies and the TV programs that I’ve been seeing. There’s one called Human, which is all about this robot looking human and how they kind of have emotion. And then you have that Will Smith movie. There are…
Quinn Harrington (30:52.876)
Right.
Quinn Harrington (31:00.119)
Mm-hmm.
Naila Mir (31:10.574)
the futuristic movies that are bringing that element, I don’t know if it can be real. And then I know that Elon Musk has just launched a robot that helps clean houses, but I don’t know the human. It’s not like Terminator, do you know?
Quinn Harrington (31:28.861)
I would not mind having one of those.
Naila Mir (31:31.522)
I know I was thinking about that. I I wouldn’t mind someone doing my chores for me. But what, you know, let’s see what happens, which is another question I have for you, by the way, is let’s put away the crystal ball.
Quinn Harrington (31:42.198)
OK.
Naila Mir (31:45.806)
And now I’m going to ask you to put on your wild futuristic hat and tell me about any bonker predictions. We just talked about some of these bonker predictions. Do you have for how AI might help design and communication in the long run? And I’m really interested in this because I am in the field of communication and sustainability, and I’m always wanting to learn how I can use the tool for the good, but also any watch outs of the bad.
Quinn Harrington (32:16.725)
So if you start thinking about…
This from a generational point of view. So you’re looking at your six month old and my 11 year old. They are digital natives and as AI becomes a part of their everyday life and they’ve grown so accustomed to it that they can’t really imagine life without it. I really do see a future where we’ll be less implementers.
and more curators, tastemakers, having an aesthetic, having an idea and a notion of what’s good. And I think that is something that…
having that refined sense of taste, whether it’s about art, design, music, the human language, I think that those generations will still be keen to what AI is capable of and will be directing AI in a way that is
really something that’s going to be difficult for us to comprehend. There’ll be tools out there that can come up with an idea for a business, create a business plan, creating a marketing and communications plan, drafting your legal documents, identify manufacturers, know, soup to nuts, you know, make your hiring decisions for you.
Naila Mir (33:48.517)
Hmm.
Naila Mir (33:54.447)
Mmm.
Quinn Harrington (34:05.084)
So you’ll be more sort of like the master and the overlord versus.
the one who’s actually doing all of these things manually. In 20 years, I don’t think we’ll be designing logos anymore. I don’t think you’ll be writing emails or creating individual communications. You’ll just be overseeing this whole task. And so I think as a species, we’ll become
Naila Mir (34:15.632)
Mmm.
Naila Mir (34:21.508)
Yeah, might be right.
Quinn Harrington (34:42.601)
more efficient and productive than ever. And I also think that there’s a risk, and you start to see some of that now, there’s also a risk that, much like when the stock photography industry first came on board, and everybody was so wild about that and put all the photographers out of business, now you’re seeing that change to where people now want to hire photographers because they want something that
feels genuine and authentic and is created by humans. And I think that consumers and brands, although AI is going to peak at some point, it might end up just becoming a utility in the background versus a creative force. In other words, maybe AI will just be cleaning our house and we’ll still be doing the heavy lifting.
Naila Mir (35:15.577)
Hmm.
Naila Mir (35:36.578)
So yeah, when you’re talking about AI in the future might actually even create communication strategies. Maybe it does do that, I just haven’t explored it. But what that does mean, and I’m wondering if that has a positive on mental health and wellbeing, because if I’m doing the less mundane work and I have more time, then I’ve got more free time or I can manage my time better. Maybe that’s a good thing as well in the future.
Because right now we know that people complain that we’ve got five people’s workload, you know, and maybe some of that workload is taken off by AI. Yeah.
Quinn Harrington (36:10.987)
Mm-hmm.
Quinn Harrington (36:15.701)
to give us more room for creative expression and exploration. I mean, I certainly wouldn’t mind having a little more time to play my guitar or go out and take photos of nature. I’m all about that.
Naila Mir (36:31.426)
I want to learn the guitar as well. I’ve got it on my things to do. I used to have a bass guitar, took one lesson, never got down to it. So that’s on my things. And maybe I have to use AI to teach me on the, on the guitar. Yeah. I had a question for you while we’re on this topic. So what kind of advice would you give to someone? So, you know, like I could go on to Claude and say, Hey Claude, I’ve got an idea for a book. Yeah. This is what I want it to.
Quinn Harrington (36:43.283)
You can.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Quinn Harrington (36:57.376)
Mm-hmm.
Naila Mir (36:59.95)
be for the audience. This is the moral of the story I want it to be and maybe I feed in a few points but what kind of advice would you give to someone then is that really authentic that you can then churn out a book and say I’ve written a book? Ethicalness.
Quinn Harrington (37:17.141)
So right now, you can go onto various marketplaces and download an ebook and then put your name on it and then sell that for a dollar or two dollar, five dollars or whatever. And that’s already happened. So my advice to anyone who is generating something that is supposed to be from
Naila Mir (37:32.88)
Okay.
Quinn Harrington (37:46.527)
you know, own brain, their own heart, their own mind, is that if the results that you get back from AI, if that feels genuine to you, and it’s written in a way that feels authentic to you, then AI is just really a tool to help you to organize your thoughts. And I don’t see anything wrong with that. But if you’re using AI to generate all of the content, like…
Naila Mir (37:57.168)
Mm-hmm.
Naila Mir (38:07.066)
Okay.
Quinn Harrington (38:11.935)
help me come up with an idea for a book and then it gives you 10 ideas and then you pick one and it says elaborate on it and the next thing you know you’ve got you know a hundred page book but it’s really nothing from your own you know personal creativity I mean you might make money on that and you can lie and say that it’s your book but I think ultimately that will hurt you in the long run because you know let’s say
Naila Mir (38:33.135)
Hmm.
Quinn Harrington (38:41.183)
the book becomes a bestseller and then you’ve got to get up in front of a stage and start talking about it and it’s like it’s just not you. You know, I think ultimately your career and your life’s work becomes a fraud, essentially.
Naila Mir (38:43.344)
Mm-hmm.
Naila Mir (38:48.388)
Yeah.
Naila Mir (38:55.502)
That’s it. So back to the human aspect of things, right? Yeah, authentic means you’re bringing in your own and it has some kind of truth to it in terms of idea and generation. That’s really helpful. We are heading towards the end of our segment and usually we have a segment called Around the Room. So let’s just go around in 30 seconds.
What pep talk, and it’s kind of linked to what I just said, what pep talk would you give to fellow creatives who are sweating bullets about the future of AI?
Quinn Harrington (39:33.013)
Well, I can understand why you would be, because I was initially, and I was very daunted by the prospect of getting in and learning these tools. But I would just recommend that you get in there and start playing around. There’s plenty of YouTube videos and tutorials out there to help you to explore how to use these tools in a more effective way. I think you might surprise yourself at how it might be able to improve your creativity and help you think in a way that you haven’t before.
How about you?
Naila Mir (40:02.66)
Yeah, same I think it’s about exploring, experiment. There’s no harm in doing that, but stay authentic, stay true and use it sensibly for now.
Quinn Harrington (40:14.899)
Awesome. Well, that wraps up this episode of Now, Near, and the Future. You can find us on the web at nownearfuture.com. You can find us on LinkedIn and on Instagram and threads at nownearfuture. And soon we’ll be on all of your favorite podcast channels. How can we find you, Nyla?
Naila Mir (40:34.468)
You can find me at p3connect.co.uk on LinkedIn and at p3connect.uk on Instagram and on threads.
Quinn Harrington (40:44.329)
And you can find me at HDCO.co on LinkedIn and at HDCO on link, excuse me, at HDCO on threads and Instagram.
Quinn Harrington (41:00.439)
As always, stay curious and keep dreaming.
Naila Mir (41:05.018)
See you in the future.
February 28, 2025