Oh my god they killed creativity!

I work in advertising. I pay my bills and pay my staff by being creative.

OK, we’re not painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling here or coming up with the next Yesterday, but looking at a client’s problem and finding an unexpected and effective solution is what they hire us for.

So am I worried about the rise of artificial intelligence? Not so much. Here’s why.

I was having coffee with a client the other day. Very smart woman, to the point where I sometimes wonder why she even needs us.

Like me, she’s a learner. Every time we meet, we’ll compare notes on whatever course or self-study we’re doing.

Right now, she’s doing a course on artificial intelligence. As part of that, the class has a weekly homework assignment to explore a different AI platform, complete a task and report back.

I don’t remember the name of this week’s platform, but the task she set herself, my client explained, was to create a Christmas video. You know, the sort of thing companies create and post on social media each year to thank their clients and staff for the year that’s gone.

To create the video, she said, she just uploaded still images of her CEO and another person, told the AI platform she wanted a 30 second Christmas-themed video greeting, and clicked “go.”

Seven or eight minutes later and her video was done. The CEO and the other person were now fully moving lifelike characters. The video featured Christmas music, lots of sparkly green and red, and the kinds of Christmas activities you’d expect... decorating the tree, hanging up stockings, that sort of thing. Exactly what you’d expect to see if you imagined a lushly-produced corporate Christmas video. (Which is exactly what the AI was asked to do.)

Stories of corporate Christmas videos, though, always remind me of this one. I’ve never seen it, and I’m not sure it’s available anywhere, but here’s the synopsis:

Four young boys are singing “We wish you a merry Christmas,” when one of them points out that one of the group is Jewish. The Jewish boy then starts to sing a traditional Jewish song instead, but is mocked by his friends. Their arguing is interrupted when Jesus appears, asking them to lead him to the mall, where they find Santa Claus.

Jesus is angry with Santa because he feels he diminishes the memory of Jesus' birthday with his presents. Santa, insistent that Christmas is a time for giving, rouses Jesus into fighting him, claiming that "there can be only one". Their fight causes large-scale destruction that kills various bystanders, including one of the boys.

The boys realize that the true meaning of Christmas is presents, and their Jewish friend remarks that Jewish children receive presents for eight days during Hannukah. Intrigued, the other boys decide to become Jews as well, and the three leave the scene as rats gather near their friend’s corpse.

No tinsel, no tree and absolutely not what you’d expect from a Christmas video.

That corporate Christmas video was called Jesus versus Santa. It was commissioned for $1000 by a 20th Century Fox studio executive in 1995 to send to his friends.

The animators were (if you haven’t guessed already) Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and the boys were Cartman, Kyle, Stan and Kenny.

That sort of creativity doesn’t come by being expected, or by looking back at every corporate Christmas video ever made and generating a glittering, colourful average of all of them. It comes from being anything but average and anything but expected.

Can AI crank out good-looking stuff that looks a lot like all the good-looking stuff that came before? Absolutely. And it’s only going to get better at it.

What it’s not likely to get better at is the kind of weird, dumb, off-brief, vulgar, low-tech, brilliant stuff that turned a $1000 corporate job into South Park.

So am I worried about the rise of artificial intelligence? Not so much.