Cape Town - A showdown pitting artificial intelligence (AI) against humans took place on Tuesday as an excited crowd gathered in Cape Town to watch an iteration of the age-old battle of man versus the machine.
The showdown was hosted by performance marketing agency, R17 Ventures, in collaboration with the Embassy of Switzerland, and saw the R17 in-house creative team go head-to-head with the ChatGPT chatbot, developed by OpenAI.
The creative team battled R17’s latest technology investment, Pushdat, which used ChatGPT to create organic social media content.
The creative team and Pushstat were tasked with creating digital campaigns in the form of reels or TikToks within half an hour for three brands: Secondhandbags; Kleiderberg, a marketplace for second-hand fashion; and Beneva Black, beauty and lifestyle products from Switzerland.
Judging each reel based on visual quality, creativity and persuasion, the audience at the showdown categorically voted that humans on the creative team had beaten Pushstat.
R17 CEO Raphael Rohner said: “We are super excited to be showcasing Pushdat, as we see it as an opportunity to empower creative strategists to focus in their strength areas through reducing workload on organic content tasks that can seem mundane.”
The event also showcased how digitalisation could be used for job creation in Cape Town, as R17 senior business development manager Jono Duguid said their career acceleration programme, R17 Academy, which allowed graduates to rocket launch their careers into performance marketing in a paid internship, would be growing as they looked to triple the interns for their July intake.
Rohner said upskilling and development was a pillar of R17, and as an employer in South Africa, they viewed it as a responsibility to help solve youth unemployment and create opportunities for economic growth.
Jacquelene Friedenthal, science and technology counsellor at the Embassy of Switzerland in South Africa, said they supported Swiss and African start-ups through various instruments, be it networking events, pilot projects, showcasing excellence, and connecting to venture capitalists where possible.