Have you read Something Big Is Happening by Matt Shumer, CEO and Co-Founder of OthersideAI? It’s the piece where he sets out the argument that AI is about to up-end our world (and so we should, amongst other things, get our financial house in order in the face of an imminent jobs collapse).
I was sceptical of the article at the time. When a friend sent me a link to it and expressed her concern, my response was: “Cynically, you could also read it as ‘we’ve invested billions of dollars in AI and now we need to convince people to start paying for it otherwise we’re financial toast’.”
Writer and speaker Ann Handley took the piece down even more effectively in her response, Something Messy Is Happening: On AI, Panic, and Asking Better Questions.
In one section of Matt’s piece, he said:
… the managing partner at a large firm, spends hours every day using AI. He told me it’s like having a team of associates available instantly. He’s not using it because it’s a toy. He’s using it because it works. And he told me something that stuck with me: every couple of months, it gets significantly more capable for his work. He said if it stays on this trajectory, he expects it’ll be able to do most of what he does before long… and he’s a managing partner with decades of experience.
Ann’s response? It was this:
Matt thinks a managing partner at a law firm is valuable because she can research case law faster or draft briefs more efficiently. But that’s not actually why clients hire her, is it?
They hire her because she knows which judge will respond to which argument. Because she can read a room. Because when things go sideways, she knows who to call. Because she’s been practicing for 30 years and has judgment that comes from making mistakes and living with consequences. Because clients trust her.
AI can research the law. It can’t sign the filing. It can’t go to court. It can’t absorb the malpractice liability. It can’t build a relationship over a decade.
She extended the point to marketing too:
Matt’s argument would say that a senior marketer is valuable because he can write copy faster or analyze campaign data more efficiently. But that’s not actually why companies hire him.
Companies hire him because he knows which message will land with which audience. Because he can feel when a campaign is off before the data proves it. Because when a launch goes sideways, he knows how to salvage it. Because he’s run enough campaigns to know the difference between a metric that matters and a dumb vanity number. Because he understands the customer in ways that don’t show up in a brief. Because he knows how to lead a team.
AI can’t sit in the room when the CEO wants to pivot the entire strategy three weeks before launch. It can’t rebuild trust with a customer after a PR crisis. It can’t read the culture and know that this is the wrong time to be clever. It can’t take accountability when the campaign fails. It can’t lead that team.
Those aren’t small details, friends. They are structural foundations.
As Ann so clearly points out, you’re (almost) never paying someone to do the job. You’re paying them to do the thinking that the job involves. Copywriting, for example, isn’t typing words. It’s thinking about which words will work in a particular context.
AI can do the typing bit of copywriting. It can’t do the bits that require strategic thinking, creative thinking, common-sense thinking, real world experience thinking, critical thinking or any other kind of thinking – in other words, the bits that involve a human.
