In an age where artificial intelligence floods social media feeds with content that makes fake seem real, how can we tell what’s real? Advertising creative student Brooke Hirsch’ 24 came up with a solution to this problem.
As misinformation proliferated online, Hirsch became increasingly concerned that AI was making it easier than ever to create and spread fake news. Her innovative solution? We use the same technology that spreads misinformation to counter it.
Hirsch wondered, “Is there a better way to protect people from fake AI content than to use AI to detect it?” This thought gave rise to her idea, which she cleverly titled “AI vs. AI.” Her 2-minute case study video shows how this idea works.
Advertising creative student Brooke Hirsch ’24 is one of 10 people globally to win the Clio Award for Student Innovation for her idea “AI vs. AI.”
This May, the ideas of 10 students from around the world won the 2024 Clio Award for Student Innovation. Hirsch’s idea was one of them. Receiving a Clio Award as a student or industry professional is one of the advertising industry’s highest honors, and Mr. Hirsch earned this honor while in the creative track of advertising majors at the Newhouse School.
“Brooke Hirsch has created a revolutionary AI idea that makes people less likely to believe deceptive AI content,” said Mel White, professor of creative advertising practice at Newhouse. “This student work was created after giving a presentation in the Portfolio III course on how to effectively use emerging technologies for brands. Our creative advertising students You will learn how to use new technology to generate original ideas and be prepared to work as a copywriter or art director in the advertising industry.
The story behind her victory: How did Hirsch create “AI vs. AI”?
After a presentation on new technology, Mr. White tasked the Portfolio III students with the following outline: “Using new technologies to create digital ideas for global problem-solving brands.”
When brainstorming problems to solve, Hirsch recalled recent news reports about how the deceptive use of AI is tricking people into believing that fake news is real. In the wake of news coverage of problematic uses of AI, Hirsch singled out misinformation generated by AI as the problem to address.
“We are very concerned about the impact of AI,” Hirsch said. “That’s when I started thinking: What if we could turn AI against ourselves? I know that AI has the potential to be a powerful tool for social good. This led me to explore ways to use it to combat the problems it causes. Thus, the idea of ’AI vs. AI’ was born.
Hirsch’s NYT ad campaign denounces deceptive AI journalism and presents “AI vs. AI” as an innovative tool to detect and notify people of AI-generated misinformation.
Hirsch chose the New York Times (NYT) as a brand because of its proven commitment to truth. As Hirsch developed his idea, White helped him think about how each component of his digital idea would appear in the NYT app and asked, “How would this feature work?” Ta. “What is the user experience from start to finish?” White also coached Hirsch in coming up with a creative name for the idea.
“Professor White’s superpower is knowing when an idea is a good one,” Hirsch says. “There was a line somewhere in my article about pitting AI against AI. I wrote that, and she was like, ‘That should be the name.’ It should be everywhere. All I said was one sentence. I needed her to tell me that for it to be the core of the idea. ”
While Hirsch worked on his ideas, Portfolio III mentor Carl Peterson provided helpful feedback. For Portfolio III, White leverages industry connections to pair each student team with a creative director from a top advertising agency to receive additional feedback on their work. Peterson, the award-winning creative director at Mischief, named Ad Age’s Global Advertising Agency of the Year and Creative Agency of the Year, introduced Hirsch to Droga5’s “Truth is Hard” campaign, and Hirsch helped her internalize the voice of the Times. “AI vs. AI” case video.
“The most difficult part was writing the script for the case study video because it’s all about getting the language right,” Hirsch said. “Each brand has a particular voice, and the New York Times has a very particular voice. They’re witty, but they’re not goofy. How do you write for a brand this big?” It was a great learning experience.”
How does “AI vs. AI” protect the truth?
“The New York Times has always believed that truth comes first,” Hersh’s case study video begins. “But how can we find the truth if we can’t tell what’s real and what’s fake?”
To fight the war against AI, “AI vs. AI” creates innovative AI tools that detect and notify people of AI-generated misinformation on their phones and computers in real time .
“AI vs. AI” looks for signs of AI creation or manipulation in images, signs of AI writing deceptively in articles, and deepfakes or AI misrepresenting people or information in videos. will be scanned for audio.
To spread the word, Hersh created ads that made Americans question the “news” they were seeing. These ads say, “How do we know this article wasn’t written by an AI?” I understand now. Spot AI using AI. It’s free with a NYT subscription. ”
Banner ads will be posted on YouTube, where deepfakes are distributed. These ads say, “There’s no way to tell if what you’re seeing is a deepfake. Until now. Spot AI powered by AI. Download the NYT app.”
Hirsch’s student idea “AI vs. AI” is about preserving human truth.
The case study video concludes: “To protect ourselves, we must protect the truth, because human truth is everything.”
Why is this important?
In a world where people use their phones to quickly access information, we rely on social feeds to get our news. The danger of AI misinformation is that it is becoming increasingly persuasive and difficult to spot, posing a major threat to those who rely on social media for information.
Hirsch’s idea is to protect people from this AI misinformation by turning the AI against itself and creating tools to spot the misinformation it generates. This tool is more important than ever because it provides an important way to protect democracy from AI deception.
Importantly, “AI vs. AI” does not violate the right to free speech. Instead, by working with a trusted source, the New York Times, we can help people effectively avoid AI misinformation.
How creative advertising programs can help students succeed
Hirsch credited Newhouse’s creative advertising program for inspiring students like her to accomplish such extraordinary feats.
“This program encourages creativity in students and encourages them to think only about the weight of an idea and expand it as much as possible,” she says. “This program pushes you to come up with big ideas, but Professor White won’t let you go any further without an idea. I think that’s why this program produces so many great creatives. I’m a classmate. But I can imagine it being done by a huge agency. We’ve seen them develop better campaigns than even the big agencies do, because all our work comes from the power of ideas, which you already know. It requires you to be creative with what you can do.”
This story was written by Molly Egan.
