This Monday we got the chance to visit the V&A in London, specifically the exhibition “The Future Starts Here”. Now, first of all; I don’t ever miss a chance to visit London, and second; I love museums! And what is more interesting than an exhibition on the future? Not a lot.
The exhibition was really interesting with a lot of already shaped ideas and technology which could be used to enhance our daily lives. There was also some things that gave me the feeling of being in a science fiction movie. But the cool thing is that most of it is real and being worked on right now.
One thing that really stood the most out for me was the Avatar called “Eternime mobile app”.
It is an app partly inspired by the TV-show Black Mirror, and it will gather memories and thoughts from your digital footprint. Later, the content is uploaded to this interactive avatar and family and friends can interact with the avatar after your death. From a PR-perspective it got me thinking. What could artificial intelligence mean for the future of PR? I went on to do some research about it, and it turns out that a lot of people are already discussing this. The topics I found most interesting were as follows:
- Calling out fake news
Matt Silver, believes that AI has a great potential in verifying information, its accuracy and the intentions of its sources. This is in regards to the false leads and fake stories that appear every day, where PR practitioners must be able to verify and sort out the falsehood to preserve the reputation of their organization or client. - Writing press releases
Matt Silver, also has some ideas about AI functioning as a way to ingest information from an organization, understand what it is based on human inputs, and then being able to create a press release ready to be posted. - Analyzing data
Alex Siracusa, says that interpreting data is more useful than ever in the field, as it is dynamic and reusable but also because it is the foundation for credible and persuasive content.
This is where I believe AI will get a bigger role in the future doing the work that sometimes involves human failure.
AI + PR = ?
Even though the future looks pretty good, there are still some questions I feel need answering, like; what will be the PR-practitioners role if most of the work could be outsourced to robotics? And how far will this technology go? The only answer I have today is that i do believe that AI will be a part of PR in the future. But, I do not believe that it will substitute us, but rather compliment us. And as to how far it will go, i believe this technology will develop fast – it already has by viewing the exhibition. But one of the greatest strengths mankind has is the ability to adapt and further evolve – as we have many times.
- Silje
Silje Bekkelund 