My brother recently asked me a question that helped me with an insight. He said, “At church, if the preacher behind the pulpit was actually wicked (and everyone knew this) but the things he said were good, right, and true, shouldn’t we still appreciate the goodness of his message for what it is?”
My first reaction was, “Well you obviously wouldn’t want to take life advice from a hypocrite, right?” But then I started to wonder. Why not? If a person speaks truth, why can’t we accept the message at face value? And the answer, which I’ve come to understand through my Learning Sprint on marketing, is that it’s because the medium makes the message.
If 6x NBA Champion Michael Jordan tells you that success requires great sacrifice, complete focus, and an insane work ethic and then an overweight, unemployed, middle-aged man tells you the exact same thing, the meaning behind those messages is not the same - even though their words are.
Author Rory Sutherland writes in his book Alchemy, “The potency and meaningfulness of communication is in direct proportion to the costliness of its creation – the amount of pain, effort, talent consumed in its creation and distribution." Against the backdrop of Jordan’s career, his words mean more.
This lesson - that the medium makes the message - has shaped my recent thinking around AI and social media. On the former, I’ve been curious about what AI means for the future of content creation. Is it inevitable that creators will be irrelevant once AI gets good enough?” I don’t think so.
Joe Rogan has the largest podcast. Let’s assume that AI could ingest all of Rogan’s content and reproduce interviews with such quality that no listener could tell they were AI-generated. If offered the choice between the “real” feed and an AI-generated one, which would you choose? I’d want the real thing.
I’m not entirely sure why. After all, if the contents are indistinguishable should it really matter? But that’s irrelevant for this exercise. Because, if we assume that a reliable source of truth exists (that can expose which is real and which is AI-generated), that contextual information alone will alter the meaning of the content. I’ll dismiss the content of the AI-generated feed and make meaning from the “real” one.
This is why I don’t think AI will threaten content creators. Because people ultimately care about the medium through which information is received - not just the output.
I’ve started to understand this through social media too.
I didn’t realize it when I started, but my digital projects (e.g. monthly newsletter, gym streak, and podcast) have provided people in my network with context on: (a) who I am, (b) what I enjoy, and (c) what my aspirations are. As a result, when they see my content online it means something fundamentally different to them than had they not had this context.
So, two lessons here:
First, if you want to be taken seriously, you have to do things that earn the trust and respect of others. Because, even if you say things that are right and true and good, if people don’t see you as a credible source, they won't listen.
Second, if you hope to find like-minded people with similar values, priorities, and dreams, it’s in your best interest to provide people with context on who you are. If you don’t, you will find yourself speaking into a void. People will struggle to make sense of what you’re saying without background information.
The medium makes the message.
