PR Knowledge Hub

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.

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.