The fact of friction.

To give credit where due, the satirist Robert Benchley nailed it thusly: “There are two kinds of people in the world: those who believe in the world and those who don’t.”

When it comes to advertising, count me in among the believers. Simply because our industry, more than I can recall, is so deeply divided.

There are those who see friction as the arch-enemy; slowing speed and diminishing efficiency, limiting output and productivity, constraining bonuses, shrinking the size of this year’s Cannes yacht charters.

For them, the goal is to automate whatever can be automated, surrendering judgment to the algorithm, replacing human intuition with pretend mathematical predictability, and, in the words of another seminal creative mind, “removing the idiosyncrasies, polishing the jags, creating a thought-free, passion-free cultural mush that will be neither hated nor loved by anyone.”

And then there are those who don’t.

Which is where you’ll find me locked and loaded, believing that friction and its uber-passionate cousin, tension, are the two rocks you strike together to spark creativity.

So, when the brilliant behavioral theorist Rory Sutherland argues that “deliberate friction” is essential to value creation and the conjuring of “emotional magic,” I can only agree. Even if his ability to represent that view, while also serving as the Ogilvy vice chairman, is oddly suspect.

But that’s not relevant. What is, if you’ll bear with, is both deeper and more nuanced.

About a year ago, the remarkable Bob Brihn said something that’s been rattling around my forebrain ever since: “We have the responsibility to direct AI.”

He meant it in very specific terms: the way a film director is responsible for angles, lighting, transitions, story, and performance.

Get those elements right, and you have a product worthy of its audience. Fail at any one, and the disappointment is palpable.

Coke’s original “holiday is coming” spot versus Coke’s AI-holiday-redo is still the prime poster child. Not because it was terrible, or scored poorly, but because, in releasing all those dead eyes, soulless valley images, shifting truck shapes and fluctuating wheel counts, someone had to wave a white flag.

Whether viewers consciously noticed the flaws isn't the point.

What is, and this is Bob’s real message, is that with serious creativity opportunity comes serious creative responsibility.

And it's our job, essential to sustainable value, to deliver at the highest level we can, in art and copy, in film and print, using AI, CG, live action, or whatever the fuck ever it takes to get the thing made.

By the way, it's also absolutely not about the performative “look what I made with AI” humblebrag you see too often.

Instead, it's putting the focus on what’s right for the idea, for the work, and, absolutely, for the client or whoever’s footing the bill.

Here’s to healthy friction.  May it ever slow us down to do the best we can.