AI can’t write a great story because it’s never had its heart broken

When it comes to real brand storytelling, can AI do the job? Can it do more than just inform? The best stories engage with people at a deep, emotional level, reflecting hopes, desires and ambitions. Can AI really connect with us in a truly human way?

Stories flow from creativity and passion. We need to see ourselves in them if they’re going to make an impact and touch our souls. The greatest stories are drawn from real experience – or experiences we’d like to believe could be real. Wonder. Heartbreak. Surprise. Edge-of-seat anticipation. Tragedy. All draw us in. Do you remember when your first girlfriend or boyfriend dumped you? When a close relative passed away? The joy of seeing a newborn baby? Getting your first job? Telling someone how you really feel? Or your team winning the league?

Human emotions are hard to explain, harder to codify or turn into training data. Tools like Chat GPT can certainly write a brand story that is factually correct and grammatically perfect, but only humans can bring it to life with shared experiences, empathy, wit, charm or surprise. So unlike AI, we draw on a complex stew of our own emotions, pulling on the levers of life experience, real-world drama, imagination, curiosity, EQ, IQ, and cultural diversity.

Take, for example, Hemmingway’s incredible six-word story. He was set the challenge of telling an emotive, human story in just six words. His response –”For sale: baby shoes, never worn” – sets an incredible standard for any storyteller. Perhaps what’s most enlightening about it, is that our own experience and imagination fills in the detail and evokes deep emotion. We instantly picture the pathos of heartbroken parents posting an ad in their local paper and create a back story. It’s hard to see how that could ever be trained into any LLM. It’s the human experience and connection that makes a story resonate and AI can’t replicate this type of nuance, no matter how much input you give it… Yet.

At one of our recent Little Bird talks, photographer Tim Flach debated the future of AI in our industry. He highlighted there will come a point at which new human data simply won’t be generated fast enough, so AI will increasingly learn from AI-generated data, potentially making it less likely to engage in a human way and sending it down a rabbit-hole of ever-decreasing circles.

So whilst there is no doubt that AI can give you a story, the question is, can it create something that really engages people? We agree with John Simmons, another Little Bird guest, who takes a more academic view of storytelling in his article ‘The Value of Writing’ where he explores why we should write in a storytelling way. He quotes Robert Frost back in 1939 – “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader” – an eloquent summary of the point that without human emotion, neither people nor AI today, can elicit an emotive response.

For us at Manasian&Co, it’s all about human connection. We believe that’s as true for the process of story-making, as it is for the final story itself. We have many tools and ways of shaping stories, including AI. But the real magic happens when we immerse ourselves in the culture of a company’s organisation and talk with people. We gather insights, both factual and emotional, from employees, leaders, observers, analysts, critics, partners – carefully listening to their motivations, hopes, dreams and concerns.

It’s through these connections that we start to uncover the essence of a brand. It’s here we can start to shape an engaging story that’s capable of creating profound connections.

We’re excited about the future of AI and its potential to take our work further. But we see it as supporting and provoking our creativity, not as an excuse to be lazy. It’s only through the uniquely human qualities of curiosity, creativity, challenge and curation that we can make brand stories worth sharing.

So until AI has its heart broken, we’ll continue to celebrate and hone our skills in the ancient art of human communication through the power of stories. And maybe it’s time we tell ChatGPT, “It’s not you, it’s me…”

And yes, of course, I asked ChatGPT to turn this article into a Hemingway style six-word story. It came back with “AI writes. Humans feel the story.”  Not bad — though no baby shoes.

If anyone has a better six-word story for this article, we’d love to read it.