To sparkle or not to sparkle? That is the question
From emoji to authenticity seals, a new syntax defines what is and isn't made with AI
If I ever had a nightmare about AI destroying human creativity, it would be like Apple’s recent iPad Pro commercial. It depicts a giant vice crushing iconic symbols of analogue creation—a record player, musical instruments, paint, camera lenses, books, a sculpture—finishing with the “flushed face” emoji. The vice lifts to reveal the new thinnest-ever iPad Pro with ominous music: “All I Ever Need Is You” by Sonny and Cher. The ad was pulled after harsh reactions to creativity tools being so violently obliterated and replaced by a device that, although touted for both consumption and creation, is nowhere near the creative tools it destroyed.
While it doesn’t specifically reference AI, we can infer that new work made with the iPad will employ artificially generated media. It’s less a sales pitch for a device than a declaration of how humanity ought to live, work, and create from now on.
Artists like Beth Spencer are clapping back. Using Substack, Spencer unveiled a ‘Created with Human Intelligence badge’, creating a seal of authenticity for human-made works. Two months later, she’s been tagged on over 1,200 adaptations via Instagram, and the initiative earned mainstream media coverage.
Instagram’s “AI Info” tag alerts users about AI-involved images to combat misinformation and improve transparency. Some writers use disclaimers noting they used ChatGPT, while British author RR Haywood was first to add a stamp of authenticity signalling no AI.
The sparkle emoji has become the most common way corporations signify AI use. Samsung, Adobe, Google, LinkedIn, OpenAI, Spotify, and Zoom have adopted this symbol, much to the chagrin of sparkle emoji enthusiasts.
This subtle approach is more successful than Google’s recalled Olympics commercial, which depicted a father using AI tools to help his daughter write a fan letter to U.S. track star Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. The cringe-factor of a child writing their hero a letter using AI wasn’t alleviated by a sparkle emoji disclaimer.
My grain of thought
While tech companies and creatives grapple with how to classify and communicate what is and isn’t made with AI, there is still a whole world that wonders what the point is. Why do we need to know what is and isn’t made with AI? What sort of world are we preparing for, and why do we need new syntax to articulate it? Why define two camps? Do we need to choose a side? Does one category need protection while the other disdain? Can we live in a world where both sides coexist and, dare I say, communicate with each other?