I saw a meme last week that said, “It’s more exciting to hear one of your favorite songs when it suddenly pops up at random on the radio than looking it up on your phone and playing it.”
It’s true! It’s like a surprise party for your brain when you hear the intro to one of your favorites. For a few seconds, nothing else matters but that song. No other medium can claim this phenomenon. It’s all ours.
More importantly, it’s a doorway to making sense of the all-too-common phrase, “AI won’t take your job, but someone using AI might.” Heard that one? It’s not difficult to understand on the surface, but what exactly would this ‘someone’ be doing with AI to take my job? Here’s the breakdown.
At its core, AI isn’t additive. When you hear what AI can do, it seems like it is. What it really does is remove steps. Whether you are completely capable of handling those steps or have no idea what they are. It eliminates the need for humans to perform repetitive busy work like researching a topic, creating a report, writing, producing images, video, and audio.
How AI eliminates the middleman in tasks like this is where humans come in, directing how it should approach the job and what the end result, or its 'response,' should look like. The ‘someone using AI’ who might take your job somehow learned that. And chances are, they weren't taught. They just jumped in, started playing around with it, and figured out a few things.
The curiosity, misperception, excitement, confusion, and anxiety brought on by any new technology are not uncommon. When Selector showed up, it didn’t kill the job of the music director; it turned it into something bigger. A smarter tool for scheduling music meant the decisions humans made when using it had to be smarter. Same thing with editing digital audio and control room playout automation systems. The positive impact of any improved technology is driven solely by the humans who find ways to maximize its potential to their own benefit.
What does that have to do with the song on the radio meme?
Radio’s most valuable product is a human, emotional connection. In music radio, especially Country, it’s the oxygen of your brand, and your hand is on the tank valve at the start of every song.
Assume, as you should, that every song you station plays is someone’s favorite. I mean a life-changing, desert-island, lifetime top-ten song. Next, rate all of the song intros you’ve performed in the last 2 days as Just Ok, Pretty Good, or One of My Best. Now, ask ChatGPT a few questions about the songs. Why do the artist’s fans like the song? What’s special about it? Who’s it for? What does it mean? How can I relate the lyrics to my city?
Those are pretty basic questions, but I’m willing to bet that somewhere within the responses, you got sparked with an idea that would make a great intro. I’d win that bet because you’re a creative person and you can’t help yourself when inspiration shows up.
What would happen if you taught AI to respond in your tone, voice, sense of humor, compassion, and values?
AI kills the busywork that keeps you from doing the good stuff. It’s not doing your job; it’s giving you more inspiration and more room to be great at it. The style, the personality, and the lovable quirks that make you unique are all still there. AI can’t relate to a listener’s joy or pain. It can’t recall a shared memory. It can’t show up in person. It doesn’t know the history of your market the way you do.
And it can’t, on its own, woo a big client’s renewal.
Your job isn't to become an AI expert. It’s to level up the expertise you already have. Just get started. Talk to ChatGPT. Don’t type, talk. Ask questions focused on the parts of your job that no machine could ever replicate.
You’re just in time to start using AI to shine a brighter light on what makes you human.
