Transcript
Speaker: Hello and welcome to Mind the Model. I'm Nathan Guerra and as always I'm joined by my co-host Emily Krellin. Em, how's it going? Hello, hello. It's good, Nate. I wanted to do a bit of a news update, which is very rare. Oh, you're straight in there. Okay, straight and into the news. I'm straight in there.
Speaker: I'll give you the news and a bit of a different change. but And I know we, at early days in the podcast, we decided we would not do a news update because By the time the editing came around, you know, things would have changed so far. But um I have a thread, if you'll just bear with me.
Speaker: So, two updates. um Both happened in late July. We're recording this in the beginning of August. It is two different platforms. Both relate to AI Slop. So...
Speaker: First, Substack, in a partnership with a company called Panagram, released a scan for AI text tool where readers can check any post for human versus AI-generated content. Writers can also write a bit of a disclosure of how I made this note. The Substack CEO called the problem of when you think a human wrote it and actually AI did clawed phishing, which is very clever. i Kind of play on words for catfishing. That's story one.
Speaker: Story two, another platform, at LinkedIn, had killed its own Enhance Your Post AI rewrite tool, which I never used, by the way, and swapped it for just plain proofreading. And that same week, it added a seems like AI slop button where users can flag a post and that post actually gets buried in the algorithm. which ah I don't know about your LinkedIn feed, but my LinkedIn fleet feed lately does seem to have a lot of AI slop. So wanted to bring up those two stories for us to talk about two different platforms, both relating to AI slop. What are your what are your thoughts?
Speaker: a Big love to like LinkedIn for trying to reduce the slop. like I think that's awesome. any Any reduction of slop anywhere is probably a good thing. And yeah, ah so yeah, I love that idea. um The AI, like um scan for AI feels like the sort of same thing that my kids use all the time to make sure that the system doesn't think that AI wrote that their AI written stuff.
Speaker: ah So I'm not sure how much a difference that's gonna make or how effective it is at this point. um I think we're better off using human judgment to say this is crap and and ah I don't wanna see more of that.
Speaker: ah My problem is Em, I get AI slop in my YouTube music feed So what i I, don't know if you've ever had this, but we, we are a big, heavy YouTube music house and we'll just have stuff on in the background. And it does a feature where when the playlist runs out, it will just automatically start feeding you stuff like that.
Speaker: I've listened to both a lot of house music and then like a lot of sort of soulful jazzy stuff and very attracts occasionally. um Yeah. bit it but but beep um ah It'll slide into something and then my son and I will look at it and realize that my wife has been listening to, ah she's going to kill me if I say that. um My wife has listening to AI slop for like 30 minutes and not realizing it. What?
Speaker: My son and I are now very attuned to being able to pick up the AI slop. So yeah. I didn't put this in my little news update, but I'm pretty sure that so spot Spotify released an update about cleaning out the algorithm of removing AI slop. um I'll put that in the show notes. But, you know, you bring up a really good point about humans should be the judge of whether something is crap or not. And that, to me, pulls on the thread of that discernment.
Speaker: and taste and judgment that is innately human. um i can think about my own experience of posting on LinkedIn. It's, you know, sometimes a bit daunting to like, you know, post your thoughts to the World Wide Web, especially in a professional business context. You know, for me to put a post on Facebook, that hasn't happened since like, what?
Speaker: I don't know, 2012. But for LinkedIn, like, you know, I i always run my posts through ah like Claude or Copilot beforehand and say, hey, this is a message I'm trying to get across, blah, blah, blah. Just kind of fine tune it. Anytime we post about our episodes, I always kind of go back to Claude project skills for maintaining that consistency of voice. um But i don't consider that to be AI slop.
Speaker: Do other people. That's the real Do other people. Exactly. And like people find in the comments of like an M dash is a tell. And I'm like, well please, I've been using and um an N dash since before you were born. I'm not a big fan of um of, you know, completely taking that out. But yeah, it just, it brings up a really good point. And I think as... ah AI generated content, whether that be photos, videos, ah text, music, etc. As that starts to scale, then like, it's up to humans to remain The past arbiter of whether it's good content or not.
Speaker: yeah Yeah, no, I think so. and yeah Look, this is a perfect segue into our guest, who is ah a content creator, amongst many other things. Served a right on the silver platter to introduce ah Kat McGinn, a ah former guest co-host, now official guest of the pod, which we're so excited for. Kat is one of the sharpest voices at the intersection of creativity and AI in Australian media. If you want the too long, don't read TLDR of what Kat ah is, she um she's got a writer's ear for the difference between interesting and generic. that She thinks...
Speaker: harder than almost anyone in the world about what AI does to creative work. She is a connector of other fa fabulous humans, which we'll explore. Kat also refers to herself as AI's most anguished ah champion, which is hilarious. Kat, welcome to Mind the Model.
Speaker: Thank you. i'm ah I'm blushing. And as a British person, that was the most awkward couple of minutes of my life. Thanks. Absolutely. I'm just to start off with some quick round questions for you, Kat, which I'm sure you're familiar with. What is your favorite AI model and what is the last thing that you used it for?
Speaker: Currently it's clawed, but that could change. um And what was the last thing I used it for? It was um prepping for this podcast. i'm ah I'm now in the habit of having robust ideas. arguments with the voice mode. That's one of my favorite habits while walking the dog. And do you have a a prompting methodology or approach that you use at this point? I mean, I think it's just context is everything. So I've built a kind of second brain. I've trained um projects on my personal voice, my kind of work voice. Yeah, I've spent too long probably setting all of these things up. And I was just reflecting on the fact that I'd quite like to start over and have a clean slate.
Speaker: to what would happen. It's easily done. there's ah There's another model waiting for you around the corner. It's one of the Chinese models, actually. And I find that the slightly less sycophantic nature is really helpful as and if I'm kind of home my thinking. Yeah, yeah i had a I had a bad trip once with ah with a model where I told it to be mean to me. Or not really mean, but it became really mean. So yes, less sycophanty, but still you want it to be your friend at the same time.
Speaker: I I don't know. That's an interesting question in itself. Maybe not your friend, but you know, you want it to be helpful. Yeah, for sure. Kat, I know we often talk about like AI wins, but what's an AI fail that you used a model for and it just absolutely did not work for you? What do you, what do you do and what learn from it?
Speaker: I mean, I'm still finding Claude design can be pretty buggy and the most frustrating experience actually you know Obviously, as a small, very tiny micro business, we're using as much tooling as we can and and trying to build a workflow that still just, you know, when you find yourself saying, it looks like this and that's not what I asked for. And you're arguing with ah with a model. That is time that is not well spent.
Speaker: We're not at six fingers anymore, but certainly I think that the kind of fidelity of Claude Design is still not perfect. I want to start up the top talking about the Humane Conference. it's ah I will give a bit of context. ah So when I was out of work, I pitched myself to you and I said, hi, Kat, I'm out of work. I love AI and learning all about AI and marketing. Do you have any free tickets to the event? And you so kindly offered me one. And I spent a full day really absorbing some you you know generosity from all of these speakers who are at the bleeding edge of AI. And I'm so thankful I did that because you also introduced me to what Nate and I affectionately call our secret society, WhatsApp. So we have some crowdsource questions from that group later. But on the Humane Conference, um what have you noticed has changed about the audience or the agenda between year one when it was under the unmade umbrella and now in 2026 when it's completely independent?
Speaker: Yeah, i mean, gosh, it's been a crazy journey and thinking that we're coming to the fourth edition seems ridiculous in ways. So I guess the first year was really all about curiosity and kind of experimentation. And obviously now we've moved into this kind of ubiquitousness of AI.
Speaker: um I think we're we've been really fortunate we've had a very senior audience from the get go. think we're seeing more brands coming through now. um But, you know, we've got we've got decision makers in the room. And I think that's really important. It's Obviously, an important part of that is picking who's going to speak. What what makes a good speaker for you? Yeah, I think it's it's not always um the biggest name. It's the people who are doing really interesting work, pushing pushing the capabilities, working in the kind of the edge cases. um
Speaker: I want people who've, you know, got their hands dirty, know how the tools work, but then also are thinking about what does it mean? So I think that's a really important overlap is... you know, what how does it work? But what does this mean for the future of our industry? What does it mean for creative practice? um And also, I just think I like people who are willing to to to say, you know, pointy things on stage. How much a of that is about finding somebody who is um controversial? Yeah, I don't know if I would say controversial. I think provocative is is probably what I'm looking for. um
Speaker: And often that means that they can't be someone who's working at a you know large ASX listed organisation. But then I guess the opportunity is to bring in people who are from those blue chip companies and pair them with someone who is you know able to go rogue.
Speaker: Tying that back to the conference, back to what Nate and I were kind of riffing about at the beginning, one of the ah themes for Humane this year is the taste gap. When, if you think about AI can generate infinite content, and the advantage shifts from selection and judgment rather than the creation of that content. So what does that look like from your perspective inside a real content team?
Speaker: You know, just recognizing that what a large language model will do is always, you know, push towards the average. And I think taste is the refusal of the average, you know, when and AI produces Ikea, but what we actually want is Vivienne Westwood.
Speaker: And I think it's about building those skills of um understanding nuance and context, but being able to discern the difference between, well, is it kind of almost good enough to actually, this is something really original and exciting and will, you know, create a kind of effectiveness in in commercial contexts.
Speaker: I'd love to go back to the beginning. i What is the conference? like And who should come? Everyone. Everyone who... I think... So this year, it's i super exciting. you You might think that going from a half-day event under a media masthead to going indie and then running it as a two-day event might be a bit bonkers. But I actually think we could run for a week and still not run out of great case studies and things to talk about.
Speaker: So first day's conference, um lots of amazing marketers, creatives, you know, thinkers, builders on stage. And then day two is workshops. So we all have five coding labs, some really smart practitioners helping people get on the tools and and make cool stuff, but also, you know, to really get deep into value creation.
Speaker: um Yeah, um I think it's going to be amazing. So I would say if you're a marketer, if you're in the creative industries, You work in media. This is the event for you. And from who's ah registered for tickets so far? So I think marketers coming for the conference. We're partnering with Stone & Chalk. So we are, um I think there's a really brilliant um overlap here with founders who are so good at product and building and less content.
Speaker: you know, what they need for marketers is better understanding of brand and connecting with audience. And I think marketers are going to learn those kind of intra and entrepreneurial skills and that hustle culture from founders. So extending that ecosystem a bit is is, I think, really interesting to me. And the idea that we can all be building stuff now. There's no gatekeeping around that. Switching gears just a bit, I know that you do do some work with ACAM. um like I'm curious, like, how you got involved and and where you see it going for you.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, I'm i'm really ah a huge fan of their work. I think that they were very early into this space and they, you know, building out things like benchmarking, think it's really important. My sense as an industry is that it's very difficult for us to kind of, we're not all talking about the same thing.
Speaker: The benchmark report is not anything new. The fact it exists is what's most important because we have to find some kind of standardization across our industry. And, you know, Australia is quite nuanced in how we do things. But how did you interpret the benchmark and the report that came off the back of it, knowing that it's its second year?
Speaker: it's very again though because we're not all having the same conversation when we when we describe things like maturity we're not using this we're using that word to describe wildly different things so I think you know and we are I would say probably the three of us quite AI pilled right we're in it we we we're obsessed it's it's it's a problem we you know we need help but you know I don't think that's true for for the majority of the industry I think that you know, one person is using a free version of ChatGPT and they think that means they understand AI versus, you know, people building a a kind of comprehensive, agentic workflow. It's ah it's a, you know, and I think that this is, to me, urgent and one of the reasons I think Humane is important, it's not just a sales pitch.
Speaker: we have We are facing some really significant challenges industry and if we don't start at least having a conversation where we where all understand what we're talking about,
Speaker: and then it's a problem. um I also think the fact that for me, I don't think AI slop should be the main concern. I think it should be the fact that you have no idea what your team is doing and they're all doing separate things. that Shadow AI. Yeah.
Speaker: yeah massive changes in our privacy legislation, which no one is prepared for. And that the AI sits right at the heart of that. I also think it's really alarming to me that last year, 8% of CMOs said they had a plan. This year, 6%. I don't think that's an acceptable number, to be perfectly honest. And I think they've had time.
Speaker: um realise this may be a little bit fighting talk, but you know I think it's not You don't need a crystal ball, you just need to kind of go right, what are we using AI for? How are we using it? What will we not start there?
Speaker: You know, that that can be the plan. um And I just think that that lack of governance is really is really significant. I think it's quite shocking as well to go from 8% are ai ready to 6%. Like you would think that they would have, you know perhaps consistent marketers beyond your who are answering these questions. Maybe it's people are aware of how big the gap is more. And and it's, you know, maybe even describing it as maturity is, it is that the right word? I think maybe the better conversation is around resilience. You know, how are you building the the capabilities, which means that when the token costs go up, which they will, you know, what's your plan? How reliant are you on one vendor?
Speaker: That's such a good point. Like, you know, currently I'm using AI in my capacity as like, okay, I'll just, you know, take it for all perhaps being sloppy and not as diligent and, you know, asking heaps of questions and not using a specific prompting framework or giving it as much context as I should the first round. But then you think if maybe next year is the reckoning of corporations are looking at, wow, AI is changing a lot. We have to reduce our costs and be a but bit more diligent.
Speaker: An agency boss told me recently that they'd been running AI pilots for three years and they didn't necessarily feel that they'd advanced any further. you know Their work wasn't better, they weren't faster. you know And I think that's probably what that 6% plan is about is people going, the more I know, the more I understand how much I don't know.
Speaker: I'm still of the mind that eventually ai will be like electricity and token costs will go to almost zero. But that in-between stage is going to be really painful, I think. it's a, it's an ecosystem. Like, yeah, I think it's right. It's like electricity, but then, then there are impacts around, you know, what's the environmental cost? Have you considered how that sits in your kind of scope three um measurements? It's so multifaceted. And I, I understand that that's daunting, but I think that's also exciting. That's a challenge to, to kind of rise to. Somewhat connected to and the Humane Conference, but more of like your, viewpoint in general, Kat, because I would call you a bit of an oracle, how things are working in the AI and creative world. An oracle, wow. an Oracle, big, big call. yeah From your vantage point, what do you think the industry, the media and marketing industry is not telling itself honestly about AI? The number of jobs
Speaker: will shrink dramatically. And I think we have to eyeball that. I think we have to think about, you know, what is our responsibility to to the people who have created the profit for for this, you know, this economy?
Speaker: um How are we retraining? How are we redeploying? And then I think it's also, yeah we can, we we I think this is my fundamental belief is that AI doesn't create necessarily the the problems, it shines a spotlight on pre-existing structural issues. The other kind of corollary to that is the the talent crisis that comes when we don't um nurture emerging talent.
Speaker: ah Nobody's yet given me a good answer. and It doesn't sound like you've got the solution yet either, Kat. Yeah, sadly, in my status as an oracle, I have not yet dreamed... I feel more like Cassandra, right? Like just a bad vibe at a dinner party kind of talent.
Speaker: But i you know i think these are avoidable crises. And I think the other thing is, this is a fork in the road moment. I genuinely believe that we have the ability to you know create some guardrails to say, what do we want the industry? What does creativity in a commercial context look like in 2030? And we build to that future rather than going, well, the tech platforms say I can fire my team. you know that's the I don't think that's the right decision and I don't think it's the right framing.
Speaker: Well, and and is there a creative skill then that that AI does make more valuable? Yeah, i I mean, I know that taste is is, you know, we talk about taste being the most. I think the most interesting conversation that I'm having now is around friction. and how important friction becomes in great creativity, in even in things like you know um live experience. Things that are too easy are low value.
Speaker: you know We've spent 20 years of digital talking about seamless, frictionless, getting out of the way, but actually I think bringing back some grit is ah is what what the future looks like.
Speaker: And is that something that AI can do? Can AI bring the grit or is that the human is the grit? i mean like Yeah. And I think that that's, I think that's why I'm very, um, and I realize, you know, I, I run an event, but I do believe that live experience is kind of a future.
Speaker: know, people want to, I don't want to see a future where we all just sit at home and our chat bot tells us that we're brilliant and we've never done a thing wrong. And I think to your point on grit and friction, that's what builds resilience.
Speaker: yeah And that's what's so incredibly important for yeah the future of our industry. Yeah. And it's what creates brand distinctiveness. You know, it's not being all things to all people. it's It's, you know, strategy requires sacrifice.
Speaker: So who am who who am I not for? And being really clear about that. I love the idea of of grit and things that get in the way. um And you've talked a lot about, I guess, um prototyping and how that's important for marketers. And I know this is a ah kind of a shift here, but I think grit to prototyping for me feels like how do you prototype for grit and why is prototyping so important? Yeah, I mean, I guess that is a bit of a paradox, but I think every marketer, every creative has always always had you know, ideas in their bottom drawer that they couldn't ever build or execute because of time or budget. And being sort of vibe code a prototype to to meet a need, you know, if you you understand your customer, you know what they would secretly love. but you know, you could never deliver, now have the ability to build that. And I think that that means that the industry gets to extend in really exciting new directions, like solve different problems. You know, that's what we are. We're creative problem solvers. So how about we, instead of going, the solution is always a TVC or a banner ad, what if the solution is, you know, a new product line? And I think that that's super exciting. More like fun play with, you know, AI kind of producing some of the levels of
Speaker: barriers that we might've had from time or from investment, that prototype can kind of unlock those really great ideas. Yeah. And that idea of you know, it doesn't need to be for, you know, it doesn't need to be scaled, right? You could build a product that's good for a very small subset of your customer base. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it's always dangerous. Marketers in my experience feel often feel like that they want such total control over things that it's hard for them to give up even just a little bit to try something new. But I think marketers are the most beleaguered, you know, a CMO is the most beleaguered person in the C-suite because everybody and their dog has an opinion about marketing. No one goes to the CFO and says like, oh, my cousin's nephew reckons he could do this better than you. But that is the the conversation that a CMO has to deal with. Yeah. You know, they're constantly trying to sort of
Speaker: And I think this is, you know, as much as I'm doom and gloom about the size of the industry, I think this is a real moment for for a CMO or whatever that role evolves into being to sort of use AI to do the parts of the job that they might have found challenging, the kind of data analysis, the massive kind of um research at scale. And I think that's right. We we talk a lot about AI and creativity, right?
Speaker: But the real easy gains are in analytics and data analysis. My favorite. And Emily may love it, but not everyone does. Yes, that I can easily talk about it. But to be honest, like, I thought AI was coming from my job. I was like, oh, wow, i can do it. But when you were explaining about CMOs, like everyone has an opinion, like I – can't even imagine that kind of role of how you navigate that.
Speaker: But it almost seems like what you're suggesting is AI is a bit of a partner in crime to help distinguish the signal from the noise. Yeah. And maybe that comes back to the idea of kind of discernment and judgment and taste is, you know, what's important. And that comes from, you know, deep understanding of customer and of of sector and and the ability to kind of say why this matters and then this doesn't. And I use bunch of AI tooling to to try and, you know, do that signal from the noise piece. And and I have not yet managed to find anything that replicates my ability to pick something kind of, you know. Your humanness. Yeah. I'm not going to say it's humanness. I think it's her experience, which goes back to all the things you were talking about with the challenges around not having people who are getting experience. And it's the worry that I have is
Speaker: And I don't know, I mean, nobody knows the answer, right? Are we building a generation of people who are so fluid and fluent with AI that they're able to use it to do the discernment piece and skip the experience thing? Or are we raising a generation of people who trust AI so much that they're willing to just do whatever it says? Yeah. I mean, it's interesting, isn't it? Because we see simultaneously, you know, that got kind of more ready acceptance of AI from, from you know, younger generations. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: but simultaneously a massive backlash and the sort of, yeah you know, that need to go. Demphone generation. Yeah. But I, i and you know, it's not to say that junior creatives don't have taste, but just you've got to, you've got hone the the craft and that comes from, you know, and is that repetitious and also just the, the is it the being that grave gray, gray haired,
Speaker: you know, person that's heard this a million times before, I know what the client's going to say when you float that idea. a We put a call out to crowdsource and questions from our secret society group. um First one, um what is something that you genuinely believe AI can do today that if I told you a year ago, you'd be like, that's bullshit. well i' What I'm surprised by is how much I see people willing to generate slop and that's That's a kind of opposite answer. um I thought we would have been a bit more deciding by now. Oh, i think you're um
Speaker: I think you believe in the good of people and that's a wonderful quality and trait in you, Kat. I'm not surprised in the slightest because I know people are lazy and they are all about convenience. i what I always say like people, will you know, sacrifice almost anything for convenience, security. Almost anything. Data, privacy. Yep.
Speaker: Yeah. And it's the golden, the golden cage, isn't it? You know, we're gosh. Yeah. I don't know what, what, what do I think is amazing though is, you know, some of just the video production stuff. I thought we would still be, you know, I'm, I, I think we're now in a place where,
Speaker: I cannot tell often, you know, which is which is a another crisis in the making, of course. But yeah, I think that's, I thought it would take longer for us to get to this this place.
Speaker: Yeah, especially when you compare the two of what it can generate today versus what the Will Smith eating spaghetti. No, we were at Six Fingers a year ago still often and now indistinguishable most of the time. Like a've if done well, I think there's, you know. The last one was a bit of a big swing. Do you think content-based advertising is heading towards redundancy and decent factual content ends up being behind a paywall or subscription as a result?
Speaker: And if that's the way the world is moving, what's going to happen to society? Yeah, I think this is this is such a, you know, huge and terrifying. You know, I don't think that access to good journalism.
Speaker: should be only available to the wealthy. I think that's ah you know that's such a dystopian, we need the fourth estate, that's you know that how democracy functions. That's ah that's a bleak ob bleak future where we have slop for the the masses and and premium, amazing, beautiful, original content for for only the elite. I think that way lies, yeah, just total annihilation and destruction.
Speaker: That's a good time, isn't it, to end up? like talking about that doomsday result, but I just think about a world where like advertising fuels the internet. It does seem very dystopian to think that any, you know, recipe to needs could be behind a subscription paywall and, you know, anything to do with the local news and unless it's government funded like the ah ABC. Yeah.
Speaker: you know though, i think we we already knew that we had a a funding model problem for for journalism. you know this Again, took to my point, AI just reveals pre-existing structural issues. I think we we're not, you know we haven't got that habit forming idea of paying for news. We don't think that that's, we should we have we assume it's free because we're we've been raised to pay a tax, which funds it, right? By exposure to advertising. And I think that it's the you knows the tech giants like Google and Meta that have sort of eroded that relationship.
Speaker: So this is not AI's doing, but it is accelerating that that issue. Do you think then the future of journalism is ah small sub stacks that you know are created by people who are experts at an area and you they might only have a thousand subscribers, but they're people who care about a particular topic.
Speaker: I think there's a problem in that model. in you know The function of of journalism is to speak truth to power. It's very difficult to do you know deep, long-form investigative journalism if you've got you know eight bucks a month from 100 people. that's That's not... The math doesn't math.
Speaker: um But i think I think it's legitimate that um we expect AI companies who have scraped every you know word I've ever written and everyone who's ever you know published anything should be paying for that. My favorite news organization in the world, or media organization, is still the BBC.
Speaker: the fact that they're funded by a government and kind of given pretty much free reign, it is a really valuable resource that the British people have. And I, I don't, I just don't know if that's a model that could ever be exported to the U S or, we're too, the U S is far too capitalist for that. i don't think there would ever be a taste for it. I don't know about capitalism. I think it's the politics.
Speaker: Yeah. Oh yes, that is well. <unk> That you can kind of pay for your, your point of view to be, to be, sort of replicated, that's that's where the the friction is, right? Yeah.
Speaker: But I mean, like, you know, newspapers have a long history of being highly partisan before they were ever independent. um Independent journalism or you know is ah is a relatively new topic and concept.
Speaker: I think it's okay. I think it's okay to, to, you know, just to acknowledge that, you know, everyone has bias and sort of a declaration of bias is sort of human. um the The problem is that when we're not seeing the bias where it's invisible, that's, that's where it's, you know, really problematic. And that's the kind of stuff that undermines the fabric of society and lets one nation come to And the fact that you say invisible bias written directly within the algorithms of the LLMs that can push you towards a certain um ah thought process and kind of help you come to a conclusion you wouldn't have normally been to. Right, the most persuasive um you know machines that we we have on the planet with ah with a kind of clear cultural um and political bias. Yeah, it's... it's um Mad world.
Speaker: Well, this feels like a perfect segue into my favorite closing question, Kat, which is, do you consider yourself being AI optimist, realist, or pessimist?
Speaker: I go back and forward on that. yeah At three o'clock in the morning, you know it's dark, but um not my my thoughts. um I think i'm ah ah I'm a human optimist um and I believe in our agency, capability and genuine desire to create greater good. And I think that that will, you know, has to be our salvation.
Speaker: Finish this sentence. The Humane Conference in five years will be about blank, not AI. Yeah.
Speaker: Humans. I think it will be about culture and creativity. Kat, thank you for joining us today on Mind the Model. It's been a great conversation. That was fantastic. Thanks, Kat. What fun chat. Thank you. And where can people find ah the Humane Conference?
Speaker: 13th and 14th of October in Sydney. Can't wait to see Find all the information you need in the show notes. Thanks again, Kat. Thanks Kat. Thank you.
Speaker: ah Nate, how did you find that chat with Kat? ah You know what? That was the worst chat we've had. um ah but's See, it's fine. I want to say top, like probably top one. Top one.
Speaker: Okay. could have spoken with her for hours. She is ah such a unique point of view. an oracle, some would say. An oracle. She has a unique point view on how the media landscape is, publishing, content creation, um journalism, creativity.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, there's so many ways you can take the conversation, right? I'm just, I'm in awe of her, honestly. Her bio, I thought it was long to read out, but like it was a lot longer when she sent it to me and there was no fluff pieces in there. She is an extremely um well-informed oracle on all things AI and creativity. And I'm just so glad we got the chance to get her proper spotlight um because I know when she filled in for me when I had laryngitis, she was a star. um So yeah, I had a blast. All right. So what were your takeaways? from my My top my top ah takeaways from that, I thought her point and so many of things like I was like typing in the background because was like, oh, I don't want to forget this. Like they're just those zingers that you're like, oh, that's fantastic. Headline. Taste is the refusal refusal of the average.
Speaker: I just, I was like, that is it. Because, you know, thinking back to our interview with Pip from Springboards, how he was talking about how his platform is trying to veer away from the average and be much more leaning into those like outer zones. um I think that's like, taste really does come from not like, if you go to a restaurant, let's say for instance, you go for a restaurant and you want to have a great piece of pizza. You want that pizza to not taste like any other pizza you've had before.
Speaker: Like the fact that I i remember a pizza I had. Why do you ever go back to the same restaurant then?
Speaker: I'm saying, why are you trying to break my brain? Oh, I'm saying like a pizza. Okay. I think back to a time. You want a piece of pizza that's distinctive. Distinctive. That's exactly right. Distinctive and new and kind of pushes your taste buds in different area. That's where I think the great people, like the great users of AI can get to.
Speaker: And that's distinguishing themselves from the average output of same old, same old. Yeah, and actually, it's funny you mentioned Pip, because one of the things that I wanted to speak to Kat about was Pip. Because I believe he's speaking at the Humane Conference. He is speaking at the upcoming conference, yeah. And I think he also spoke at one of the first ones, too.
Speaker: But it does feel like he's trying to create friction with AI. And so you know that's a topic I would love to get hit get the two of them... here hear what they would have to say about that.
Speaker: And to get Kat's opinion on um whether AI can create friction not. I mean, I think it can. But yeah I'm ah the guy who believes that people who think that AI can't do creative work are deluding themselves.
Speaker: And it's just a matter of time. Well, yeah that point on friction, you know, being so important for great creativity, if to Kat's point, like things that are too easy They can be construed as low value.
Speaker: A lot of what she said, i was just like, oh, I'm going to have to remember this because what are some other ones? Strategy requires sacrifice. I was like, oh, God, that's good. Are we creating the future that we want when we think about the next generation of marketers? um And when we use AI, it can shine a spotlight on the problems of our industry. like um But yeah, overall, great chat. Loved it. Love Kat. She's such a gem. And glad we got a chance to.
Speaker: Wait a second. but want So what did you take away besides a bunch of great quotes? Like, is there a thought, a concept, a thing? Thank you you. In typical Nate fashion, you're like, okay, wordy Emily. Now, like, turn it down to something very succinct.
Speaker: it Great creativity comes from human. Yeah, i think that's her I think that's her strong central belief. it's That's her North Star. And to your point earlier, like who's to say great creative can't come from AI, but it's never going to be AI generated solely like, i don't know, there's some scary things in the news, very sci-fi of, you know, agents going off and hacking. But AI is was developed based on training data.
Speaker: Yeah. that was created by humans. Well, so then is AI just the next evolution of humanity? eight I mean, if it has everything that we are, if it's based on who we are, then isn't it just, you know, our child?
Speaker: But then isn't that just, I don't know. It's a sad future to think about. Why? i don' I know. I know you're very kind to our robot overlords. just like to think that, you know, there are wonderful, great human experiences we should not be experiencing.
Speaker: you know, we don't, we actually don't need to put everything into ai And i it It's funny because like sometimes I catch myself, I'm like, whoa, like i'm I'm going to AI first rather than like thinking about it myself or you know having a discussion with my peers or with my husband to talk about an idea. Well, it's always on. It's always ready. like you know Emily, you haven't responded you haven't ah judged my new new my New York trip spreadsheet yet You haven't given me any advice because you're not always there. i can always turn to AI for advice.
Speaker: But then isn't that just a sad world? Maybe. But maybe it's just the opportunity of the intro, and then I can come to you when you're available. We bang on about convenience all the time, and it has such a role to play.
Speaker: You know, Nate, thank you again for being such a lovely co-host. And to our listeners, be sure to like, share, and subscribe. Email us with any questions you may have about the show to mindthemodelpod at gmail.com. And remember, the intelligence might be artificial, but the wins are real.
Speaker: Thanks. Bye.
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