B (3:58)

One story that really stuck out to me was this fantastic anecdote that Bill Murray shared. So when he was doing the media rounds for a movie called Monuments Men, he shared that very early on in his career, when he was a struggling actor, at one audition he had done just so poorly that he had just walked off the stage. He was, like in his early 20s at that time. And he just walked off the stage. I'm not going to be an actor. I'm not going to be anything. And he just kept walking and walking, walking. This is in Chicago. This is in the winter. It's cold, it's dreary. And he just kept walking down this dreary Chicago street. And it got very dark. It got to the point where he was kind of thinking, if he should jump into Lake Michigan. But he kept walking. And he actually came to the Chicago Institute of the Arts. He's just in this kind of mindless, numb state, just kind of walking aimlessly. And he ends up walking into this museum, and he sees this painting. And it's this very famous painting called the Song of the Lark. This image of a woman, and she's on a farm, and the sun is coming up in the morning. It's kind of this beautiful morning scene. And Bill Murray remarks that it was this painting that he feels really saved his life, that he felt in that moment that the sun can come up again. It came up for this young woman in this painting, and it can come up again for me. And so I should put these dreary thoughts behind me. I should wake up again with this kind of renewed sense of vigor. And he actually credits the painting with effectively saving his life. And so that anecdote for me really kind of epitomized the impact that art can have on us.

A (5:37)

Psychologists have a name for this impact. It is called essentialism.

B (5:41)

So essentialism is this psychological phenomena. The observation is that we as human beings, we're not purely sensory creatures. We don't merely kind of take things in through our sights and sounds and haptic sensations and kind of build an image of what that is. Instead, when we view an object, we naturally, unconsciously perceive the soul of that object, right? The object is perceived to have a hidden essence which really transcends the physical constituents of that object.

A (6:12)

I've got a rock sitting in front of me in my office. It Looks like any other rock, but it means much more to me. It means more because I picked up this rock from Everest Base camp in the pool. It reminds me of the two week hike I did in the pool and that, you know, feeling of awe I experienced when I was there. To anyone else, it just looks like a random rock. But to me, the essence of this rock augments its value.

B (6:39)

Studies have found that this essence really does augment our value of that object. It was a fantastic experiment which was done in the early 2000s called the storytelling Project. And what they did is they bought all of these effectively cheap little generic objects off of ebay. So they was like little rubber duckies and PEZ dispensers, and they bought them all off of ebay just as generic objects. And what they did is they hired a team of writers. And these writers, their task was very simple, just to come up with a story, kind of an origin story for each of these little objects. So maybe the rubber ducky was a prized possession of somebody's youth, and they bathed with it and they loved it and it taught them the value of compassion, et cetera. And then what they did is they put them back on ebay, now with the story as the caption for the item. So same exact object, but now it comes with a story. And what they found is that the price that they were able to get to them post story was about 500 times higher than they had bought it when they were just generic. So same exact object, but now with the story, the value is augmented significantly.

A (7:49)

And essentialism is one of the reasons why we value art so much.

B (7:54)

You know, a detailed pixel by pixel forgery of the Mona Lisa. If, you know it's a forgery, even though visually, aesthetically, it's absolutely identical, you could not tell it apart, but it'd be worth, you know, 25 bucks. You could frame it, you could put it on your wall. But the real Mona Lisa is priceless, right? So it's really about the story, about the essence that the actual painting holds. It was a great example of this. Most listeners will remember the the Banksy stunt, which was pulled at Sotheby's and.

A (8:25)

Selling for 860,000 and with commission, that's more than a million pounds. This is one of Banksy's most iconic pieces. But just moments later, it seemed to drop through the frame and appear shredded into pieces. A stunt that sent gasps through the crowd.

B (8:45)

And what was fascinating about that is that the shredded items ended up actually being worth much more a few months later than the original Banksy item, Even.

A (8:56)

Though the art was destroyed, the essence was enhanced. That Banksy, which originally sold for £1 million, was sold for $25 million just three years later. And it's not just art. Any object can have its value augmented by essentialism.

B (9:13)

Britney Spears is gum, right? It's spit out at a concert. Somebody picks it up, they auction it off on eBay, fetches $15,000. A rocking chair that was once sat on by JFK went for something like $75,000.

A (9:28)

There is no utilitarian value behind a chewed piece of gum or a mid century rocking chair. Well, there is a bit of value behind a mid century rocking chair, but not as much as what was paid. It is the connection with the person that increases its value. And this is something that AI content completely lacks. There is no connection with a human creator and that may be harming its perceived value. And Matt has a study which investigates and showcases just this.

B (9:57)

Yeah, it's a fantastic study which was done a few years ago at Duke University where they really tried to investigate the perception of AI generated art relative to human art. So there's two different studies here within this published paper. So the first is that they just had human participants evaluate pieces of art. They didn't tell them where these pieces of art came from or how they're created, whether it was human or AI. Just do you like the piece of art? Do you think it's beautiful? Do you think it's valuable? And what they found there in this kind of simple study was that people actually preferred AI art to human generated art without knowing anything about it, just on the painting alone. People actually preferred AI generated art.

A (10:43)

A separate 2025 study found the exact same result, but with music. Participants were played two pieces of calm music. One sounded like this.

B (10:57)

In the morning.

A (10:58)

Pour it black and hot.

B (11:01)

Coffee, my coffee.

A (11:03)

The other sounded a bit like this. Overall, most participants picked that first piece of music as their favorite. Maybe you did as well. However, that first piece of music was AI generated, while the other, the second piece of music was created by a human. This probably won't surprise you, or at least it shouldn't surprise you. Occasionally AI can create better art or music than humans. That is not unexpected. But what was interesting was how the reaction changes once the researchers reveal that the content is AI made.

B (11:47)

But the second study, I think, was much more telling. So what they did here, this was a between subjects study. And what they did is they had human participants look at pieces of art. And in this particular array of paintings, there was a Mismatch of some were AI created, some were human created. But what the researchers told the participants is that, well, these half over here, these are human created and these half over here, these are AI created. So which one do you like?

A (12:15)

So, for example, participant John sees a painting of a bridge and is told it is a human creation, while participant Jane sees the same painting of a bridge but is told it's an AI creation.

B (12:29)

The interesting result here is that when you think it's created by a human, you think it's gorgeous, you think it's beautiful, you think it's a 9 out of 10 or a 10 out of 10. But if you're led to believe it's created by an AI, these rankings go down in half. So you think it's maybe a five out of six, you think it's maybe not so beautiful, you maybe notice flaws here and there, but this is not having anything to do with the actual art itself, but but to do with the perception of AI. So the same piece of art looks much more beautiful when we think it's created by a human than when we think it's created by an AI.

A (13:04)

It's not just art and music. Matt says the same phenomenon has been proven with email content.

B (13:11)

When you're just judging the email on its own, you know, you think it's maybe a 9 out of 10 or a 10 out of 10 and it's clear and it's engaging and it's very, very well organized. But the millisecond you're told that this email was created by AI, then you don't like it anymore. So we would actually prefer to have less good emails. We would actually prefer to have less clear, less organized emails if they're created by our fellow humans.

A (13:38)

Art is perceived as emotionally rich and beautiful when we believe it's human created. Music is perceived as higher quality and more enjoyable when it's not generated by AI. And emails, even emails that are less clear and poorly formatted are preferred to grammatically perfect AI generated emails. This led, Matt to, I think, a fairly interesting conclusion.

B (14:02)

AI has a serious branding problem. It can create superior products, but it has a inferior brand.

A (14:12)

And we'll cover all of that after this quick break. The podcast I'd like to recommend Today is the DTCpod, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. The DTCPOD is a pod that is all about direct to consumer companies and products. If you're in E commerce, if you create sites where you sell stuff direct to consumers, this is a podcast that you definitely should listen to. If you're interested in learning the stories behind your favorite D2C brands, then this is a podcast where you'll be able to find and understand the those success stories. So go and listen to the DTC podcast wherever you get your podcasts. In a world drowning in noise, only a few stories break through and stay with us on the Audience Connection Podcast hosts Lydia Chan and Oli Atkinson bring together storytellers, brand leaders, and behavioral scientists to reveal how great content sparks action and builds lasting connection. Each week, guests share ideas that you can put to work immediately, whether you're growing a brand, leading a team, or trying to truly reach your audience. If you want your content to be remembered and not forgotten, go and subscribe to the Audience Connection wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, welcome back. You are listening to Nudge with me, Phil Agnew. Before the break, you heard Matt saying that AI has a serious branding problem. I asked Matt if he thought that would ever or could ever change. Could AI content become preferred to human content?

B (15:48)

So there's definitely some evidence now that there is a lot of individual difference when it comes to the perception of AI and the perception of AI art. And this kind of has to do with our perceptions of technology, our perceptions of human uniqueness. So if you are a person that believes very firmly that art is a very special, uniquely human enterprise, then you're very unlikely to be convinced that AI can do great art. And you are very likely to be dissuaded from thinking AI generated art is beautiful or worthwhile. And so that the branding problem kind of applies a little bit differently to individuals and cultures and subcultures that view technology and an art a bit differently. So I do think for people that are open minded towards technology, that don't have such firm beliefs about art and who can create it, there is opportunity for there to be something of an AI PR campaign. There is something to be a bit of an AI branding or a rebrand. There maybe talk about how AI itself is a massive technological achievement which is predicated on hundreds of thousands of years of human ingenuity and human evolution and technological achievement. This is something that we should all share. And so when you see something beautiful that's created with AI, that itself is a testament to the human condition and a testament to human civilization. So maybe there's an argument to be made there, maybe there's a brand to be built around that.

A (17:18)

But Matt went on to say that this issue might soon resolve itself because most of us right now have a very hard time even spotting what is AI generated content.

B (17:28)

We may claim to really, really dislike AI generated art and music and content. And there's a lot of evidence, and we've spoke about some of it, where once we realize that it's AI generated content and music or art, then we like it a lot less. The issue with that, though, is that there's very scant evidence that we can reliably tell if an AI generated piece of art or music or content is AI generated. And in fact, some of the things that we look for heuristically to be able to disambiguate between is it AI generated, is it human generated? We can be very, very easily led astray. And so this one fantastic piece of research out of Stanford, which did a study with Airbnb listings, and so very simple initial study, some of the Airbnb listings were created with AI, which is something AI can do very, very easily. Artificial images, artificial reviews, artificial descriptions of an Airbnb location. And when you're just trying to judge between is this human generated versus AI generated, nobody could tell. People are basically at chance. What was really interesting, though, the wrinkle here is they asked people to identify, okay, but why did you think this one was human? And why did you think this one was AI? And so what they found is that people use heuristics when they're trying to decide if something was AI generated, something was human generated. One of the biggest heuristics people use is the kind of emotional tenor of a description. So if a description of an Airbnb listing is like, oh, this is our. Our family home, and we grew up here for 20 years and we love this neighborhood, we have so many fantastic memories. This touches on these very kind of emotional human themes. But what people don't realize, at least not yet, is that, of course, AI can create human emotional narratives just as easily and sometimes much more compelling that a human being can. And so we think, okay, yes, I love human created content because we are the only entity which is capable of creating these human emotional stories. And that's what I look for when I am trying to disambiguate between AI and human content. But in fact, it's that very element which actually leads us towards more and more AI generated content, because that's something that an AI can create just as easily, sometimes in a much more compelling way than a human being readily can.

A (20:00)

We have this preference for human generated content, but in general, we can't tell what's human generated and what's AI generated. What's worse, the things we look for to determine if something is human created are very easy for AI to fake. It is easy for an AI to say that an Airbnb listing is family owned or cake is a recipe handed down from someone's grandma. It's very easy to copy the nasally vocals of Liam Gallagher. And even if we get better at spotting AI generated content, Matt reckons that our aversion to this AI generated content might weaken as time goes on.

B (20:36)

I also think that this is going to break down temporally, that we're in this kind of transitional phase right now with the proliferation of AI art. And some AI you can just see as so clearly a art has the esthetic we spoke about, whereas others are a little bit, you know, more mixed and we're not really sure and we're in this more liminal space. But I think in a couple of years, really, that the utilization of AI in creative fields is going to be so ubiquitous that it's really not going to be something that we are so quick to identify as AI created or not AI created. We're just going to assume that everything has a bit of AI in it, and maybe that moves us towards merely appreciating the product, not so much the concerns about the brand and where it comes from.

A (21:26)

It's an interesting take. Perhaps over time our aversion to AI will wane. Perhaps we'll get used to it and perhaps we'll prefer it. Which led me to ask one final question. Here's what I asked Matt. I'm going to put you on the spot here, Matt, and ask. You've said maybe this aversion to AI generated content is a temporal thing that maybe give it a few years and just like we will buy Coca Cola today rather than the Soda Shop man soda, maybe people's perception will change. But what do you think will happen if you fast forward 10, 15 years? Do you see us going around art galleries filled with AI art and essentially listening to new Oasis albums that are entirely written by computers? Or do you see actually none of that taking on, because there'll always be this bias against it? Or maybe you sit in the middle. What's your take on that? Now, to hear the answer to that question, you'll have to listen to the bonus episode Matt and I put together. On the bonus episode, Matt talks about how he expects society to change its perception towards. He talks about how his job as an author and a writer might change. And I reflect on how this podcast might have to evolve as AI continues to develop. To listen, all you need to do is click the link in the Show Notes, enter your email and you'll be taken straight to the bonus episode. So head to the Show Notes, find the link to the bonus episode, type in your email and you'll be able to listen straight away. That will subscribe you to the Nudge newsletter. If you don't want to stay subscribed, you can unsubscribe straight away. It's no harm. And if you are already a Nudge newsletter subscriber, then you can already access the bonus episode. Just check the email I sent you today announcing this episode and you'll find a link at the bottom of that email to that bonus episode. Anyway, that is all for today folks. Thank you so much to Matt Johnson for coming on. Both of his books Blindsight and Branding that Means Business are fantastic. Blindsight is my personal favourite. It was written quite a few years ago now, but it's still absolutely fantastic. I reference it regularly and it's one that I would like to reread. I think it's that good. So if you like Today' I think you'll like both of those books. I've left links to both of them in the Show Notes. Thank you for listening. I do hope you'll go and listen to that bonus episode, mainly because I go on to talk about one of the best non business books I've read this year and I think it's another book you guys should pick up. So do go and listen to the bonus episode. That is all from me, your host Phil Agnew and I'll be back next Monday for another episode of Nudge. Bye bye.