What is personality worth in the age of AI?
AI can produce more and more content. That makes it even more important who is speaking, what they've lived through and why we want to listen.
This text has been translated from its original german source by the AI Trix.
People follow people
The great fear around AI often sounds as though we're all about to be replaced. Copy, images, voices, videos, consulting, service, entertainment. AI can do everything.
That overlooks something fairly simple. For us, value often comes from personality, point of view and trust — especially where people deal directly with people. In care work, medicine and social professions, but also in an ordinary service centre. When I have a problem, I want to speak to someone who listens, understands my situation and genuinely helps.
I see it most clearly on social media. So-called AI experts explain how to build faceless channels, produce endless content and supposedly turn it into reach or money. Honestly, I hardly see those channels in my feeds. Perhaps I simply scroll past them.
The experts themselves do something else. They sit in front of the camera. Their face. Their voice. Their manner. Their business model depends on their personality. People follow people.
Why a face makes a difference
We want to know who's saying something. Why do they think that way? What have they experienced? Can I trust them?
It was the same when my grandmother read Bunte to find out how the oh-so-unhappy Lady Diana — the commoner in the royal family — was doing. A human tragedy. You can smile at it. It still worked because a person stood behind the story.
Personality creates friction and recognition. A video can be technically perfect and still pass us by. Another can be simpler and stay with us because the person speaking has something of their own.
Hollywood has known this for years
A Brad Pitt film is also a Brad Pitt film because Brad Pitt is in it. Artificial characters work too, of course. Homer Simpson, the Minions and Buzz Lightyear have enormous audiences. The connection is simply different.
A human actor brings a face, a voice, a biography and a public presence. Scarlett Johansson draws people to the cinema because audiences know her and connect her with Black Widow.
The Marvel Universe is a good example. Many images are made in front of green screens or inside computers. Marvel still casts Robert Downey Jr., Tom Holland and Chris Hemsworth. Those people are part of the promise.
In Thor: Ragnarok, Loki watches a play about his own story. Tom Hiddleston plays Loki in the film; Matt Damon plays him on the stage. Anyone who knows Damon also played a Loki in Dogma in 1999 gets an extra Easter egg. One short scene becomes something fans talk about.
More content. More personality.
AI will keep increasing the volume of text, images and video. That makes everything recognisably human more valuable: point of view. Taste. Humour. Vulnerability. Charm. Trust.
For many people, how something was produced is secondary. Camera, 3D, green screen or AI: it has to reach us. Christopher Nolan has fans because he loves real images and makes that choice part of his films. Marvel chooses differently and has its audience too.
A recognisable manner will stand out from generic content. Generic voices disappear faster. A voice of your own is easier to see.
Social stays. So does personality.