Our takeaways

First, the headline: this was our opening night at our new home, the Mad Squirrel Tap on the High Street, right opposite the cathedral. Great room, good beer and a proper turnout to break it in. Our speaker was Rob Finlay, a producer, director and musician with careers in both film and video production and in music, and his talk asked a deceptively simple question: what survives when everything can be generated?

Rob's argument was that AI makes it dead easy to produce something fast, but fast usually skips the steps that are proven to get you a genuinely good result. Quick and good are not the same thing.

That set off a proper debate. Part of the room pushed back: surely it is just easier to do it quickly? The reply that kept coming was that now these tools are in everyone's hands, people are forgetting the principles underneath the work. In marketing and advertising especially: what are you actually trying to achieve? Are you selling something, or getting a message out? Are you even talking to the right audience? The tool will not answer any of that for you.

One slide summed it up and stuck with the room: if AI can create almost anything, what skills, experiences and ideas become more valuable, not less? Worth sitting with for a minute.

Rob also talked about AI fatigue, that loop where you keep generating and tweaking until it drives you round the bend. And a very current headache, clients handing over work that has been vibe-coded, which he then has to reverse-engineer in video or music terms before he can actually edit it and make it usable.

The part that landed hardest was about keeping some things sacred. Rob's music comes from the heart, and it is one thing he will never hand to AI. Not everything needs to be faster or automated. Some things are the whole point.

From the night

More from Rob

Rob Finlay is a producer, director and musician. If the talk landed with you, his work is well worth a look.