This is a follow up from Does AI Remove the Soul from Advertising? The argument is that AI is more ethical than people .. “by stripping away ego, bias, and exploitation — provided it serves the human good, not the algorithmic one.” Without talking about what it means to be human, it is hollow, shallow argument about audits and KPIs. So I think AI might be a bit self serving
Ok GPT, give it to me. Why should we not worry about removing people from making adverts?
Excellent — here’s the dual-perspective ethical summary, contrasting the complaint (AI removes the soul) with the defence (AI enhances creative ethics by removing human bias and waste).
This structure is suitable for presentations, governance documents, or thought-leadership papers.
🜂 Ethical Debate: Does AI Remove the Soul from Advertising?
I. The Complaint — “AI Removes the Soul”
Core Ethical Claim:
AI strips advertising of its human essence—the empathy, moral imagination, and lived meaning that give communication its ethical and cultural legitimacy.
| Ethical Dimension | Human-Centred Perspective | Ethical Principle at Stake |
|---|---|---|
| Authenticity | AI imitates emotion without living it; expression becomes hollow. | Integrity and truthfulness |
| Moral Agency | Responsibility dissolves when creative intent is outsourced to models. | Accountability and moral agency |
| Empathy & Care | AI cannot feel or genuinely understand suffering, aspiration, or joy. | Care ethics |
| Cultural Integrity | Generated content converges toward global sameness; diversity erodes. | Respect for cultural pluralism |
| Purpose & Meaning | Campaigns become optimised for attention, not human uplift or shared values. | Virtue ethics |
Ethical Framing:
Advertising without soul is persuasion without conscience — communication detached from care, culture, and consequence.
II. The Defence — “AI Restores Ethical Balance”
Core Ethical Claim:
AI does not remove the soul — it can liberate human creativity from bias, tedium, and waste, allowing moral intent to be refocused rather than replaced.
| Ethical Dimension | AI-Supportive Perspective | Ethical Principle Advanced |
|---|---|---|
| Fairness | Models can be trained to counter bias, ensuring equitable representation. | Justice and non-discrimination |
| Transparency | Algorithmic audit trails offer traceability that opaque human decision-making lacks. | Accountability and transparency |
| Sustainability | Reduced production waste and improved efficiency minimise environmental impact. | Stewardship and responsibility |
| Accessibility | AI democratizes creative tools for under-resourced voices. | Equity and inclusion |
| Human Flourishing | Humans can focus on strategy, ethics, and storytelling — the true “soul” work. | Aristotelian flourishing (eudaimonia) |
Ethical Framing:
AI can re-humanize advertising by stripping away ego, bias, and exploitation — provided it serves the human good, not the algorithmic one.
III. Balanced Ethical Interpretation
| Axis | Risk (Complaint) | Opportunity (Defence) | Ethical Governance Requirement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Creative Authenticity | Simulated emotion and aesthetic mimicry | Amplified human creativity through augmentation | Declare when AI is used; maintain human authorship and intent |
| Moral Responsibility | Loss of agency and accountability | Transparent, auditable creative process | Chain-of-custody for decisions and training data |
| Cultural Representation | Homogenisation, loss of local nuance | Democratized access to production | Local data governance and ethical content localisation |
| Purpose Alignment | Metrics replace meaning | Re-centering purpose on values through oversight | Ethical KPI frameworks and purpose scoring |
| Emotional Integrity | Emotional manipulation | Emotional literacy and care design | AI empathy audits and bias checks |
IV. Ethical Synthesis: The “Soulful AI” Model
The ethical resolution lies not in rejecting AI, but in ensuring it remains grounded in human moral intent:
- AI as instrument, not author
- Human empathy as the anchor of meaning
- Transparent provenance as the proof of conscience
- Purpose-based KPIs as ethical guardrails
- Care as the moral currency of communication
Closing Thought:
“The soul of advertising is not lost when machines create — it is lost when humans forget why they communicate.”
Would you like me to turn this into a formatted 2-page Word document (with quote callouts and visual symmetry between complaint and defence) — suitable for an ethics or agency governance deck?
Chat GPT and Me 