AI: A Diamond as Big as the Ritz

You can’t sell the dazzle without a diamond!

As creative technology professionals, our approach to artificial intelligence should be filled with curiosity and excitement, not guilt or fear. While GenAI has the potential to open up incredible commercial opportunities in the creative world, to truly harness this power, we need to understand how market forces like demand, supply, and scarcity play a role.

Think of the diamond as big as the Ritz from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s story. A family discovers a mountain-sized diamond, representing unimaginable wealth. However, this immense treasure is kept hidden because releasing it all at once would collapse the market due to its sheer abundance. This metaphor captures the essence of GenAI today. Just as a diamond’s worth comes from its scarcity rather than its sparkle, the value of GenAI depends on how it’s strategically introduced and integrated into the market.

The rollout of GenAI in the tech sector is steady and calculated. The development and release of these technologies are designed to match market demand and maintain value. Take OpenAI’s GPT series, for instance. Each version brings improvements, but they’re released gradually to let the market catch up and integrate new features smoothly.

Adobe’s integration of Firefly GenAI tools, into Creative Cloud appears to following a step-by-step approach to ensure that creative professionals adopt new tools without being overwhelmed. This not only preserves Adobe’s market value but also introduces advanced AI features at a manageable pace. AI’s true commercial potential comes from sustained, manageable growth, not a sudden surge.

While many critic of AI call for increased regulation and industry oversight, it may be argued that laissez-faire market forces, driven by scarcity, profit, and loss, will also regulate AI’s use and spread. Even though we’re sitting on a metaphorical diamond as big as the Ritz, the push to release this potential quickly is tempered by the need to keep the economy stable and growing. This careful introduction of AI technologies helps industries adapt and thrive without disruption.

Recent research from the Reuters Institute and Oxford University, as reported by the BBC, highlights a “mismatch” between the hype surrounding AI and actual public interest. Despite significant investment and media attention, only a small percentage of people regularly use AI tools like ChatGPT, with just 2% of British respondents using such tools daily. It might be argued, that this lack of widespread adoption suggests isn’t an indictment of of the AI economy but evidence that AI innovation is being carefully managed to prevent market saturation and maintain stability.

As creative technology professionals, we should be excited about these developments. GenAI offers chances to boost creativity, improve efficiency, and open new business opportunities. By aligning our strategies with market forces and understanding the importance of controlled release, we can tap into AI’s potential while keeping our industry balanced and thriving

In short, the diamond-as-big-as-the-Ritz analogy highlights the need for a strategic approach to AI. By tying AI activities to principles of scarcity, demand, and supply, the creative industries can make the most of this powerful technology. This approach ensures that AI integration enhances rather than disrupts our creative ecosystems. Embracing this mindset will help us confidently navigate the future of AI, unlocking new possibilities in the creative sector.

Above The Fold

In the days of broadsheet newspapers, premium advertising was found ‘above the fold’, but why should we apply the same ideas to webpages, apps, or even electronic billboards?

The use of metaphors or similes, to describe new technology, is a convenient way to help customers visualise new ideas and functionality, but when it feeds back into the innovation itself, might we find ourselves caught in a feedback loop?

The turn of the millennium saw the emergence of ridiculous digital magazines, with draggable, numbered pages, which curled at the corners, and even made the sound of a page turning, as you dragged your mouse across the screen. Why did it take decades for us to start seeing the web as a network of contextual links, rather than a great big electronic book? By putting complex ideas into simplified boxes, do we actually inhibit innovation?

In a world of satisfying flickable web apps which reveal, rotate, and illuminate content ‘above the fold’ looks increasingly like a prehistoric tar-pit, from which some will never escape.

CPM (Cost Per Thousand)

The M in CPM stands for mille, latin for thousand. Strange that. As far as I know, no-one has actively spoken latin since around 750AD, which incidentally is about the same time as a young King Arthur was yanking a bloody great sword out of a big stone.

In a world increasingly priding itself in inclusivity, isn’t latin M, a little too, eh, exclusive? Why latin? Was it to affect an air of empirical importance, like the BBC dating TV productions with Roman numerals? Or, was it a shibboleth designed o marginalise those without a proper classical education?

Why not move with the times and change CPM to CPT? I doubt anyone buying or selling impacts would mistake CPT for anything else.

‘Oh I’m sorry, I thought you were referring to the Crisis Planning Team.’

‘I ordered a Certified Personal Trainer not a bunch of highly targeted OOH Impacts.’

Coordinate adjective vs hierarchical adjective

A strange grizzled old man appeared at the garden fence.

The word ‘and’ can be used between ‘strange’ and ‘grizzled’ identifying it is a coordinate adjective and a comma should be placed, but not between ‘grizzled’ and ‘old’ meaning that it is a hierarchical adjective and no comma should be used.

Note the addition of a comma to denote the coordinate adjective:

A strange, grizzled old man appeared at the garden fence.

em dash vs en dash

When do I use an en dash vs an em dash? It’s a tricky question and appears to be as related to fashion as to strict rules of grammar.

It appears, in recent times, the em dash (—) has fallen out of favour in the UK, and is primarily used only in dialogue. It is not surrounded by spaces.

So:

Em dash:

‘It is with shame that I am forced to admit the truth—I was mis-using the em dash all along.’

En dash:

Molly was forced to admit the truth–she had been mis-using the em dash all along.

Both examples represent a break in the sentence, so capitalising the following word is not correct.

Occasionally writers use em dashes to denote dialogue:

—I was mis-using the em dash all along.

Whatever the circumstance, a space is not required.

Dialogue Tags

British vs American

British English maintains the logical structure of spoken dialogue and the containing sentence.

‘I promise’, she said, ‘to use magic only for good.’

Attribution

If it’s obvious who’s talking, don’t attribute the dialogue:

‘The magic word is abracadabra.’

If it’s less obvious, use pro-nouns:

‘The magic word is abracadabra,’ she said.

If that’s not clear enough, use a name:

‘The magic word is abracadabra,’ said Mary.

If you’ve repeated ‘said’ too many times, try to express the attribution with an action:

‘The magic word is abracadabra.’ Mary presented her forearms as if to show me that there was nothing up her sleeves.

Adverbs are usually rubbish. Resist!

Exclamation and Question Marks

In both British and American English, exclamation marks in dialogue are included within the inverted commas of direct speech.

Mary opened her mouth and screamed, ‘Help me punctuate!’

Note: In British English, both exclamation and question marks are strong enough to drop the full stop at the end of the sentence.

Mary opened her mouth and screamed, ‘Help me punctuate!’

When the terminal punctuation of the quoted material and that of the main sentence serve different functions of equal strength or importance, use both:

  • She had the nerve to ask ‘Why are you here?’!
  • Did he really shout ‘Stop thief!’?
  • Was it Cain or Abel who said, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’?

Colons and Semicolons

Both go outside the quoted material.

  • Mary opened her mouth and screamed, ‘Help me punctuate!’; she didn’t swear.

Interrupted Speech

Commas go outside the quotation marks.

Respect the punctuation of the uninterrupted dialogue.

  • Sally is looking radiant today.
    • ‘Sally’, he said, ‘is looking radiant today.’
  • Sally, you’re looking radiant today.
    • ‘Sally,’ he said, ‘you’re looking radiant today.’

 

 

When to Break A Line

Balance is the key. Evaluate each sentence, headline, phrase, etc. individually and then determine, based on the desired perception, where breaks best fit.

  • Do not break up linguistic units among lines.
  • Maintain balance, similar length, between multiple lines. Maintaining line-length balance is more important than keeping linguistic units together.
  • When absolutely necessary to keep linguistic units together (like a person’s name), then the line break should still not cause a line to be less than 50% of the other line.
  • The articles (a, an, the) are never followed by a line break.
  • Adjective should stay together with nouns, but two or more adjectives may be separated by commas, and then it is possible (though not preferable) to break a line after one of the commas.
  • Clauses should stay together (never break lines after relative pronouns like which, that, who, etc.).
  • Prepositions are not followed by a line break if the break would separate them from the noun they refer to. A preposition in a concrete/physical meaning (e.g. “The book is in the drawer”) always precedes a noun, and cannot be followed by a line break. However, in English, a preposition that is part of a phrasal verb (put up, figure out, take in) may sometimes not be followed by a noun (“I figured it out yesterday”), and so, it can be followed by a line break.
  • Proper names should stay together if possible (think of them as a single word with many parts).
  • The Oxford Style Guide advises, on page 140: “Do not carry over parts of abbreviations, dates, or numbers to the next line”, “Do not break numbers at a decimal point, or separate them from their abbreviated units, as with 15 kg or 300 BC. If unavoidable, large numbers may be broken (but not hyphenated) at their comma, though not after a single digit: 493,|000,|000.”

Thanks to LWTBP on English Language & Usage (LINK)

Avoid Agency In Inanimate Objects

Avoid attributing agency to inanimate objects.

‘The empty Champagne bottle might get me into trouble, so I hid it in the old grandfather clock.’

The protagonist might get into trouble, but the Champagne bottle itself is just an object. Accusations and recriminations come from people not objects.