After a flurry of posts and discontent it hadn’t arrived, and a number of other brands sharing their own version of Wrapped - Spotify finally unveiled their annual celebration of ‘the songs that you loved this year’, which for the first time had an AI podcast at the top.

After a year where marketeers and beyond have worried, debated, discussed and pontificated about the effect AI technology might have on life - the podcast in partnership with Google NotebookLM was sat at the top of my Top Songs of 2024. 

In my case anyway, four minutes and 3 seconds of ‘wow,’ ‘we’re so excited’ and a less-than-convincing ‘what happened on March 3?’ didn’t give me any more information which hadn’t been revealed in the Instagram Story-like, instantly shareable video reveal - and made me wonder whether AI will have a creative future?

Ben Affleck’s case for ‘taste’

Speaking at CNBC’s Delivering Alpha 2024 investor summit, actor Ben Affleck lit up social channels and comment sections after delivering an argument against AI in Hollywood. 

His position of ‘it won’t replace human beings making films’ caused consternation amongst those who fear AI tools (or perhaps have financial skin-in-the-game) like Midjourney and Sora - but has Spotify and Google’s collaboration somewhat proved his point?

‘AI is a craftsman at best’ Affleck stated, ‘they’re just cross-pollinating things that exist, nothing new is created.

‘Craftsmanship is knowing how to work, art is knowing when to stop - and I think knowing when to stop is going to be a very difficult thing for AI to learn because it’s taste.’

He continued by saying he could absolutely see a world where you could create an episode of Succession where Kendall wins the company (and in a strange twist of events runs off with Stewy) - but it would be ‘pretty janky’.

Similar to a pretty janky  podcast discussing my listening habits of 2024 proudly stating I started listening to my No. 1 song of the year (Jamie xx and Honey Dijon’s Baddy on the Floor) the day after it was released meaning I’m ‘always on top of new releases.’

The case for AI and art 

There’s no doubt what Spotify and Google did was clever - even if it wasn’t entirely necessary or asked for - and there’s no other way to make 601m individual shows for all of Spotify’s global monthly active users (s/o Chat GPT for the stat).

But, as Affleck continued, there is a place for AI in creating art and it’s by ‘disintermediating the more laborious, less creative and more costly aspects of filmmaking which will allow the costs to be brought down and lower the barrier to entry.’

Areas such as visual effects Affleck believes will be hit - while hinting they’ve probably been sitting on a bit of gravy train - but in doing so it’ll allow more to be created, faster offering more choice to fans.

Similarly, with digital asset creation tools such as Format - creatives can use AI to reduce the time it takes to perform repetitive tasks. 

The technology can remove backgrounds from images and video, or balance text across lines to improve the speed and efficiency of output, while giving the human user more time to make the most of their skills - whether that’s designing a greater range of beautiful graphics, or a social media manager being able to turn around assets themselves.

Embracing AI as a creative tool

Returning to Affleck’s craftsman metaphor - we should be using AI as a tool, just as humanity has adapted throughout history and embraced new technologies to enhance their work in all industries. 

What AI can do is insane and can add a vast array of skills to a filmmaker or marketeer's bow; allowing others who have trained in areas and understand the power of embracing it to be even better. 

Spotify Wrapped is genius - and its use of AI and machine learning to process data and spit out something which friends talk about over Christmas get togethers and brands imitate is unrivaled (even their weird music genre compositions can be quite fun - Serotonin Catwalk House was big for me in March…)

But just chucking AI at something won’t and can’t create something which connects with humans better than humans. You need the pain, joy, understanding, frustration and every other feeling and emotion in the creative process to contextualise and craft - to allow for taste. 

Could this change? Of course. But it’s also interesting to hear the likes of Cade Metz, a technology reporter at the New York Times, report on an episode of The Daily entitled A.I.’s Original Sin that the data which trains these systems (text, images, video) is being used up faster than humans can create it.

‘One research organisation estimates that by 2026, these companies will run out of viable data on the internet.’

Time will tell…

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