“The future belongs to the storytellers.”
I heard this the first time two decades ago at a professional development seminar on marketing and branding. And it is true. Content is king. In any medium, the story sells it.
In the coming days of artificial intelligence, this will ring even more true, but the phrase will be reworked in modern nomenclature: “The future belongs to the prompt writers.”
Finally, an English degree will be worth something! The ability to turn a phrase, both to program AI results, but also to elicit the best results, will lie with those who can best construct with language.
I started university the year the internet was born. I chose computer science as my major. At that time, the field was so new that it didn’t have its own faculty. While its state-of-the-art buildings were under construction, the faculty remained physically and literally a part of the business faculty.
My programming courses were delicious. It was my world. I had been programming since grade 3 at my magnet school. But at uni, computer science majors had to complete requisite basic business courses – accounting and economics, classes which suffocated me. I passed accounting only by flirting with the professor. Economics was so dreadful that I had no recourse but to change majors. To English. Literature, creative writing, and communications.
I became a storyteller.
My relationship with AI is new. I know it is going be toxic, just as all relationships with a disproportionate power balance are. But in my latter years, I know I will work some magic, weaving language into digital artistry, pulling the human out of the machine.