Why Did You Do That?

When I was in the second grade, my homeroom teacher, Mrs. Reilly, walked up to my desk one morning. I didn’t like the look on her face. In fact, I was downright terrified. Within seconds, she’d taken hold of my arm and was dragging me to the principal’s office—the dreaded Sister Loretta. They both looked very angry.

Their anger was reasonable. The day before, one of the more popular kids in class, “Brian,” had told me he thought it would be fun if I punched one of our classmates in the stomach. I followed his direction and was now—with tears streaming down my face—deeply regretting it. When I offered “Brian told me to do it” as my defense, Mrs. Reilly screeched: “If Brian told you to jump off the Empire State Building would you do that, too?”

At just eight years old, the question struck me as crazy, but sensing the punishment that awaited me I immediately asked myself why I did what Brian told me. How did I not know it was wrong? How much influence did he have over me?

I think about that day a lot, especially when I’m being advised to do something significant, and my inner voice is expressing doubt, asking “Why are you doing that?” And I’m not alone. Business leaders are faced with the same quandary every day. Decisions have consequences, and while we all want a quick answer to the question “What should I do?” we need to take the time to reflect and make sure we have thought through “Why am I doing it?” and, more importantly, “What will be the likely outcome?”

That’s a lot of important questions. But if you read the headlines and listen to the chatter around the proverbial water cooler today, you may think that emerging artificial intelligence platforms are the answer. That somehow, if we can only craft the right “prompt,” the answer to all our strategic questions will magically appear. I think I’ve seen this movie before.

It all takes me back to the classroom. Not Mrs. Reilly’s, but rather my days as a liberal arts student at New York University. Specifically, my studies of Ancient Greece and the use of oracles.

Leaders in Ancient Greece often sought the guidance of oracles, who were believed to be the voice of the gods, to guide their decisions. In a way, their use of oracles is similar to the way communications professionals are using artificial intelligence today. AI helps us analyze vast amounts of data to better understand a company’s communications landscape so we can tailor strategies that will help drive business results. It tells us what to do, just like the oracles.

However, in Ancient Greece, an oracle’s pronouncements—much like some AI results on platforms like Chat GPT—could sometimes be cryptic and even ambiguous. Leaders would need to consult with priests and other influencers to understand the oracle’s true meaning and apply it to their situation. Maybe the modern-day equivalent is when the c-suite consults with their communications and marketing teams, who, like the priests in Ancient Greece, are interpreting the data—sometimes to support the business initiatives we think the client wants to implement.

Of course, we’ve all read the disclaimers: AI platforms can’t predict the future and we know they can’t account for unforeseen circumstances. We need to consider the limitations of data and use human judgment alongside AI insights. Just like the Ancient Greeks did, right?

Well, not so fast. Epic mistakes were made after taking the guidance of oracles too literally. Here’s an example: King Croesus of Lydia, famed for his wealth, consulted the Oracle of Delphi before launching a war against Persia. The oracle told the king, “A great empire will be destroyed. You will cross a river and destroy a great empire.” Croesus, interpreting the oracle’s reference to a “great empire” as his nemesis—Persia, confidently invaded. However, the “great empire” that was destroyed turned out to be his own, and Lydia fell.

Interpretation of the data before us, including the influence of unconscious biases—like that of King Croesus—can have severe consequences. The data or insights we get from AI need to be carefully interpreted before we act.

Recently, Bob Pearson, Chairman of The Bliss Group, provided testimony to the Artificial Intelligence Advisory Council of The State of Texas on the impact AI would have in the decades ahead. In his testimony, Bob said “Technology always feels ‘fast,’ yet its accomplishments are far more measured and require time for the applications to mature and for the public and private sector to get ready for its actual use, at scale.”

In his testimony, Bob pointed out that after the World Wide Web was introduced in 1991, it took four years before a game changing offering like Amazon was launched. It took another 13 years before Facebook came on the scene. Today, both are among the most highly valued companies in the world.

It takes time for technology to mature, but things are moving significantly faster today. And that takes me back to AI, a platform that businesses are throwing enough gold at to make even the most audacious Ancient Greek king blush.

There’s no question that we live in an era of social influencers—and have for years. But what if the new influencer isn’t some paid B-list, social media celebrity, but rather AI itself. Pearson has suggested just that. And we’re creating that new reality in real time as AI platforms continue to “learn” by scraping existing content available on open-source platforms.

Does that scare you? It should. The oracles created a belief among the leaders of the day that they were channeling the voice of the gods, but the insights they shared were influenced by self-serving interpretations and even disinformation. Just like AI today.

We’re likely still years away from broadly available AI-driven applications, but rest assured those applications will arrive faster than Amazon and Facebook did. What will be the impact on the future of public relations? How will stakeholder trust in institutions shift? Will we see a utopian world where transparency rules the day or a dystopian one where it becomes nearly impossible to distinguish fact from fiction or just plain old lies? Are we already there?

Many Greek kings paid the price for an overreliance on guidance coming from oracles. Some lost everything. We can’t let that happen. “He told me to do it” didn’t work as an excuse with Sister Loretta all those years ago. Likewise, “AI made us think it was a good idea” won’t fly when a strategy fails and a client or their stakeholders ask: “Why did you do that?”

The effective PR counselor of the future needs to be armed not just with a command of data and analytics, but a deep understanding—combined with sound judgment and experience—of what it means and what should be done.

By Ken Kerrigan

This byline was originally published in O’Dywer’s

Photo by Google DeepMind via Pexels