Let's Discuss: The Future, This Week

A podcast hosted by Dr Sandra Peters and Kai Reimer

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Ok so how crazy is this??? It has recently been revealed that the girl above, Miquela, is actually CGI generated! She has over 1 million followers (more than I could ever dream) yet she is not real. There are so many issues that arise from this, but I want to focus on the marketing/advertising side. As we all know, Instagram is a popular platform for marketers to use influencers to sell their products. The line between real and fake is blurring, with users having an increasingly difficult time differentiating between the two. Companies could possibly create their own and use them to promote their products. Having their own CGI influencer could be incredibly beneficial and they can create a personal connection with the users and have full control of the messages being conveyed. A step further could also be to duplicate real person and manipulate them for their own benefit. 

However, that method would only be highly effective if the public was not aware that the influencer was CGI-generated. This brings up further questions of ethics and what kinds of laws would be involved with it.

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"Attention: this toilet is under the surveillance of the city of Alameda and the state of California. By using this facility you grant consent for your biological waste to be analysed by the city, the state, and any third party with whom the data is shared, waste data may be combined with other facial recognition or identification technologies. If necessary to contact you regarding your contribution."

Institute for the Future, 2027

Hey guys! Just wanted to quickly post this quote that came up from the podcast because it really struck a chord in me. It touches on issues surrounding big data in terms of large scale surveillance and I think this is something we really need to consider as it is truly possible that this may actually happen!

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Not sure what to think

Hey everyone! So I’m a little conflicted right now as to whether or not I think the style of the podcast/host was beneficial in delivering the podcast’s messages. On one hand, the podcast is really well structured and thought out. You get the feeling that most of it was already written out, since it flowed so well and clearly. This helps with the stories they discuss since they are sometimes quite philosophical or complicated. However, on the other hand, because it feels like it was pre-written, there is a lack of energy or the feeling of excitement about these new technologies. There is barely any feeling of ad-lib or spontaneity and this may affect the engagement of the listener, especially since the target audience is students. 

Let me know what you guys think!!

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This week in class we had a lot of discussion about search functions. Therefore, I wanted to link in a story mentioned in the podcast. The hosts talk about a new search function by Google called “Talk to Books” and how the search is supported by AI. This could have a major impact on the concepts discussed in class, for example, SEO. SEO has quite a large focus on keywords and how to use them to increase their search rankings. However, if AI search were to be implemented, the importance of keywords would decrease, making the process of optimisation more difficult and in need of change. 

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An interesting parallel was drawn up between a cruise ship and Facebook by the hosts this week. This idea comes up through the discussion of the economics of a cruise ship. In order to extract the most profits from their customers, cruise ships need to create a captive audience. In other words, the cruise ship tries to hold the consumers captive in an ecosystem that they control and therefore reap all the benefits. This is essentially what Facebook does in the digital world, as opposed to the real world. Facebook users are trapped within the platform and the company benefits from this. 

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Alexa randomly laughing compilation

All known occurrences of Alexa randomly laughing, unprompted. More than a little creepy.

Following on from the discussion of smart speakers, I wanted to share with you guys a compilation of Alexa randomly laughing (without a trigger). I want to use this as a metaphor for the lack of control we have over these smart speakers and the data we feed them. The hosts discuss an article defending the newly released Home Pod, but I wanted to bring the conversation to big data. Each of the companies collect the data harvested from your usage of the smart speaker. I think this brings up different issues for both the user and the company. For the users, there are ethical issues brought up. For the company, since the usage for the smart speakers are quite broad, analysing and understanding the data collected would be a challenge. 

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The effectiveness of podcasting

Hey guys, today I just wanted to touch on why I think podcasting was suitable for delivering effective messages in  The Future, This Week .

A big reason for me was the interaction and discussion that occurred between the hosts. The topics discussed, like big data, digital technology, the impacts and ethical issues surrounding them, all have a lot of grey areas. By having two hosts, there can be a back and forth discussion that written forms of media are unable to achieve. This results in a deeper discussion and therefore better understanding of the situation. While the discussion is quite philosophical and deep, the hosts keep the conversation simple and easy to follow. This compliments the audio format since our brains easily get distracted when listening. 

Following on from the previous point, another reason why podcasting was suitable is that it is digital and is an audio file. Since the podcast is digitally available, it makes it easily accessible and convenient for the target audience. 

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The Myth of the Echo Chamber

A story brought up by Sandra Peters this week on echo chambers made me consider a different point of view. It was an interesting news story by BBC and involved the concept of the echo chamber. This term is used as a metaphor to capture how messages are reverberated and amplified within an enclosed media space. As a result, the messages are magnified and the audience is insulated from rebuttal. 

Applied to social media platforms such as Twitter or Facebook, the idea is that users are subject to a narrow feed of information that only align with their own opinions and views. However, what the news story argues is that the online echo chamber is a myth. The reasoning behind this statement is in two parts. Firstly, contrary to common belief, our media diet is actually quite diverse, with only 8% of the participants in the study in Ottawa being classified as living in an echo chamber. Secondly, the reason why the echo chamber seems to exist is due to our human characteristics, rather than our media diet. 

I found this idea really interesting because it wasn’t something I had properly considered. For example, we have motivated reasoning, where we will make an effort to dismiss information that disagrees with our own. Or confirmation bias, where we only pay attention to and believe what aligns with our belief. I had previously solely focused on the function of social media, rather than our humanly functions.