So, the story goes; Nobel-winning physicist and co-founder of the field of quantum physics, Wolfgang Pauli, when faced with the worst of his contemporaries’ theses would apply his most withering criticism, using the phrase “Not only is it not right, it’s not even wrong!”. The epithet refers to ideas that are too vague or general to be shown to be wrong or right and therefore require exhausting levels of effort by anyone wishing to dispute it. Since then, the phrase has passed into use in wider creative circles and beyond.

As such, it’s a useful phrase (if you’ve enough ice in your veins) to describe the worst of the “ideas” you encounter in meetings, pitch sessions etc in marketing. Any idea that “isn’t even wrong” is worse than useless because someone (often not the idea’s originator) then needs to do more work to find out that it’s wrong.

This is why I am greatly enjoying the arrival of the new generative AI tools this year, particularly the likes of Jasper and Copy.AI which you can ask to generate ideas. They are very fast, full of ideas and often immediately wrong.

I’ve seen this very point used to criticize the technology and shown as evidence it’s not ready yet to replace humans. However, in practice, I’d choose the experience of high-speed wrongness over slow uncertainty in many situations at work.

Most marketing ideas that are suggested (by the humans in clients and agencies) are not even wrong. “Let’s do something in the metaverse”. “Let’s give the product to an influencer”. “Can we have a viral video?”. Every “thought starter” you’ve ever been given.

AI gives me a ton of wrong ideas immediately. Look what happens when I ask Copy.AI for “viral ideas” for a pizza delivery business:

These took under 5 seconds to generate. They’re all refreshingly, immediately easy to dismiss. But the beauty of that is not just the time saved. By being wrong, they point to what might be right. Like a child that doesn’t know any better, the AI doesn’t have a concept of what is out of place, inappropriate or doesn’t conform. It thinks in a way that you’ll rarely get from the adult ego. So, in amongst the suggestions, you get some ideas that, with just a few adjustments or by flipping the logic, point to something genuinely interesting.

I’m pretty much at the point that, outside of the people I choose to work with on creative matters regularly, I’d take an AI creative partner over a random marketing exec any day.

These AI are improving every week, and I’m enjoying our new robotic assistants. Let’s hope they don’t get so good they stop being wrong.