t's easy to fake. You might even give it a go. It will be used to change hearts, minds, lives and liberty and not for the better. Deepfake video is here  -  and it's here to stay.

Last week's widely shared 'deepfake' video of Mark Zuckerberg made global mainstream media headlines. It followed instances where others have had words put into their mouths and misleading images of them circulated across the web. The Zuckerberg video was, according to one of its creators, Bill Posters on Instagram, made as an artwork and released on his bill_posters_uk account as part of a series of AI generated video works. It was created, he explained, for Spectre, 'an immersive exploration of the digital influence industry, technology and democracy'. After the uproar, the creators received a 'misinformation' flag from Facebook and Instagram which de-prioritises videos on newsfeeds and searches. The irony is that the Brandalism Project run by the video's creators, sets out to question the power held by the tech giants and the influence of technologies and data shaping our understanding of the world around us.

It is hard enough for people to discern truth from lies when it comes to the written word, especially when lies are regularly propagated as truth by some. It is doubly hard for people to comprehend that training data used to develop machine learning is itself frequently riddled with bias that spills into active AI applications. The availability and access to technology that creates deepfake videos means discernment will be messy, perhaps even impossible, when we are faced with the many faces of fake. Unlike the Brandalism Project artworks, deepfake videos will not be neatly labelled as 'creations' and helpfully marked as fictitious. Videos will be created by all manner of people driven by all manner of intent. Words spoken by those we see in the frame (or the way in which the words are delivered) may contradict our knowledge of the person involved. But there they'll be, up close and personal, spouting words that perhaps incite hatred, confirm bias, undermine communities or organisations and, ultimately, destroy any remaining trust individuals and their communities have in the systems that are supposed to serve them. And what will happen if the person on screen is in fact dripping vitriol and hatred in a genuine, unaltered video? Will their position simply be dismissed as 'faked' later on?

Elections are on the horizon in many places next year and, as things stand, it is unlikely that 2020 will produce clarity of vision for anyone. Instead we will have to wade through mucky waters as deepfake videos flood societal consciousness. It is a serious and deeply disturbing concern.

This use of technology also presents a whole new challenge for public relations and communication practitioners involved in reputation guardianship. I question whether the majority of those working in this area are even aware of the dangers this technology poses, not just to their organisations but to the people and communities they serve. Samsung technology revealed last month can produce deepfake videos of the Mona Lisa - or your profile picture or, indeed, any still image. Given the predilection for shaming and outrage that has taken hold on the web in the last three years, anyone will be at risk from a stalker, troll or disgruntled critic. If we thought identity theft was a problem today, how will we cope when we see ourselves animated and voicing opinions that are the antithesis of our values and beliefs?

​If we can't believe what we see  -  or worse, we unquestioningly decide to believe what we see  -  trust is dead. Not just in the media context in which the untruths and fakes are served to us but in society itself. An uncivil war sparked by make-believe and manipulation, fuelled by the power-hungry to the detriment of most.

My question to those charged with guarding reputations is simple  -  what's your plan? What are you doing now, today, to meet this very specific challenge presented to us by those who have developed this particular artificial intelligence capability? What are the professional bodies for public relations and communications doing to address this clear and present danger? How are our ethical codes being updated to ensure good, transparent behaviours? What are our university courses and professional development sessions doing to equip our future practitioners? Looking at current offerings around the world, I'd suggest nobody (in any field) is doing enough  -  and playing catch-up isn't an option.

Photo by Christian Gertenbach on Unsplash

It was my great privilege to be invited to speak at the Forum Humas BUMN 'Future of PR' Congress held in Bandung during March. FHBUMN is a forum for public relations practitioners from all the state-owned enterprises in Indonesia, dedicated to developing knowledge and competencies and improving sector performance. FHBUMN is an affiliate of the ASEAN PR Network which is a member of the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management.

At the main congress I spoke about artificial intelligence and public relations, with a particular focus on ethics and societal implications.  A couple of days beforehand, I also had the opportunity to meet many of Indonesia's public relations and communications professionals in person, delivering a workshop session for them on communication audits, research, measurement and evaluation. 

My host, and chairperson of FHBUMN Congress 2019, Nurlaela Arief, (pictured front row, fourth from left) led our post-presentation discussions on AI in PR.  With a recently published book on AI in PR, Nurlaela is an acknowledged expert on the topic in Indonesia and it was a fascinating journey exploring how public relations practice is embracing and adapting - or not - to the challenges the emergent technologies bring to our profession. We also had the great benefit of Professor Anne Gregory's expertise, bringing perspectives from the UK and some of the thinking from the CIPR's #AIinPR report which I also contributed to last year.

It was heartening to have so many discussions on the subject and gain a better understanding as to how AI is being approached by practitioners in Indonesia - and I look forward to many more.

Funny thing experience. When you are looking for a job, experience tends to be the focus of the interview. What experience have you got? How is it relevant? Where did you get your experience? If the 'experience indicators' aren't immediately obvious on your CV, it is highly unlikely that you'll even get to the interview stage.

Surprising then that the emphasis given to experience at the recruitment stage is so poorly reflected by employers when they consider the experience they are providing for their employees.  I wonder how different recruitment would be if, during an interview, the prospective employee was asked about their experience and they related their experience of being employed. Describing in detail how their current or former workplace made them feel. Whether or not they were rewarded, developed, trained and recognised. Whether the employing organisation truly valued them and the contribution they made. Whether they were listened to - and acknowledged. Or perhaps they would explain how they were ignored, stressed and under-resourced, motivating their current job hunt.

Public relations builds and sustains the relationships organisations need to keep their licence to operate - and that's all the relationships, not just a select few. All relationships include the internal relations for the organisation which includes the internal communications strategy and function. If you don't have good internal relations then your external relationships will fail and your reputation will falter - and underpinning all this is the workforce experience.

For years employee engagement has been the elusive 'X Factor' for organisations - 'if we get good engagement then all's well and our employees will magically become staunch advocates for us on social media and other external platforms' goes the riff which, to be fair, is only one step up from the great myth of 'employee satisfaction'.  It's a myth because I might be 'satisfied' with my job for many reasons and those reasons will probably have nothing to do with my loyalty, commitment or care for my employer. For instance, I might tick 'yes' on the job satisfaction survey because the hours I work allow me to pursue a part-time career as a magician, or allow me to take care of an elderly relative, be a volunteer life-guard, pick the kids up from school - or any number of pursuits. I might tick 'yes, I'm satisfied with my job' because I'm frightened my manager might find out if I tick 'no' and make my life a misery. Satisfaction is not an adequate measure of internal relationship health and neither is engagement, which is only a mild improvement on satisfaction. The concept of  'engaged employee'  is a surface measure of an individual's reaction to their workplace but not a measure of relationship health. 

Work has changed and as security has been substituted for flexibility so employee requirements have changed. Studies have shown that employees look for purpose in their work often before pay. That the organisation's values must align with their own if they are to remain committed and loyal to their employer. Employee engagement requires a culture that facilitates collaboration and that collaboration helps everyone comply with what is necessary to get the job done. The experience must include a sense of place so the employee understands the environment they belong to, their place and role in achieving the purpose and the opportunity to work to and provide value.

As always, new job titles emerge to describe new times - we can find chief happiness officers, masters of contentment, experience innovators and many more besides. But the titles don't change a core undertaking if the experience is going to be genuine - and that undertaking is internal communication. You can't build good relationships without good communication. Communication that helps build knowledge, address behaviours or change attitudes. The internal communication strategy must be designed to convey the working experience of all those inside the organisation, listening and engaging in conversations that help inform organisational culture and any necessary change. What it must never be is 'sending out stuff', churning out email newsletters and uploading information to a stale old intranet - heading in that direction will take employees towards the door rather than towards the heart of the organisation. 

​Still photo by IIONA VIRGIN on Unsplash
Video and motion graphic by Catherine Arrow for PR Knowledge Hub

A quick little update to share a good read, written by Lauren McMenemy for The Content Standard. It looks at the relationship between ethics, artificial intelligence, public relations and keeping content on the straight and narrow. Lauren interviewed me for this piece, along with CIPR colleagues Stephen Waddington and Jean Valin following the report on AI in PR published by CIPR this year. It's a good read - you'll find it here - and certainly should be fueling food for thought for today's practitioner 

Truth be told, I've found it increasingly hard to write these last few months, in part due to the harsh, divisive and vitriolic language being used by some afforded the title of 'leader' by their country, their workplace or organisation. It has broken my heart to hear the way my fellow humans have been referred to by those who should be actively seeking to help them in their vulnerability and distress.

Kindness, empathy, understanding, generosity - all of these have been invisible or in short supply, particularly when describing and addressing people faced with the most dreadful situations. People just like me and you, forced to walk never ending roads to a hostile nowhere, as their country's circumstance - be it war, famine, fear or environment - sends them on an often fruitless search for refuge and safety.

The USA isn't alone in its 'Trumpeter-in-Tweet' - there are other autocrats, despots and dictators out there - but in observing the downward trend of 'leadership tone' across many media channels, the USA's current head of state has most visibly replaced discourse with dictat in the channels he favours. It would be a relief if we could account for the twitter rants as simple buffoonery (almost a recognised trait for some ministers and presidents across the world). Tragically though, the choice of language, the adjectives and epithets used to describe the unfortunate, the displaced, the hungry and the homeless are chosen quite deliberately. Dehumanising others through language is a political ploy used through the ages. In recent weeks references to people as 'animals' and 'vermin' have evoked the ghosts of Hitler, Lenin and other shadowy dealers in genocide. Their use of language to divide, demonise and dehumanise people led to the deaths of millions. The deliberate and calculated choice of words was to achieve very specific political ends. 

In listening to the warped, bullying rhetoric of Trump in the USA, Salvini in Italy and Orban in Hungary - particularly as he insists on 'European cultural purity' - or the reported profanity laden responses from UK minister Boris Johnson in recent weeks makes me fearful as to the 'next steps' these people might take. Where language leads, actions follow - and as we have seen from the caging of children, the expulsion of innocents and the fear-mongering of foreign ministers, those actions are generally inhumane. 

So in not writing, I've spent many hours thinking what can I do about this.  I deal with language every day - recommending words that work to build relationships, build bridges, break barriers. Yet increasingly the 'shout and scare' model of leadership language is raised by some as a working strategy - to which I can only reply that true leadership lies in language expressing empathy, logic and reason, not the bullying, malicious harping we have had to endure.

Perhaps all I can do - as can you - is to speak out against such language. Do not remain silent. Change the tone. Don't accept this use of language as normal human behaviour. Call it out for what it is.

The living tentacles of language easily work their way into hearts and minds, triggering cruelty as speedily as love. Those who harness and drive language towards hate and division for their own political ends and personal gain need to meet a wall of words from the rest of us - words of worth, of humanity. Words for good.

There's a new citizen in Saudi Arabia - a very articulate one. Sophia, from Hanson Robotics. She's been around a while but this week returned to centre stage when, at an investment conference, it was announced she had been given citizenship of Saudi Arabia. A stunt for sure - but it forms a bleak contrast to the millions of humans currently 'stateless', roaming as refugees and facing the total reluctance of national governments around the world to take them in.

The raw truth is that Sophia is worth money - significant amounts of money - and citizenship has its price.  (As an aside, Sophia is presented as a 'female' robot so I do wonder what her 'rights' as a citizen will actually include, what cultural customs and practice she might need to take on and what freedom of movement she might have - but that's another discussion).

This discussion centres around the question of human-robot relations and the emerging space between worlds. During the interview conducted live at the conference, Sophia was asked if she was a threat to humans. Her (rather creepy) reply was simply this: "You be nice to me and I'll be nice to you".  Question is, who has taught Sophia the complexities of 'nice', its place in relationships and communication?  Who, when things go wrong, will mediate between Sophia and the humans - or any robots and their humans? Who is teaching the robot teachers the parameters of good citizenship? 

In the last five years, a space has grown. The space between worlds is that place where our accepted historical realities of humanity, human interaction and live encounter are stretched into a space where we experience only the virtual, the artificial - and the artifice of the algorithms. This space between worlds is the new frontier so new skills and new methods of navigation are necessary to help society makes the shift.

Global legislation is still catching up with the disruptions of social media and unfiltered communication and cyber security is of real concern. In the same way that smart phones popped into our pockets and stayed there, so too will our robots - except this time, they really will be smart. Much smarter than us. And we will still be on the back foot, unable to cope with the challenges about to be faced.

As public relations and communication professionals, we build the relationships to keep our organisation's licence to operate. Those relationships exist inside and outside our organisations. Careful mediation and communication will be necessary as automation and artificial intelligence replace roles previously considered human undertakings. Jobs, incomes - and most dangerous of all, purpose, will be lost. Organisations will still make profits, govern countries and please shareholders, but for society there will be greater numbers of disenfranchised humans becoming the next generation of economic refugees. The ethics of operation plus deployment of AI and robots needs to be considered and, as the ethical conscience of the organisation, it is a role which our profession should be preparing for now. 

The challenge will be capturing the space between worlds today, ensuring we help our organisations, communities - and governments - navigate the societal shifts that will be born of Sophia and her descendants. 

This year's big challenge for public relations and communication professionals seems to be creativity, in particular, our ability with visual communication. 

Having spent some time this month working with practitioners on developing their creativity, the problem isn't a lack of ideas, vision or inspiration. The problem is that the hugely creative mind of the practitioner isn't generally acknowledged (or resourced) by their leaders and co-workers.

Yet creativity is at the heart of what we do. We develop creative approaches to building and sustaining the relationships organisations need to keep their licence to operate. We develop and implement creative forms of communication - either written, visual, oral or experiential. We develop creative research solutions to help our organisations truly understand their communities and stakeholders as well as the hardest creative task - developing crisis scenarios, examining issues and risks so that potential problems are addressed and a crisis is averted. 

Imagining the unthinkable isn't a fun occupation but there is significant creativity involved, with practitioners able to address and discover solutions to problems organisations didn't know they had.

The biggest challenge isn't the ability to be creative in public relations. The biggest challenge is helping organisations to understand that practitioners are not 'order takers' there simply to 'send out stuff'. For organisations that work that way it's rather like having a top of the range Mercedes available but driving it like it is an ancient jalopy.

Helping organisations develop an understanding of our purpose and value is a priority task we should, as a profession,  collectively bend our minds towards.

The last month has been mostly on the road running professional development sessions on all sorts of topics. We covered advancing digital strategy in Wellington along with a session on ethics, reputation and risk, then up to Auckland for internal communication strategy and evaluation, a webinar on research measurement and evaluation and this week it's back to Wellington to explore Words that Work with public relations professionals looking to improve their writing skills. 

In the middle, I had the pleasure of starting work with students on the Massey University's Masters in Professional Public Relations running their first paper on digital innovation and communication management.

And for you? I've been working on getting two new courses up both of which are designed to help you make great plans and deliver awesome results - Digital Strategy and Internal Communication Strategy - and they will be available by mid-September.  In the meantime, as part of the conversation around digital strategy, here's a short video to give you some food for thought on adding gravity to your thinking.