I’ve written and talked before about how there are two distinct camps in radio when it comes to AI, those who are embracing it and those who are afraid of it and are refusing to use it. I am personally in the former. I use AI every day in virtually all aspects of what I do and I encourage everyone who’ll listen to do the same otherwise it’s impossible to compete with those of us that do. However, I completely understand the fear associated with AI. It’s already been used for nefarious mis-information purposes and there’s a long list of other ways AI could be used to harm humanity in the future. It’s evolving faster than any of us could of anticipated, so it’s impossible to know exactly where it’s headed and when it’s going to get there. Which makes it nearly impossible to regulate, even if we did have the appetite to do so because countries that regulate AI run the risk of falling behind countries that don’t. Here are a few quotes from people on the inside of the race to build AI, and famous futurists, that could give us some insight into where AI is headed.

Billionaire and Microsoft co-founder, Bill Gates, recently said this ominous statement about AI, “In 10 years AI will do what doctors and teachers do, humans won’t be needed for most things.”

When AI first came out the initial fear was that it would wipe out all the remaining low skill, low paying jobs that automation hadn’t already eliminated and make it even harder for middle and lower class workers to make a living. That hasn’t happened. Instead, some of the first jobs it’s come for are on the creative side. Hollywood now needs less writers because AI can generate a higher volume of first scripts than all the writers in the world could generate. So, now they just need a handful of writers to fine tune scripts. Hence why we had a 148-day writer’s strike in 2023. Audio and video editors are also in lower demand now that AI can do some of the heavy lifting there. The same goes for a wide variety of professions where people use their brain instead of their hands to make things. So, it’s not hard to imagine Bill Gates quote coming to fruition. The only thing he may be wrong about is the timing. It might not take 10 years.

A few other notable and frightening AI Quotes:

“The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race. It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever-increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete, and would be superseded.” – Stephen Hawking

“AI doesn’t hate you, nor does it love you, but you are made of atoms which it can use for something else.” – Eliezer Yudkowsky

The prevailing feeling within the tech world now is that anything with a human isn’t scalable. I’ve heard variations of this statement from lots of silicon valley types over the past few years. This is a concept that’s being openly accepted by much of the business community now. That’s why you see companies bragging about how few employees they have now instead of how big they are.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a one-size fits all solution for how businesses across industries should react to AI’s rapid evolution. In my opinion radio is in a prime position to benefit, especially in the short term, by embracing AI tools in an ethical manner. As we all know, our industry has been short-staffed for years now and those staffs are shrinking by the day now, not by the year. Adopting and using AI tools to make our limited staff look, feel and sound like much larger staffs is one major way we could reverse this shrinking trend and get back some of the market share of advertising dollars we have lost. Especially because it positions us well to get those sought after digital dollars that we so desperately need amidst the recent market instability.

What do you think? How have you approached AI at your stations? Comment below or email me at Andy@RadioStationConsultant.com.