McCann, the world’s largest ad agency, has appointed a robot as creative director in its Japanese office.
AI-CD β, as the new hire is called, is fed with data on award-winning commercials and comes up with ideas based on a “brief”.
Not content with having AI-CD β be merely a piece of software, McCann have created a robot with an arm that writes out its suggestions in Japanese calligraphy.
Clearly, this is more about getting noticed than actually believing that AI can run the company. Deep Knowledge Ventures, a venture capital firm, did something similar when they appointed an algorithm to the board. As far as I know, it didn’t slaughter its fellow members and seize power.
Still, it’s interesting to see people start to toy with the idea that machine learning can play a central creative role in organizations.
