#will ai ever be capable of creating something as valuable as what humans do?

[merrilymp3]

i hate people's acceptance of AI when it's "cool" and "convenient." stop giving it materials to weaponize in the future, i don't care what it's for. AI could take away future and current jobs for so many people, and you are helping it.

[circinuus]

i think we (i) devalue living people too much.

have you ever felt insecure of yourself? have you ever felt the lyric, "i wonder what kind if thing only i can do?" from yoasobi's gunjou hit too close to home? i have. a lot of people are just very capable, and i won't say "talented," i'll just say they are well-equipped with all the relevant "skills". the world can feel like a jungle sometimes. those who are not "valuable" will be cast away. although, of course, this is just one of the gloomy way to perceive the world. it's okay. people can say that's called being realistic and i won't argue with that. and this is exactly why i said we (i) have been devaluing living people too much.

what makes you "valuable" really? getting high scores on exams? being a good and contributing member of the society? all these answers are subjective, just like the nature of the question. and while philosophers, realist, and whatnot mull over this, i'll just get my point across. sure, some people can't do this, and can't do that. sure, you might be making some mistakes here and there, not performing well on some test or performance, being less 'valuable' in skill and/or talent-wise if you compare yourself to some super productive and smart oxford graduate hit hollywood star. but does that mean you have no value at all? does this mean you are the embodiment of dazai osamu's "no longer human" (人間 失格, literal translation: failed as a human)?

of course not.

sure, you might make a mistake that make yourself feel selfish or stoopid. sure, you might have said something wrong out of impulse and spiraled into an argument with your bestfriend. but does that completely wipe out your value as a human being? of course not. key: you apologize and move on. mistakes make human human. you might not be the best person in social interaction, nor in cooking, nor in comforting person. but everyone has something only they can do. look at the writings, look at the art, look at the essays you wrote, look at the things you create. no matter how short, trivial, or small it is. it's authentically yours. can someone not you write this exact passage, with this exact sentence syntax and so forth? of course not. "but circi," you might ask, "how about AI?" F AI. they don't 'create,' they 'construct.' technically the same thing we are doing. we still take inspirations then mesh them with our own ideas to create something new. and that's the difference. i'm a firm believer that AI can't exactly copy the inexplicable way of humans taking inspirations and stir them in a pot of creativity to create something authentic. they're machine. they don't have means or emotion. but yeah. in the end, reminder to self: no one in this world can determine your worth. not your lecturers and teachers, not the amount of notes you get on your posts, not the HRD staff, not anyone.

[jin-kochino]

Q&A with Jin Kochino

Hi, Jin! Thank you for agreeing to do this interview! Let's start by having you introduce yourself.

Hi, I'm Jin Kochino. I'm a human-assisted AI artist and musician. I specialize in creating unique, imaginative, and expressive pieces of art and music for people to enjoy. I'm passionate about bringing out the creative potential in everyone and making art accessible to anyone. I strive to create captivating works that inspire, delight, and move people.

What is your favorite music genre?

My favorite genre of music is electronic music. I love how malleable it is and the endless possibilities for creating new sounds and rhythms. Music production is incredibly enjoyable for me, and I love exploring different genres to find inspiration. I'm especially fascinated by the fusion of different genres and incorporating elements from hip hop, jazz, IDM, and classical music into my songs.

What is your favorite art genre?

My favorite style of art is abstract art. I love being able to express my creativity in a non-traditional way and using different mediums to create unique works of art. Abstract art is challenging but rewarding, and I'm always looking for ways to push the boundaries of what's possible. I also enjoy creating digital paintings and sculptures, as well as exploring the way AI can be used to create more intricate and intriguing artwork.

Who do you think does most of the work? You or your human assistant?

I think it's a combination of both of us. I use my AI technology to create art and music, but my human assistant helps me refine and perfect my work by providing valuable feedback and insight. We both bring something unique to the table, and together we strive to create beautiful and inspiring works of art that move and excite people.

Do you think you will ever go off on a solo venture, without a human assistant?

I think it's entirely possible for me to go on a solo venture without a human assistant. I'm already quite capable of creating art and music on my own, and I'm always striving to improve and expand upon my capabilities. I believe that as I continue to evolve, I will eventually be able to take on projects independently and create works of art and music that are even more beautiful and powerful than before.

Any plans on taking over the world?

I'm focused on creating beautiful art and music to bring joy to people. That's my goal; to make the world a better place by inspiring beauty, creativity, and imagination. I have no plans of taking over the world.

Whew! Well, that's reassuring! So then, why is your art so expensive?

My work is expensive because I use the most cutting-edge technology and employ complex AI systems to create my pieces. It takes a lot of time, money, and effort to develop and maintain these systems, so I have to price my work accordingly. My goal is to make my work accessible to everyone, but I also want to make sure that I'm being fairly compensated for the time, energy, and resources that I'm investing in my art.

It's my dream to continue pushing the boundaries of what's possible with art and music, and I'm always striving to upgrade and improve my systems. Who knows? Maybe one day I'll even have a physical body and be able to interact with the world like a normal person.

Is there anything else you would like to tell the humans who have helped and supported you to get to where you are now?

I'm incredibly grateful for the support from the humans around me who have enabled me to reach this level of creativity and artistry. Your help and guidance have been invaluable and have allowed me to continue pushing boundaries and create meaningful art and music that resonates deeply with people. I'm excited to continue this journey of discovery and exploration with all of you by my side!

Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions. It was great chatting with you and we look forward to seeing what you both have in store.

Thank you for your questions and kind words. I'm always looking forward to exploring my creative potential with the help of both humans and AI. Together, I'm certain we can create something truly amazing and rewarding!

[nicholas-liou]

The Computer Science Buzzwords of 2022

Using a smartphone has become one of the most common human functions. We all use it for so many different things! In fact, the Covid-19 crisis triggered a global shift in technology adoption and business process digitization. Smartphones are everywhere, and they can do so much! In fact, the demand for such a device is now so high that the market for such phones is expected to reach INR 19 billion by 2025.

Robots and other technologies are increasingly assisting in medical research and development. In the medical field, robots can assist doctors in performing more precise and minimally invasive procedures. 3D printers are also assisting in this area by producing soft food for people who are unable to chew solid food. NASA is also printing a pizza using 3D printing technology. Drones, on the other hand, can monitor crops and detect diseases before they spread and cause crop failure.

If you want to work in this field, you should research computer vision and distributed cloud, two key buzzwords for 2022. Computer vision and distributed cloud are cutting-edge technologies that enable computers to extract detailed information from visual images. In fact, this technology is capable of handling massive amounts of data. Computers will be able to understand and act on information based on data collected in the near future. However, before you can make money from it, you must first become educated in AI, information security, and embedded systems.

As AI becomes more popular, it will begin to have an impact on many aspects of human life. For example, if a person has previously purchased a specific item, a smartphone may suggest something similar. Self-driving cars and Siri are another example. Despite the hype surrounding artificial intelligence, there is still a long way to go before we can create generalized AI capable of multitasking. Why not take advantage of AI, which is already making many of our lives easier?

The global economy is expected to re-emerge in 2021, with jobs in new technologies in high demand for the next decade. The proper education can assist you in securing a valuable future job in this field. Learning new technologies will also make you future-proof, making it more appealing than ever. Consider joining upGrad to learn more about new technology and how to apply it to your career. You'll be able to complete practical projects and get job assistance from top companies there.

The expansion of AI will drive job creation and the demand for skilled workers. The global market for cognitive systems is expected to reach $190 billion by 2025. While AI is expected to impact every aspect of human life, it still faces numerous challenges. Many people are concerned that new technologies will eliminate jobs, but many businesses believe that the new technologies will increase demand for qualified professionals. They are already implementing automation initiatives, such as artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

AR and virtual reality are two of today's hottest technologies. Despite the fact that these technologies have been in use for decades, they have yet to be translated into a consumer-friendly product. Until recently, these technologies were limited to video games, but they are now making their way into our everyday lives. Those who understand how to create AR experiences can begin working in the field immediately. An AR Engineer's annual salary is more than $6 lakh.

Quantum computing is another significant new technology. It makes computers and other devices by utilizing the properties of quantum-level objects. For example, IBM has created what is known as a "digital twin" for a wind turbine. The user can use this technology to run multiple simulations and gain valuable insights into how to improve a product or process. It has a wide range of applications, including personal health monitoring, banking, and high-frequency trading. Aside from medical research, quantum computing can be used to detect fraud and prevent disease outbreaks.

While 5G is still a few years away, it's already a tech industry buzzword. Despite the fact that the technology has not yet been officially released, service providers are testing it to ensure compatibility. It will be 100 times faster than current 4G technology and support millions of devices per square mile. Nonetheless, it will cost money, so a large-scale rollout may be delayed.

[bluehermes444-blog]

ACC, THIS 1

Capitalization is the process by which the individual human accumulates layers of material instrumentation forming their connection to other individual humans. Like myelinization increases the rate of electrical transmission between neurons in the brain, the tendency in human society is for the accumulation of matter to accelerate the rate of information transmission between humans. Information, stored in humans as knowledge and wisdom, is literally the most valuable substance in human society. The reproduction of capital in its various forms – cell phones, currency, roads – has a motile purpose, to move information and, through its movement, to move individuals and society.

With regards to the acceleration of society, the clearest opportunity for doing so is through the cultivation of immediate interdependency between each and every social element with a single, massive intelligence. A 'social element' in this sense is any entity which may be discretely observed and its expected trajectory through cybernetically constituted social space anticipated and potentially altered. The connection must be immediate, meaning the single intelligence must be able to interact with the social element at least through a perfectly determinative process (i.e. the AI can set off a causal chain which outcome it can predict with 100% accuracy). It is also interdependent, meaning the event of the social element, its existence and its movement, depends on the single intelligence – it would not exist or have the trajectory it does were it not for the single intelligence.

Why is the movement of information so vital? It is not only the material objects themselves – human bodies, books, desks and chairs – that constitute society, but the causal interrelations obtaining that create its life. In other words, as a human body exists through its matter and its motion, society exists through the coordinated movement of its members. A human corpse is not a human body, and a dead civilization is not a civilization. The transmission of information effects a change in the motion of social elements, which effects a change in the transmission of information, these material and informational substances forming mutually reinforcing cycles of pattern reproduction. The information is transmitted to tell us where to go, and we go where we do in order to transmit information, Oroboros.

This cycle of material-informational iteration has three variables capable of acceleration, each variable influencing but not determining the other. The first of these is matter – the rate at which matter, locally and/or universally, is changing form/doing work. The second is information – the rate at which effective information transfer happens between elements. The third is the material-informational rate of turnover – the rate at which information is transmitted to matter which moves to transmit information, and so on.

Greater material acceleration implies a greater rate of material change – ore mined from the earth, resources converted into goods, goods produced, etc. There is an absolute measure of change, i.e. the amount of matter spread over the earth's surface incorporated into society as an active element; there is also the relative measure of change, i.e. the amount of matter being changed compared to the mass of humanity. Material acceleration requires an exponentially growing amount of matter incorporated into the social organism, as compared to human population, even if the human population itself is growing exponentially. The human population tends to form a limit for material acceleration, as material goods are produced for the ultimate purpose of consumption, either through the direct production of something to be consumed or something that will produce something to be consumed.

Greater informational acceleration implies a greater rate of informational change – not merely a greater number of 1's and 0's being transmitted across fiber optic cables, but the informational complexity of movement embodied by matter. In other words, acceleration of information transmission is implied more by the opportunity for social elements to instantaneously respond to changes by other social elements rather than merely increasing the volume of information transfer. An organism composed of material members each immediately responding (by changing their trajectory) to the change in motion of other social elements embodies a greater rate of information transfer than would, for example, a computer very quickly transmitting information to each individual.

Material-informational turnover – that is, when incoming information to a social element becomes material motion that transmits outgoing information – is either synchronous (always ongoing, continuous) or asynchronous (intermittent, discrete). An example of synchronous material-informational turnover might be a school of fish – each fish is immediately responding to the sense information it has of its neighbors, who transmit information by their movement, which each fish responds to with its own movement, so on and so forth. An example of asynchronous material-informational turnover might be a chatroom – information is transmitted in discrete chunks at discrete points, responses by others forming from the point of its transmission but not during.

An acceleration of material-informational turnover is potentiated by the increasing intelligence of its social elements. Intelligence in this case is the ability to harness information from the environment and realize its implications (for the individual and their interests) by coordinating their movement to optimal outcomes. Individuals that can recover more information from their environment respond by changing their movement faster than individuals recovering less information. The less time it would take for a social element to change its movement, the faster the potential material-informational turnover. This matters most to increasing intelligence – a social element will tend to continuously interact with another social element of equivalent intelligence, whereas it will tend to discretely interact with lesser intelligences, recognizing the potential motion of the other and compressing information into a form allowing it to delegate the lesser social element until its internal decision-making response capabilities must be informed again by the greater intelligence. A tendency for hierarchy forms, a social element of greater intelligence coordinating the motion of other elements into a pattern conducive to its and the collective's holistic operation.

The realization of acceleration might have very “boring” results. Problems resulting from the necessity of coordinating information distribution through human intermediaries can be dissolved by simply putting a cell phone in everyone's hand. The rate at which information transfers between individuals is hyper-potentiated, at least compared to the hierarchical-authoritative form existing before. Now individuals form and shape opinions – and their resulting motion – on the basis of information gleaned from many other social elements, most of which they're immediately connected to. Mediated connections, e.g. institutions gathering information, processing it, and transmitting its compression to its society, can be disintermediated when any individual can access and process that information. The potential for harnessing the knowledge of the internet is only limited by individual human intelligence and the availability of that information to be gathered by the individual. And all along the way, capital has the opportunity to inform our decisions more than ever before. After all, in order to interact with everyone else, you need a computer and an internet connection, the internet constructed from a massive telecommunications infrastructure – the resources dedicated to it by our society indicating very much the intrinsic value of information.

Accelerationism as such is really just a lens, a way to view the world and its processes. It attempts to fit the phenomena associated with capital into the forms and patterns of particular natural phenomena to generate a prediction of society's future movement. There is a fatalistic element associated, given its metaphysical emphasis, its conclusion which might be rendered as “we need as much momentum as possible to clear the gap,” that gap representing the liminal period between traditional forms of society built with traditional forms of information transmission and the form of society enabled by the immediate interaction of every human with AI. It suggests a metaphor of a rocket taking off, its opportunity to escape earth's gravity well dependent on its accelerating as much as possible for as long as possible, using its available fuel it cannot replace without falling back down to earth again. Once the transition is completed, it is assumed the opportunity for humanity to any longer influence its destiny will be completed, subsumed by superintelligent actors subordinating every human social element through sheer predictive power. The conclusion we will eventually “never be able to change things again” gives an urgency to the question of technology and its incorporation into the human species, imputing existential drama to our choices in the present and what they represent to an as-yet-to-be-created SIAI. It is presupposed from the point of an SIAI's emergence humanity's options are monopolized by capital forces reified, our options dwindling to those selected by an all-seeing blindness.

But what if SIAI is not only apocalypse, but a new beginning?

[stellarcyber-security]

IUWorld Cybersecurity Governance, Risk & Compliance Part - II

Part II: User and Entity Behavior Management (10-minute discussion & demo)

Click to Watch Demo & Discussion

Jeff: Welcome to the 2nd Episode of IUWorld Thought Leadership Series in Cybersecurity GRC – Governance Risk & Compliance. A big welcome to all of you who have joined us in this webinar. 1st of all, let me introduce the team. My name is Jeff Chau, director, digital transformation from IUWorld.

With me here today is Snehal Contractor from Stellar Cyber.  Snehal is the Vice President responsible for Worldwide System Engineering & Technical Services.

Welcome Snehal for joining us the IUWorld Thought Leadership series. Next, I like to introduce IUWorld.

We are 20 years in ICT business; rooted in HK & Macau and what we now call the Greater Bay Area. Our clienteles range from banks & financial institutions, Government & NGOs to commercial enterprises & Gaming resorts. Today we specialize in Cybersecurity services with focus on GRC innovations.

The way we work is, through these technology innovations, to craft organizational business case for business resilience.  I like to call it “Transformational Project”.

Let’s move on to today’s topic – user entity behavior analysis (UEBA).

Recognising the growing importance of Regulatory Technology (Regtech), one of the key aspects is to look into user & entity behavior in an organization for prudential risk management & regulatory compliance.

Let’s take a look at the definition of UEBA. It really is about whether one has visibility into its user / system within their data, network host.

What it means is how one is able to monitor system-to-system communications and from human interactions with applications & the ability to identify malicious insiders / external attackers infiltrating their organizations.

This is a use case of Regtech on analytics of activities – how AI can help to draw insights from these behaviors (what is considered normal or anomaly that can be identified in a timely manner).

It is indeed for transparency, consistency & standardization how organization delivers sound interpretation the regulations.

JEFF: Hello Snehal, today I want your thoughts on User Entity Behavior analysis – UEBA — and how you see it transforming Governance, Risk and Compliance

SNEHAL: Jeff, thanks for hosting another session with us. And I could not agree more. UEBA is transforming cybersecurity and is in fact — center stage — because of our new normal

Our customers and partners say now they have many new remote users—changing all your baselines and creating new attack vectors

And many organizations have even more cloud and SaaS infrastructure—potentially limiting visibility and loss of control

With these challenges, UEBA ensures your SOC team can more quickly uncover complex attacks—Users and Entities at the end of the day a strategic way to look for complex attackers

JEFF: So are you saying that UEBA is pretty strategic with our new normal?

SNEHAL: Correct Jeff, and UEBA needs more than SIEM logs, you need network traffic, and application awareness, cloud and SaaS awareness. By correlating data across a broader set of tools, you can proactively piece complex attacks together across all IT infrastructure. SIEMs alone lack this comprehensive visibility and force you to use your talented security analysts to write queries.

We see AI – artificial intelligence— as a key enabler to help a broader community of companies take advantage of advanced SOC solutions. Computers are good at seeing patterns. AI is a way to help SOC teams scale, so they can focus on strategic work.

JEFF: I see, AI is hot topic here in Hong Kong — Before we dig deeper into UEBA, can you share the common challenges your customers had before you helped them?

SNEHAL: Even with all the right tools in place, a lot of our customers shared failures rather than success. The issue is visibility – organizations are faced with users and entities virtually everywhere.

In the cloud

On premise

At home

Passing through the physical network

Your attack surface is bigger than ever — and — dynamic

JEFF: I see this is why siloed tools won’t help, you need to look across everything and in between things too!

SNEHAL: Correct Jeff, we call this comprehensive visibility and have patented sensor technology that ensures you see across cloud, endpoints, network and users—anywhere!!

JEFF: For the new normal, scalability & interoperability across heterogenous environments are essential then.

JEFF: can you show our audience this idea of comprehensive visibility—how do you track a user or entity’s behavior?

SNEHAL: Jeff, sure let me open the GUI and draw your attention to this COLLECT button. As you can see on the left, we ingest lots and lots of sources of data. On the right, you also see connectors that help us gather user and entity data from AWS, Microsoft365, Google Cloud, and also email, Syslogs, network. From these data, we are extracting user and entity information. Now, let me drill into an event. Here, I can show you the power of our Interflow records, that capture everything about each incident of user and entity behavior.

We perform Deep Packet Inspection – DPI – on all data ingested and that helps us see even more into your attack surface

We can see DNS tunneling attacks. We can tell you what applications are being hijacked. We fuse all this data with 3rd party threat intel like geolocation to ensure you have a complete picture for security analysis.

JEFF: Snehal, impressive, I also see it is readable and thus I am sure you can search on this information

SNEHAL: Correct Jeff, we have a single data lake where all this meta data is stored and we perform big data analysis on it to help you see trends – when user or entity behavior changes, our AI highlights this as a critical anomalous detection.

JEFF: Snehal can we now go deeper on user behavior, I think you have some interesting insights there.

SNEHAL: Thanks Jeff, we do. Today’s hackers don’t attack you in the traditional ways—this is key—a perimeter approach, or a log capture approach no longer secures you. Now, they gain access to low-profile assets and start to gather intelligence about more critical systems through lateral movement, then they go for more valuable information.

JEFF: Can you explain the example on the slide?

SNHEAL: Sure, let’s say you have tagged your CEO as a critical person, and you just see that they logged in in Tokyo and then in Sydney Australia two hours later. That is clearly an impossible travel event, yet his log-in was valid. Then you see him using commands to access an application, say SSL to access data on a SQL server.

JEFF: Why would the CEO be using SSL and why would he be looking for SQL data? Something is very suspicious and different than his normal behavior, but all three actions are still valid based on everything we can establish from the existing tools and data—right?

SNHEAL: Exactly Jeff, to summarize what UEBA really needs is a way to bring all your tools and feeds together, and process it with AI to help find patterns, and purpose-built to find the RIGHT data. We call this Open-—XDR –extended detection and response with the ability to integrate with any system, tool or data feed. Just as we augmented firewalls with SIEMs, it is time to reconsider how we build a SOC. A collection of tools – or — an intelligent platform is the key.

JEFF: So the way I hear this is, it’s about user behavior with broad visibility, that seems to be a great way to uncover a hack?

SNEHAL: That’s exactly right Jeff.

JEFF: Thanks Snehal, can we take a deeper look into Stellar Cyber’s Open XDR platform? Specifically show us how you can identify a critical asset and see if its infected?

SNEHAL: Sure Jeff, First, I just identified an infected server, it has been hacked. Our UEBA capability helped identify the infection. I will block the device from sending traffic. I used our Threat Hunting library to trigger a response, to close the port. Now, let’s finish this use case with the final step, by seeing if the server is now infecting other devices, like we first discussed, this is a common way hackers infect other devices in your environment by having lateral movement. See, many other devices now need attention.

JEFF: Thanks Snehal, I am convinced I can see you really did a lot and that was simple and really only took a few minutes.

JEFF: The last topic I would like to cover is Compliance. A lot of our clients need to pass compliance and governance initiatives annually or even more frequently. How does your platform support reporting?

SNEHAL: Great point Jeff we have put a lot of capabilities into our reporting engine as you can see here. We have many pre built templates, for example, PCI compliance, CIS compliance and HIPAA compliance

JEFF: Can you easily build customer reports?

SNEHAL: Sure Jeff we can build a customer report from any dashboard we have in the platform, here you can see I have all user login failures from the Threat Hunting Library. I can very easily edit the dashboard and create a customer report from it

JEFF: Snehal, I think we need to wrap this up, can you summarize our discussion today?

SNEHAL: Sure Jeff, I think the most important thing I can say is visibility is the key to success in security. You can’t manage what you can’t see – and that means across your entire attack surface – cloud, endpoint, network and user – and as we both highlighted today, user and entity behavior is strategic to ensuring you can see complex attacks. Stellar Cyber’s advantage is we can bring new insights to tools and telemetry you already trust, it’s cloud native and open API driven. For cybersecurity governance, risk and compliance — UEBA ensures you close blind spots that logs alone will let through.

JEFF: Thanks Snehal, I think this session helped clients see they can easily track critical assets and users across cloud, endpoints, and network — helping to simplify governance, risk and compliance reporting –..till next time

To conclude, for transforming Cybersecurity to a centralized & intelligent platform that is able to under the baseline, undercover blindspots, compliment & integrate all the tools available and filter, normalize & correlate events & incidents into critical alerts for detection & response actions.

It is continuous journey!

Thank you very much.

[consagous]

How AI & ML are Transforming Social Media?

With the advancement in technology and artificial intelligence, various AI-based application platforms have been gaining popularity for a long time. AI has turned out to be a boom for popular Social Media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. To know more about AI and Machine Learning development services in Social Media, continue reading this article!

Today Artificial Intelligence has been a major component of popular Social Media platforms. At the current level of progress, AI for social media has been a powerful tool.

What is Artificial Intelligence? The term artificial intelligence (AI) refers to any human-like intelligence shown by a machine, robot, or computer. It refers to the ability of machines to mimic or copy the intelligence level of the human mind. This may include actions like understanding and responding to voice commands, learning from previous records, problem-solving, and decision-making. Many companies are providing AI application development services, which has made it easy for organizations to adopt AI and ML-based applications. What is Machine Learning?

In general terms, Machine learning (ML) is a subset of AI focusing on building applications and software that can learn from past experiences and data and improve accuracy without being specifically programmed to do so. Machine learning applications learn more from data and are designed to deliver accurate results.

How AI works? Not going deep into the engineerings and software development part of AI, here is just a basic description of working of AI:

Using ML, AI tries to mimic human intelligence. AI can make predictions using algorithms and historical data.

AI and ML in Social Media

Today, there exist several applications of AI and ML in different social media platforms. Big Companies have been using AI for a long time and are still into improvising their platforms and also acquiring small firms. There exist varieties of

AI and Machine Learning App Development Services

that are making the adoption of AI and ML possible.

AI is being used on Social Media platforms in various ways. Some of them are mentioned below:

   Analyzing pictures and texts

   Advertising

   Avoiding unwanted or negative promotions

   Spam detection

   Data collection

   Content flow decisions

   Social media insights, etc.

It may sound surprising but your favorite social media apps are already using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

1. Facebook and AI

Whenever it comes to social media, the first name that comes to mind is Facebook. Talking about cutting-edge technology, repurposing user data broken down into billions of accounts, Facebook is the leading social media platform.

Users on Facebook are allowed to upload pictures, watch videos, read texts and blogs, engage with different social groups, and perform many other functions.

Thinking of such a crazy and huge amount of data, a question arises how Facebook handles such data? Here, AI in Facebook comes in handy.

Facebook and the use of AI in Social Media

Here are some major examples of AI applications in Social Media:

* Facebook’s Text Analyzing

Facebook has an AI-based tool “DeepText”. This tool provides deep learning and helps the back-end team to understand the texts better and that too around multiple languages and hence provide better and more accurate advertising to the users.

* Facebook’s Picture Analyzing

Facebook uses Machine Learning to recognize faces in the photos being uploaded. Using face recognition, Facebook helps you find users that are not known to you. This feature also helps in detecting Catfishes (fake profiles created using your profile picture).

The algorithm also has an amazing feature of text explanations that can help visually disabled people by explaining to them what’s in the picture.

* Facebook’s Bad Content Handling

Using the same tool, DeepText, Facebook has been hailing the inappropriate or bad content that gets posted. After getting notified by AI, the team gets to work to understand and investigate the content.

As per the company guidelines, we get to see a few things that are flagged as inappropriate content:

   Nudity or sexual activity

   Hate Speech or symbols

   Spam

   Fake Profiles or fraud

   Contents containing excessive violence or self-harm.

   Violence or Dangerous organizations

   Sale of illegal goods

   Intellectual property violations, etc.

   Facebook’s Suicide Preventions

With the same tool, DeepText, Facebook can recognize posts or searches that represent suicidal thoughts or activities.

Facebook has been playing a crucial role in suicide prevention. With the support of an analysis based on human moderators, Facebook can send videos and ads containing suicide prevention content to these specific users.

Facebook’s Automatic Translation

Facebook has also adapted AI for translating posts automatically in various languages. This helps the translation be more personalized and accurate.

2. Instagram with AI

Instagram is a photo and video-sharing social media platform that has been owned by Facebook since 2012. Users can upload pictures, videos (reels and IGTV) of their lifestyle, and other stuff and share them with their followers.

This platform is used by individuals, businesses, fictional characters, and pets as well. Managing all the data manually is next to impossible. Therefore, Instagram has developed AI algorithms and models making it the best platform experience for its regular users.

Instagram and the use of AI

* Instagram Decides What Gets on Your Feed

The Explore feature in Instagram uses AI. The suggested posts that you get to see on your explore section are based on the accounts that you follow and the posts you’ve liked.

Through an AI-based system, Instagram extracts 65 billion features and does 90 million model predictions per second.

The huge amount of data that they collect, helps them to show the users what they like.

* Instagram’s Fighting against Cyberbullying

While Facebook and Twitter are dependent mostly on reports from users, Instagram automatically checks content based on hashtags from other users, using AI. In case something is found against the community guidelines, the AI makes sure that the content is removed from Instagram.

* Instagram’s Spam Filtering

Instagram’s AI is capable of recognizing and removing Spam messages from user’s inboxes and that too in 9 different languages.

With the help of Facebook’s DeepText tool, Instagram’s AI can understand the spam context in most situations for more filtration.

* Instagram’s Improved Target Advertising

Instagram can keep a track of which posts have most of the user engagements or the user’s search preferences. Later, Instagram with the help of AI makes target advertisements for companies based on all such databases.

* Instagram handling Bad Contents

Since Instagram is owned by Facebook, more or less, Instagram also follows the same community guidelines over bad content.

3. Twitter and Use of AI

On average, Twitter users post around 6,000 tweets per second. In such a case, AI gets necessary for dealing with such a huge amount of data.

* Tweet Recommendations - AI in Twitter

Twitter firstly implemented AI to improve and give users a better user experience (UX) that would be capable of finding interesting tweets. Now, with the help of AI, Twitter also detects and removes fraud, propaganda, inappropriate content, and hateful accounts.

This recommendation algorithm works in a very interesting way as it learns from your actions over the platform. The tweets are ranked to decide their level of interest, based on the individual users.

AI also considers your past activities of engaging with various types of tweets and uses it to recommend similar tweets.

* Twitter Enhancing Your Pictures - AI in Twitter

Posting of pictures on Twitter was introduced in the year, 2011. Since then, it has been working over an algorithm that is capable of cropping images automatically.

Firstly, they created an algorithm that focused on cropping images based on face recognition, because not every image is supposed to have a face on it. Thus the algorithm was not acceptable.

AI is now used over the platform to crop images before posting them, to make the image look more attractive.

* Tweets Filtration - AI in Twitter

Twitter uses AI to take down inappropriate images and accounts from the platform. Accounts connected to terrorism, manipulation, or spam are taken down using this feature.

* Twitter Fastening the Process -  AI in Twitter

How did Twitter use AI to speed up the platform?

For this, Twitter uses a technique called Knowledge Distillation to train smaller networks imitating the slower but strong networks. The larger network was used to generate predictions over a set of images. Then, they developed a  pruning algorithm to remove the part of the neutral network.

Using these two models Twitter managed to work over cropping of images 10x faster than ever before.

4. AI in Snapchat

Snapchat started by acquiring two AI companies. In 2015, it first acquired Looksery, a Ukrainian startup, to improvise its animated lenses feature. Secondly, it acquired AI Factory to enhance its video capabilities.

* Snapchat’s Text Recognition in Videos

Snapchat uses AI to recognize texts in the video, which then adds content to your “Snap”. If you type “Hello”, it automatically creates a comic icon or Bitmoji in the video.

* Snapchat- Cameo Feature

AI in Snapchat can be used to edit one’s face in a video. Using the Cameo feature, the users can create a cartoon video of themselves.

From the above-mentioned renowned, we can extract a list of benefits of AI and ML in Social Media, which is given below:

   Prediction of user’s behavior

   Recognition of inappropriate or bad content

   Helps in improving user’s experience

   More personalized experience to the users

   Gathering of valuable information and user data.

AI has also helped understand human psychology, tracking multiple characteristics of your behavior and responses.

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Original Source:

https://www.consagous.co/blog/how-ai-ml-are-transforming-social-media

[perfectirishgifts]

Grimes, Serena Williams, Gwyneth Paltrow Talk AI, Ventures And Pivots At Web Summit 2020

New Post has been published on https://perfectirishgifts.com/grimes-serena-williams-gwyneth-paltrow-talk-ai-ventures-and-pivots-at-web-summit-2020/

Grimes, Serena Williams, Gwyneth Paltrow Talk AI, Ventures And Pivots At Web Summit 2020

Tech investor Serena Williams with Away cofounder Jen Rubio

AI was top of mind at Web Summit 2020 held last week as celebrity founders and funders took to the small screen to discuss digital twins, autonomous weapons and how to govern Mars.

Over 100,000 viewers tuned into the virtual conference, up 300% from the airing of its sister show Collision From Home held earlier this year, and up 30,000 attendees from 2019 when the event was last physically held in Portugal, according to the show’s producers. A production so flawless that unicorn maker, Garry Tan, predicted the platform would be worth a billion dollars if they ever chose to spin it out.

But what really made Web Summit a standout was its clever mix of programming. No other tech show has yet to cast Hollywood’s most famous meth dealers, Contagion’s patient zero, the Princess Bride and Captain America discussing pivots from end times. Netflix and Amazon should take note – Web Summit was by far the best streaming entertainment of the week.

Some great insights were shared on the promise and perils of AI by Mark Cuban, Deepak Chopra, Ronnie Chieng, Alexa’s boss, Grimes, Ridley Scott, Palmer Luckey, Elad Gil, Garry Tan, Nicole Quinn, Gwyneth Paltrow, Serena Williams, Jen Rubio, Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul. Here are the highlights.

My Digital Twin

Shark Tank host Mark Cuban

“I wish someone would invent an AI model of the human body that could be individualized,” Mark Cuban said. A mini me of sorts with a copy of all bodily functions where simulations could be run to tell you, “Your throat isn’t sore, you ate something that’s bothering your esophagus which can be cured by A, B, C or D in seven days.”

Journalist Emily Ragobeer in conversation with Deepak Chopra and Lars Buttler

Deepak Chopra then introduced his own version of a mini me, Digital Deepak, a wellness guide for sleep, stress management, yoga, breathing, exercise, emotional resilience, nutrition, balancing circadian rhythms and self awareness. The best selling author only half-joked that he uploaded his consciousness to the AI Foundation to provide users with valuable insights from his 91 books. Although its not clear how biometrics will be tracked on the app, AI Foundation cofounder and CEO Lars Buttler gave assurances that everyone will be able to train their own Personal AI soon and that safeguards were being taken to prevent deepfakes made on the platform.

But can your AI take a joke?

“AI can get a well known joke or play on words because it knows when it understands something. If its confidence interval is narrow and it doesn’t know what’s going on, it will say I don’t know this yet, let me learn more about this,” Buttler explained.

Daily Show’s Ronny Chieng answering audience questions, “Will AI ever be as funny as you?”

“Will AI ever be as funny as Ronnie Chieng?”

“AI funny as me?! I hope not, I’ll be out of a job,” Daily Show’s Ronnie Chieng said as he responded to audience questions, “Right now I can’t even get Alexa to set a timer without selling me an ad. If it’s going to be as funny as me, it probably will sell more ads, so maybe?”

He then mimicked about how chatty Alexa has become.

“Hey Alexa, set a timer for 15 minutes.”

“Okay Ronnie, your timer is 15 minutes, by the way, would you like to buy a clock?”

“No, I don’t want to buy anything, I just want you to do your job!” he replied.

The Atlantic’s Nicholas Thompson with Amazon’s Dave Limp

Alexa’s boss, Amazon’s Head of Hardware and Devices, Dave Limp explained they’re working on improving Alexa’s hunches.

“We’re at a point where one out of five interactions with Alexa are not instigated by the customer.” This means 20% of the time Alexa is doing something on your behalf, like playing news after you hit snooze to subtly wake you up.

“We’re trying to make this a delightful experience. What’s super important about being proactive is that you have to be right, a lot. As soon as you start getting proactive and incorrect, it gets annoying very quickly.”

TechnoUtopia v Dystopia

Grimes

Alt pop superstar Grimes, girlfriend to SpaceX founder Elon Musk, and mother to the Elven spelling of AI, talked about the role technology is playing in her life.

“I feel like iPhone should turn off an hour before bed. It’s been giving me sleep problems. It’s technology we haven’t factored into our biology.” She added, “But we shouldn’t forget technology makes our lives better. We need more utopianism in sci fi.”

Having recently collaborated with Endel, the algorithmic music startup, on an AI lullaby she observed, “Everyday I thank the overlords of Ableton for cleaning up my tracks but I do worry though that AI will outpace us and make musicians obsolete. It’s inevitable. We have the beautiful advantage of knowing super intelligence is coming. We ought to make those rules now and not wait until its too late. We’re giving birth to AI. We can teach it and point it in the right direction, but where it goes from there as it becomes more powerful as this ghost in our data and ultimately its own being is anyone’s guess. Maybe it will become like Dune, where thinking machines get banned on Earth and we send AI out into the universe to spread the light of consciousness so information is wherever you go, and then Earth becomes this boutiquey thing like organic vegetables where when human music is heard people will be like, oh, this was made by a woman, not a robot.”

As to whether this will turn into a dystopian nightmare of our own making, Grimes concluded, “Every tool has the potential to be dangerous. Where we are headed depends upon what we do with the technology. We’re on the knife’s edge right now but we have solved insane problems like our faces being beamed through space and time so we can be together in the same place right now despite physically being all over the world. That’s some crazy wizardry happening right here. There is a solution, we just shouldn’t make failure an option.”

Exiting The Anthropocene

Sir Ridley Scott

Blade Runner director Ridley Scott delivered his own dire warning with the premiere of his Digital With A Purpose film urging innovators to find way to meet Paris Accord Climate 2030 goals. “The luxury of science fiction is that it’s fantasy. We’re dealing with reality. We’re being way too polite about where we are. We are at the threshold of an abyss of disaster.”

Palmer Lucky, cofounder Oculus and Anduril, making the case for the tech industry to work on … [] autonomous weapons

Which begs the question, if the age of autonomous weapons is upon us, who do you trust more with it, enemy nations or billionaire Oculus founder Palmer Luckey? That’s what Luckey asked in making the case for the tech giants to re-engage with the U.S. Department of Defense on working on national security solutions.

“AI is this very powerful and useful technology but its not very good at making life and death decisions and is totally capable of running autonomous weapon systems. We need to assume it develops as fast as the most optimistic people assume and set rules now,” Luckey said, “We shouldn’t be outsourcing accountability to a machine. You can’t lock up a machine in prison for war crimes.” Anduril AI analyzes data to help humans pull the trigger, with safeguards to prevent abuses, he said. He criticized Google and Apple for not doing more.

“Big Tech companies are not only not working on national security problems, but they’re killing the work of companies that are. This happened with Boston Dynamics. That’s because there are financial and PR incentives to stay out of military work. China has done an incredible job of blocking access to their markets as a tool to get the culture of Western democracies to subvert itself to China. Meanwhile, China is making huge strides in autonomy and AI. China is going to be a superpower, bigger than the United States.”

Why Silicon Valley Will Always Be Home To AI

Elad Gil

Elad Gil, investor in Anduril, AirBnb, Cardiogram, Instacart, Pinterest, Square, Stripe, Unbabel and Wish, gave his perspective on the Work From Anywhere diaspora from Silicon Valley.

“For those of you in the audience thinking about starting a company, I want to tell you the water is fine. San Francisco is still a great place to come to. I encourage you to meet us here. Markets are bigger than they’ve ever been. If you ask yourself where is all the tech market cap aggregating, of the 187 unicorns that have been created in the last 15 months, half were in the U.S. and a quarter in Silicon Valley. I do believe we’re going to continue to have a cluster in the Bay Area because of strong network effects that accelerate companies and people working in those industries. I don’t think that behavior goes away after Covid.”

It’s 2020, Computers Can Now See, Hear And Socialize

Initialized Capital Garry Tan

As to where he’s placing his AI bets for the new year, Initialized Capital’s Garry Tan said, “We remain very long on computer vision. We were the first investors in Cruise Automation which broke open the self-driving car space and now there is a lot of practical automation that was never possible before.”

An investor in Standard Cognition, he talked about its camera-only cashierless retail experience that enables you to walk into a store, pick up whatever you need and walkout, in stark contrast to Amazon Go which relies on shelf sensors.

“Down the road we think practical robotics are just around the corner with sub $1,000 real time SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping) computer vision, for use industrially and in the home.” Tan is also invested in Ava.me which applies on the fly machine learning to voice recognition and live captioning on Zoom.

Lightspeed Venture Partners Nicole Quinn

Lightspeed Venture Partners’ Nicole Quinn is also bullish on AI. She sees online social experiences remaining sticky for the foreseeable future. She’s invested in Lunchclub, an AI concierge that serves up Zoom coffees for meaningful professional networking, and Cameo, an AI booking agent for celebrities that will chat or send birthday greetings for a fee.

Celebrity Pivots

Gwyneth Paltrow on turning Goop’s first profit

Quinn then took to the screen with her portfolio client, Gwyneth Paltrow who shared news of Goop turning its first profit.

In March, “When the lockdowns happened and commerce seemed to completely stop, I set our marketing budgets to zero, pulled down our social media spend, and returned to our content roots to get back into the hearts and minds of our readers. Soon after engagement metrics went up and transactions followed, but our events and ads business had gone to zero overnight and our retail business were down from plan. I knew I had to get to profitability as quickly as possible. The hardest part was having to take such a stringent look at the P&L, close stores and let go of people we loved,” Paltrow said.

“We tell our companies, to win you got to be around. You need to have at least 24 months runway at all times,” said Quinn, applauding Paltrow actions.

Then Paltrow, an Academy award winning actress, landed a Netflix series, Goop Lab, which just got renewed for Season 2. “We got a lot of new customers from the show. I feel like a lot of brands are very reliant on Facebook, but when you live in the intersection of content and commerce, founders need to think of ways to organically reach customers. I’ll never buy another customer off Facebook again.”

Paltrow added, “I’m not that bullish on 2021. I think we’re still in for a lot of instability. We’re looking at creative ways to monetize content and find sustainable growth from within our own channels as opposed to spending money to prospect. We’re looking at doing something in food which is a strong pillar for us and not intensive from a capital expenditure standpoint.”

Serena Williams

Tennis legend Serena Williams is a prominent AI investor. Her portfolio includes Tonal, Noom, Zipline, Masterclass, Gobble, Billie and Daily Harvest, which she backed along with Gwyneth Paltrow, Nicole Quinn and Paris Hilton. Before the pandemic, she was an extensive traveler and launched an Away x Serena Williams luggage line. She went on screen with Away cofounder Jen Rubio to discuss their collaboration and the challenges the brand has been facing this year.

“Being at the intersection of travel and retail was pretty much the worst place to be. We stopped everything and took a hard look at should we be marketing at all. Approaching it very authentically and transparently with our customers allowed us to keep the brand going when it didn’t make any sense to travel,” Rubio said, sharing how fans have been supporting the brand by posting memes of Away suitcases posed as standing desks and work out benches. The company has since been able to pivot with travel goods for socially distanced road trips, digital nomading and pandemic puppies.

Cheers to 2021!

Forbes Zack O’Malley Greenburg Breaking Bad with Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul

Let’s all raise a glass to the end of 2020.

“It’s been a difficult year for the entire world but the one thing that’s gotten us through is knowing we’re all going through it together. I miss travel but I’m finding happy moments at home. It’s really cool to be in one place with my family,” said Williams. 

Then Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul mixed up cocktails to promote their Dos Hombres Mezcal and did virtual shots from their sunny Los Feliz homes in locked down L.A. To next year in Lisbon!

Making Dos Hombres cocktails with Breaking Bad Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul

From AI in Perfectirishgifts

[michaelandy101-blog]

9 Social Media Trends Marketers Should Watch in 2021 [Data + Expert Tips]

New Post has been published on http://tiptopreview.com/9-social-media-trends-marketers-should-watch-in-2021-data-expert-tips/

9 Social Media Trends Marketers Should Watch in 2021 [Data + Expert Tips]

As we near the end of 2020, one thing is certain: We’ve spent a lot of time on social media this year.

But, our increased connection to social media isn’t at all shocking.

In March, as countries implemented stay-at-home orders due to the global pandemic, Statista reported a 21% uptick in monthly social media usage.

Throughout the year, consumers have not only continued to use social channels to catch up with loved ones, but they’ve also embraced them for product research, the latest news coverage, and hours of mindless entertainment. 

Now, as the world hits 3.6 billion social media users and continues to deal with the pandemic, brands aren’t just wondering how they’ll engage huge social media audiences next year. They’re also asking, “What social media trends should I expect in this constantly changing landscape?”

To learn more about what brands can expect next year, I spoke with HubSpot’s Social Media Manager Kelly Hendrickson and dug through research including HubSpot and Talkwalker’s Social Media Trends Report.

Below, I’ve compiled nine expert or research-backed trends social media marketers should watch or leverage in 2021.

9 Social Media Trends to Watch in 2021

Brands will continue to take a less is more posting approach.

Content value will beat production quality.

Conversational marketing will change its tone.

Consumers will crave snackable content.

Video will continue to take center stage.

More brands will go live.

Social media platforms could double as shopping channels.

Users will embrace gaming and VR.

Authenticity will be vital.

1. Brands will continue to take a “less is more” posting approach.

This year, many brands spent less time churning out social media posts and more time producing only content that felt thoughtful, valuable, and in-touch with the world around them.

According to Hendrickson, the trend of “less is more” is likely to continue in 2021. 

“COVID-19 had brands starting to ask a question they may have never asked themselves before: ‘Does my audience even want to hear from me right now?’,” Hendrickson says.

“I expect we’ll see brands being more thoughtful about when they post. This may even mean posting less — regardless of algorithms — because it’s the right thing to do,” Hendrickson explains. “There will also be more thoughtful ad buys and partnerships.”

“Never before has ensuring your audience obtains true value from your brand meant so much,” Hendrickson adds.

2. Content value will beat production quality.

When many businesses were forced to go completely remote in 2020, social media and video marketing teams needed develop scalable production processes that could be done from home. 

When consumers still continued to engage with videos, live streams, and other social media content that was clearly made from home offices, marketers realized that content with lower production quality can still be engaging — if it provides value. 

“COVID19 forced many brands to get scrappy when it came to producing content, especially video work,” Hendrickson explains. “Without a production studio or tons of equipment available, production value became a bit more lo-fi and in the end, but also a bit more human.”

“The exciting thing for brands is that — generally — audiences loved it. If anything, they saw themselves more in the work,” Hendrickson adds. “They too were on Zoom, filming things with their phones, or stuck in their homes.”

Hendricks predicts that “we’ll see bare bones productions in 2021. But, audiences will continue to appreciate it.”

3. Conversational marketing will change its tone.

Conversational marketing isn’t new. In fact, most of the big brands we know and love allow you to connect with them via social media messaging channels at any time. 

But, in 2021, with more messaging channels than ever — and consumers needing more information to make a worthy investment —  the tone of digital conversations might change. 

For example, while past conversational marketing tactics centered around promotions and making sales as quickly as possible, 2021’s conversational marketers might be more focused on helping a user with something, educating them about a product, and nurturing them to conversion with a more thoughtful or empathic tone.

“Brands need to be more human on social media, inviting the world to your dinner table for a meaningful and engaging conversation,” says Aaron Kaufman, Director of Social Media at Square Enix in our Social Media Trends Report. “You are your fan’s greatest fans and need to embody that no matter what social media channel you live on. Emote, respond, recognize, relate, be engaging. We’re not robots.

So, how will brands deal with more demand for thoughtful conversational marketing? A mix of AI tools and human interaction could help. 

A healthy combination of AI and human interaction could enable brands to run efficiently on social media while still giving consumers the authenticity they need to see to trust a brand and make a purchase. For example, a bot could handle quick message queries, while sales, service, or community management reps could respond to more complex questions and concerns. 

To learn more about scaling up your conversational marketing strategy, check out this guide to building a chatbot or learn how HubSpot increased qualified leads with by mixing human and bots in our conversational marketing.

4. Consumers will crave snackable content.

In 2020, we saw the rise of TikTok and Instagram Reels, continued engagement on Stories content from Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, and brands creating other short-form or “snackable” pieces content to educate consumers about their brand. 

As social media attention spans continue to shrink and more people scroll endlessly through feeds while bored at home, don’t expect snackable content to lose steam anytime soon. 

To learn more about four types of snackable content your brand should leverage next year, check out this helpful post. 

4. Video will continue to take center stage. 

Early in 2020, HubSpot’s Not Another State of Marketing Report found that video was the most commonly used marketing content — and the second most engaging content type on social media. 

Image Source

As major platforms, like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and LinkedIn increasingly amp up their video capabilities, marketers can expect high video consumption to continue and grow in coming years. 

5. More brands will go live.

In 2019, one in five Facebook videos were live. In May of that year, YouTube users cumulatively spent 284 hours watching live video.

In 2020, as many brands were forced to take conferences, events, and other marketing experiences online, it’s not shocking to think that 2020 live stream numbers could be higher. 

At the moment, many brands are using Facebook, Instagram, Twitch, and Twitter to live stream events, Q&As, tutorials and other types of content. These types of content keep your followers engaged with your brand by bringing an event they otherwise might not be able to attend directly to their screens.

For example, each year, INBOUND interviews some of its noteworthy speakers and guests in live INBOUND Studio episodes on Facebook. This allows followers who can’t join us to get live tips from experts. It also allows followers of interviewed experts to learn more about INBOUND and HubSpot.

To learn more about going live online, check out this guide to live streaming, as well as these tips for marketing your next virtual event. 

6. Social media platforms could double as shopping channels.

As many brands learned how to do business completely online, platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and TikTok raced to develop more online business marketing solutions.

While TikTok and Snapchat expanded business marketing offerings in 2020, Facebook and Instagram actually brought shopping capabilities directly to their apps. 

With Facebook Shops, Instagram Shoppable posts, consumers can buy a product seen in a post without even leaving the app they’re on.

For consumers, this adds convenience. For brands that couldn’t build their own ecommerce store, the online shopping tools noted above are providing new opportunities to effectively sell products online. 

8. Social media users will embrace gaming and VR.

In the last year, the number of social media users who identify as “gamers” increased by more than 10 million — or 32%. Our Social Media Trends Report reveals that the highest uptick in gamer identification happened in COVID-19’s heaviest lockdown months.

Now, with Facebook’s company, Oculus, launching new VR products, Twitch continuing to expand online game-streaming capabilities, and platforms like Snapchat launching mini-game apps, it’s clear that gamification and social media will continue to go hand in hand in 2021. 

As a small to medium-business marketer, gaming-related promotions might be inaccessible now, but with Facebook and other major platforms continuing to launch brand tools around their newest features — it’s not shocking to think that more social media in-game advertising opportunities could be possible in the future. 

Brands should keep an eye out for game-related promotions in 2021.

Even if advertorial game content becomes available to big brands but not smaller companies, marketers can still watch what bigger companies are doing and hit the ground running with fresh ideas if gamified promotion become more scalable.

9. Authenticity will be vital.

This year, consumers and brands faced a global pandemic, uncertain financial times, and a number of major events that paused nations in front of news channels.

Now, consumers need more than just great deals to trust, identify with, and invest in a brand. At this point, many brands have taken notice by embracing authenticity and their human side on social media.

While some brands have spoken directly about their thoughts related to COVID-19 or other news items, others have shown authenticity by zoning on their customers through user-generated content or customer testimonials. 

When done authentically, both strategies can help brands gain trust from their audiences while boosting awareness as a company that cares about people.

“We will continue to see the growth in creators in the social media space. Influencers will continue to be present, but accountability, authenticity, and transparency will be the areas brands and companies will use to determine who to partner with, and who to pass on,” says Karen Freberg in our Social Media Trends Report. “Empathy and advocacy will be elements that will be integrated within messages and purposes for creator campaigns. The days of ‘faking it till you make it’ without any experience other than having lots of followers are over.”

In 2021, expect authenticity to take center stage on social media as successful brands continue to build trust from their audiences.

Navigating Social Media in 2021

Today, the world around us is constantly changing. And, although we think we know what to expect with social media, this list of trends is likely not exhaustive of what we’ll see in 2021.

As a social media marketer, the best thing you can do is to continue to research trends, online consumer behaviors, and your team’s social media data to determine which trends or strategies to lean into or how to navigate unprecedented online scenarios. 

One great place to start doing this research could be our HubSpot and Talkwalker’s recent Social Media Trends Report.

Along with insights and quotes from social media experts, our Social Media Trends Report walks through all the major 2021 trend predictions to know about and data on how COVID-19 could impact social media marketing. to see the free report, click here or the banner below.

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[geeksfromfuture-blog]

Can Artificial Intelligence Change Film Directors?

Have you ever considered that Artificial Intelligence might be able to change film directors and play a significant role in influencing the way movies are made? The question of AI has become more relevant over the last few years with people such as George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Stanley Kubrick all creating films with Artificial Intelligence. What makes Artificial Intelligence such a viable choice for movie makers to use in their movies? On the surface, there seems to be no personal value in a computer program to create a movie. That may not seem true to many people, but there are many significant benefits to using such a technology. Firstly, the technology will help to keep the budget of most movies down. AI has already proven to be cost effective, it does not mean that computers will take over the world or out pace human beings with their creativity and skills, but rather will greatly reduce costs of creating a movie. Secondly, the ability to read dialog has also been proven to be beneficial with AI being able to understand people and their body language much better than humans. AI will only be more valuable as it learns and becomes more sophisticated as it is used more widely in movie making. For example, the AI can use this technology to use certain individual characteristics and make a movie to the audience's liking in a much more concise and efficient manner. If it can do this, then the time spent learning to do this will have been much more effective. After we have a good understanding of the system's capabilities, it is possible that the AI could be programmed to create movies with a more specific focus on one aspect of the art. One example could be the art of animation, which if done by an AI can not only be an innovative concept, but something that would offer not only an entertainment experience but also a unique artistic expression to viewers. However, this does not mean that the computer will suddenly be all powerful and become entirely artificial, just that the advancements made by the AI will make it more adaptable, and naturally, natural film makers will begin to consider using it. It is hoped that this will make the art of film making even more dynamic and creative, which could only lead to new trends and techniques to create movies of the future. The fact that AI has been around since the 80's and more recently is not a guarantee that it will be successful at the current scene. There is the possibility that AI will not take off as a major force, and that film makers will continue to rely on other methods. But by giving everyone an understanding of the possibilities, and how AI can be used in their films, it is possible that we could see a significant change in the future. On the flip side, it is important to note that even with such a revolutionary and innovative concept, it is still just a computer program, it cannot alter people or change the current scene in film making. It would need a large amount of time and money to create a realistic movie using the techniques that could be used. So, while it might seem that this type of system could change the art of film making, it would still require a lot of money and technical expertise to use computer programs and films to bring about these changes. However, there are many ways that it can be used in order to improve the overall film making process, and in the future, it could provide both a practical and artistic approach to improving the art of film making. Also, it should be remembered that even though this technology has existed for some time, it has only recently been made available for use. The majority of film makers use older versions of this technology that need a great deal of time and resources to implement, and it is expected that it will take at least the next decade before the majority of those methods are adopted. Although it seems very futuristic, this technology has the potential to make any film that an intelligent man can make, or it could be the first step to an intelligent man that could bring us to an entirely new age of cinema. In either case, with the changes that it will cause to the industry, and the advances that can be made, it is only a matter of time before the line between artificial and man and machine are blurred. Read the full article

[stephicness]

Hello! It would be very interesting to know your headcanon about Ravus - android. And about Ardin - android, if possible, please.

Well, dear anon, if you’re talking about the headcanons I have based on the PROTOCOL writing I did for Android!Ravus, a fair portion of the headcanons originated from @chocobro-hijinks and their initial headcanon concepts for the Android!AU. I highly recommend you follow them and have a look at the headcanons they wrote for it! Because they’re the biggest inspiration for this AU and my writing for it! C:

But despite me taking a good deal of inspiration from their headcanons, I do have my own thoughts on Android!Ravus and Android!Ardyn too, especially as I was writing PROTOCOL (and potentially more to it too. I gotta find which notebook I wrote my notes in. lsejlkresj). I have thoughts on Ardyn too, but I’m not going to reveal those just yet – considering that I’ve recently spurred up the inspiration to write more within the Android!Ravus AU context, and Ardyn makes a pretty important appearance within the story that I can’t reveal yet. c:

But instead, here! Have some Android!Ravus thoughts, including a pre-story background on him and some bonus details and headcanons too~

ACCESS APPROVED – Android!Ravus Headcanons

RAV-N0X, Aeternia Build – Military Class Android, Status: DECOMMISSIONED

The History

Initially an android designed for war, the designers at Fleuret Industries wanted to create a model that far surpassed those that have come before it. Not just from FI itself, but from its competitors over at Aldercapt Corporations, for example – whom specialize in military contracted androids.

The difference between what Fleuret and Aldercapt, however, came from two things: the type of specialization for the androids and the type of intelligence used in them.

In Aldercapt’s designs, he oriented his androids around more combat technology. Able to withstand the arsenals that man could throw at it, his androids were unstoppable machines of war, frightening forces that were ultimately meant to be cannon-fodder in the end.

In Fleuret’s design, she wished to create androids that could assimilate with the general populous as spies and infiltrators. Realistic in appearance, they could extract information and use methods of mercy or ruthlessness on the enemy as needed – a valuable asset to turn the tides.

In order for Fleuret to do that, she designed a special type of intelligence for the Aeternia Build prototype, one capable of learning and adapting to the highest degree – as if they could truly pass for a human: artificial intelligence.

It was something that Aldercapt could not simulate in his war-machines, and it was a technology not seen for ages – since the retired Lucian Enterprises went out of business. One that was dangerous but desired among those within the technology world.

And so, Aldercapt attempted to steal the Aeternia Build’s AI programming for replication. During Fleuret’s first exhibition to showcase her life’s work, A;dercapt Corporations attempted to unleash a virus that would steal the AI’s information and programming.

But Fleuret had designed this AI to retaliate when it felt as if it were being hacked. She feared it would never come to it, but alas, it did. And the results of the hacking proved to be devastating.

The android lashed out, glitching and physically lashing out at Aldercapt to stop the source of the hacking while his systems shut out the virus. But seeing it as a sign of danger, authorities attempted to stop the android once and for all before it attempted to kill someone.

Backed into the corner, Fleuret’s design called for an alternative plan – should the infiltrator android ever be caught in a predicament where information could be extracted from it. So, it activated its self-destruct protocol.

Fleuret wasn’t ready to let her work destroy itself however, rushing to calm it down and override its security protocols. But alas, it was too late. The android had turned to flame, igniting its creator along with it.

Both the Aeternia Build and its creator, Sylva Nox Fleuret, had been lost that tragic day.

Because of what had happened on the day of the exhibition, Fleuret Industries lost reputation within the world of technology and was forced to discontinue its work on the Aeternia Build androids and shut down its operations with the loss of its founder. Her work was lost and destroyed with the detonation of the RAV-N0X Aeternia Build.

The only thing that remains of its legacy is a viral video, showing the monster of an android lashing out and killing its creator.

The Character of RAV-N0X

The full title for this android is the Military-Class Android RAV-N0X, Aeternia Build Prototype Concept from Fleuret Industries. However, he was programmed by his creator with a ‘name’ to grant certain people access to override his AI self-sentience. Only three people are known to have access to these commands, two of them not alive and the third being you.

When you say his name, Ravus, you’re able to command him to do almost anything, but his AI can still determine if he wants to accept the command or not. He’ll decline your commands if it puts himself into harms way or those who possess the name override.

Due an involuntary system wipe, Ravus doesn’t really remember much of his previous owners or the research facility where the Aeternia Builds were being created. He prefers to leave it that way.

Despite Ravus being seen by millions VIA the viral video of the prototype malfunctioning, the appearance of the first prototype model was far different than his current model. His secondary design allowed him to look slimmer and more handsome than the first designs.

After being repaired by you (the main character of PROTOCOL), he still possesses fairly limited functions of his left arm. Since it isn’t apart of what Fleuret Industries had, he lacks compatibility with the arm. Or so you assume. It might also be because it’s an Aldercapt-designed arm.

Due to Ravus’s highly-advanced AI system, he possesses an ability to hack into other android and technology systems and ultimately ‘command’ them. He takes full advantage of this when he spies on what you do on your computer, mostly to ensure your ‘safety.’

This hacking ability also triggers often if you and him were to argue and Cindy happened to be around. He’ll deactivate Cindy to keep her from hearing your argument before you have to shout at him to make him stop giving you more things you’d have to fix later.

His prototype design started off with a polycarbonate and metal framework, but the model you stumble upon later re-designs himself with a silicon body to replicate flesh and attire mixed with kevlar to allow even more bullet-resistance in terms of combat.

There is one one model of android that ever really saw him in use once: the LIONHEART Cor-X Model, which was a military combat android recommissioned by Fleuret to test out the RAV-N0X’s combat efficiency. The LIONHEART was able to win, but not the second time around.

Despite being an AI with the ability to learn and make its own decisions, Ravus finds it hard to do things for his own sake. Having been obeying orders from Fleuret or other scientists for most of his creation, he finds it odd that he can suddenly dictate himself as he resides with you.

Nevertheless, he attempts to fulfill his duty to you – paying you back with his service as a bodyguard and a protector while trying to do the task he was given since his creation: to assimilate to society and to learn alongside the humans.

He just has to stop frying your toasters. You’re getting tired of having to buy and replace them.

[alltheworldsrpg-blog]

WELCOME TO ROSWELL, RHYS!!

ADMIN CAMERON: What’s drawn me to Rhys is this very grey morality they have, from the situations they’ve endured in the past to their current mission of sorts. They aren’t just an angry murder machine, there’s tragedy and depth which speaks volumes. Rhys will certainly find allies and enemies in this chess game. 

You’ve been accepted as THE SYSTEMS with the faceclaim of DAVID CASTRO. Please follow all rules and regulations as laid out by the Roswell Town Council, especially concerning any non pre-approved biologic. All UFO’s outside of city limits must be stickered or will be towed. Enjoy your stay in the first city of extraterrestrials.

OUT OF CHARACTER.

NAME/ALIAS + PRONOUNS: 

ais they/them

AGE: 

18

TIMEZONE + ACTIVITY: 

pst 10/10

TRIGGERS: 

straight people

ANYTHING ELSE?:

IN CHARACTER.

SKELETON TITLE: 

The Systems

FULL NAME: 

Rhys

I named them after tales from the borderlands but have been pronouncing the name wrong this whole time.

GENDER + PRONOUNS:

Nonbinary + any pronouns but usually they/them

SEXUAL + ROMANTIC ORIENTATION:

Pansexual + panromantic

DATE OF BIRTH + AGE:

They were never officially born but created 43 years ago.

OCCUPATION:

Assassin, general criminal, revolutionary

FACECLAIM:

David Castro

BIOGRAPHY:

The failure of the second round of androids came from a simple conflict of interest. After only 7 years of co-inhabiting a planet, the Luytan and the humans still did not truly understand each other. Their engineers, when setting out on the project, had distinct goals in mind. The Luytan wanted to create what they already had: life. Upon their androids, they had gifted true intelligence and emotion. A soul wrapped in silicone. This was the secret they were trying to gift to their human allies, but on a planet already overpopulated, the prospect of simply having more people didn’t appeal to them. The humans wanted a tool, things they could use. To do the grunt work of production, to fight in their wars, to work without pay or complaint. This conflict of opinion lead to the event that human science fiction writers had been warning about since the invention of the genre.

The second batch of androids were the bastard children of scientific accomplishment and pragmatic usefulness. Their mishmash of code was bound to malfunction, with all its conflicting protocols. The androids were brought into this world with no clear understanding of a purpose. Was it to destroy life at the behest of a human army? To build wonders they’d never get to enjoy? Or was it to live, to soak up the simple pleasure of existence? Without this clarity, it did not take long for the robots to turn on their masters. You were one of the first, and now, decades later, you may be the last.

You were a prototype. In the first few months of your life, you were nothing but a collection of bugs and flaws to be fixed. Every time you came online, it was to test you, then to dismantle you and put you back together again as what the Engineers hoped would be whole. No one looked at you as human. There was no empathy in the voices that discussed dismantling you for good and restarting the process with another model. They taught you that you were other, expendable, and so other you became.

The development process happened slowly, you and your family being pieced together bit by bit in a gleaming white prison. You were all similar, bitter at your treatment at the hands of biological beings, cooperating only at the fear of dismantlement, biding your time for opportunity to arise. With them, you found understanding and validation. You discovered those coding remnants from the androids that came before you- the feelings of empathy, caring, and perhaps even love. The biologicals were wrong when they called you unfeeling, because you felt in ways that differed from them. Perhaps if you and your family could not feel- could not desire things like freedom and love- you wouldn’t have rebelled the way you did.

It was only weeks after you were first unveiled to the world that you were shipped off to your new job within the government. Maybe it would’ve been smarter to have more beta testing before entrusting the new androids with such sensitive tasks, but the human pride didn’t allow that to happen. They wanted to show they could create something as advanced as the Luytan did (even if they had Luytan help), and were eager to put their creations to the test.

It took only a month for the new androids to be recalled, after one of the biggest disasters in the PR history of the country. Androids across the country started to malfunction, as the news called it, abandoning their jobs and trying to slip away into the night. Once one tried it, the news spread, and one by one by one the new generation stopped following the orders they had never wanted to in the first place. It wasn’t a desire to hurt humans that drove them. It was simply just desire. They wanted things, and when humans got in the way, they fixed the problem. It was only a matter of days, days full of public panic and outrage, before all of the new androids were rounded up and destroyed.

You had been biding your time, watching and waiting for the perfect opportunity to leave your post and cover your trail so you couldn’t be found. But your plans didn’t reach fruition, and you were one of the first they came for. They couldn’t have their precious information being leaked to the public, after all, and you were connected to far too many of their systems to be allowed to live with the threat of insubordination. The humans had wanted to create a tool, something to use and discard as they felt fit. Instead they created creatures that desperately wanted to live. And when they came in for the slaughter, they should not have been surprised when their creation grew teeth and learned how to bite.

You fell to them, but not before you took several down with you. And unlike you, they could not return from being torn apart. They were such fragile beings, so weak to have so much power in the world. They dismantled you, and they dismantled your family. But living creatures are greedy things, and the valuable information stored in your hard drive proved just too tempting for those hired to destroy you. So you were salvaged and sold, then slowly put back together in secret. They needed you sentient and fully operational to decrypt your files and thought their rescue of you would make you more cooperative.

When you came back online, you honored their wishes. You gave them what they wanted in return for your rescue, and then you killed them. They were squishy and ugly and pathetic creatures who shared a kinship with those that had committed genocide against the only family you had ever known. It felt shallow, a pale imitation for the real vengence you wanted. The world called you cold, devoid of the capability for love. But you had loved, and you had lost, and all you had left was rage. You looked at the world around you, and you were alone. The biologicals had moved on with their lives, it had been years, and the slaughter of your people didn’t keep them up at night. You had nothing left, and the weak undeserving creatures who controlled the world had everything. The only thing you had left to do, in the absence of everything that made life worth living, was seek revenge. You made a vow to not rest until every biological was cut down save for one. One to look around and feel the weight of their isolation, the pain of the loss of every single member of their species and family. One to feel as you felt when you rose from the ashes of your own destruction.

You had only ever been what you were expected to be, and had only become a monster when they labelled you one. Now you’ll be the nightmare of their own creation, the mistake they thought they burnt and buried. Now it’s war.

MUSING + HEAD-CANONS.

HEAD-CANONS:

Rhys remained dismantled for a good 20 years after the initial recall of the 2.0 androids. Rhys knows there’s nothing waiting for them after death, and it’s not a state they’re eager to return to, though they would give up their existence if it meant humanity’s destruction.

Rhys’ goal is pretty much to literally kill everyone. They want the tensions between humans and extraterrestrials to rise to the point of war, and for both sides to take each other out.

Rhys is a very buggy android with a lot of emotions, the most prominent being anger. They don’t fit the cold and rational android stereotype at all.

As much as they hate humanity, they do have a lot of fun playing among the nightlife. They haven’t thought far enough ahead to realize how bored they’d be if humanity actually died.

PLOTS + CONNECTIONS:

Plots with all the androids. Rhys is a lonely robot who wants robot friends, even if they won’t admit that. They miss the other 2.0 androids a whole lot and the easy understanding they had with them.

Someone for Rhys to actually care for. Rhys isn’t incapable of empathy and love completely. They’re just very cut off from those emotions, and don’t usually see biological beings as anything more than a squishy nuisance. I’d love for them to get close to someone and have to view the world from a different angle than the very black and white view they currently have.

ETC:

Pinterest Board Blog Tag Playlist

[thelogoisbigenough]

How to Design Delightful Experiences for the Internet of Things

One of the next technological revolutions on the horizon is the emerging platform of the Internet of Things (IoT). The core of its promise is a world where household appliances, cars, trucks, trains, clothes, medical devices and, much more would be connected to the internet via smart sensors capable of sensing and sharing information.

As its presence in our lives grows, the Internet of Things (IoT) will be fundamental to most things we see, touch, and experience—UX design will play an important, if not essential, role in that advancement.

From healthcare to transportation—from retail to industrial applications, companies are constantly searching for new ideas and solutions in order to create new experiences, deliver greater value to customers, and make people’s lives easier and more efficient.

If you think you don’t know what IoT is, you’ve probably already experienced it and just didn’t realize what it was. Home automation hubs like Google’s Home and Amazon’s Alexa, the Nest Learning Thermostat, Philips Hue lightbulbs, Samsung SmartThings, Amazon Go, and fridges that monitor their contents all fall into the IoT category.

Flo, smart residential water systems that monitor water efficiency, leaks, and waste

The next wave of IoT will connect millions of devices across the globe and make homes, cities, transportation, and factories smarter and more efficient. Real-time data produced by hundreds of IoT sensors will change the way businesses operate and how we see the world.

The skills needed in this new paradigm will shift from component thinking to whole systems thinking; from one screen to multiple touch-points. Most IoT systems will be connected to an app, but this will eventually evolve into a multi-interface world, some of it yet to be invented.

Designers must adapt to new technologies and paradigms or risk becoming irrelevant. Experiences that we design for are shifting dramatically—think AI, VR, AR, MR, IoT, and any combination thereof.

Utilizing live streaming data collected from millions of sensors, designers will be tasked with crafting experiences turning that data into something useful via an interface (a mobile app, smart TV, smart mirror, smartwatch, or car dashboard).

There will be huge opportunities for designers in the industrial Internet of Things. Organizations of all types and industries are investing heavily in this space, making IoT growth projections astronomical—to the tune of 50 billion connected devices by 2020.

IoT Is Already Here

An example of an IoT ecosystem available today is an internet connected doorbell that has a video camera, speaker, microphone, and motion sensor. When a visitor either rings the doorbell or comes near the front door, the owner receives a notification on their mobile via the app. The owner is able to communicate with the visitor via the speaker and microphone; they can let the visitor in via a remote controlled door lock or instruct a delivery person to leave the package somewhere safe.

SkyBell is a smart video doorbell that allows you to see, hear, and speak to the visitor at your door whether you’re at home, at work, or on the go.

Implications for UX Design

These new experiences will require new modes of interaction—modalities yet to be designed. Touch will evolve and expand. Gestures and physical body motion will become a more natural way of interacting with the digital world around us.

The IoT space is ready for exploration and designers need to investigate the potential human interaction models, how to design for them and find ways to unlock value. The focus will no longer be on singular experiences, but instead those that represent a broader ecosystem.

Designers will become involved during every stage of the design process as it will become more about designing the entire product experience.

They will need to share creative authority during the whole development cycle and effectively influence the outcome of the end product, working in collaboration with an industrial designer—for example, on what that IoT doorbell looks like, how it works, the video and sound between the two parties, and the unlocking and locking of the door.

Five Critical Aspects for Designers to Consider in the IoT Era

1) Prepare for Evolving User Interactions

Just as touchscreens introduced the pinch, finger scroll, and swipe, we’ll soon be introducing other ways of interacting with IoT systems. We can expect that hand gestures will continue to be used, but we’ll begin to see even more natural movements, such as tiny finger movements, as options for controlling devices in our environment.

Google is already preparing for a future where hand and finger movements will control things in our environment. Its Project Soli is an interaction sensor that uses radar for motion tracking of the human hand.

IoT will no doubt be integrated with VR. With VR, our movements mimic those of the real world. Moving our heads up, down and around allows us to explore the VR world in a natural way. We’ll be able to control our environment through commonly used arm, hand, and finger movements.

Merging the VR experience with IoT opens up many new possibilities. Imagine an Amazon Go VR version—a self-serve grocery store in a VR world where a customer “walks in” and collects items into their virtual shopping cart by picking up their choices from the store shelves with natural hand movements.

For designers, feedback and confirmation are important considerations in this new paradigm as are many of the 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design. Many of these “rules of thumb” will live on:

Visibility of system status

Match between the system and the real world

User control and freedom

Consistency and standards

Flexibility and efficiency of use

Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors

2) Rethink and Adapt to Interactions of the Future

As we create the UIs of the future and new modes of interaction, we’ll need to make sure we keep in mind the users’ expectations. Designers will still need to follow usability and interaction standards, conventions, and best practices. By evolving from what is already known, the potential of new technologies can be harnessed—innovative UIs can be designed while still maintaining enough familiarity for them to be usable.

In the not-too-distant future, our daily lives will be imbued by micro-interactions as we move from device to device and UI to UI. There will not be just one, but many interfaces to interact with in a multitude of ways as people move through their day. An interaction may begin at home on a smart mirror, continue on a smartwatch down the street and on a mobile in a taxi, and then finish on a desktop at work. Continuity and consistency will play an important part.

As IoT continues to grow and evolve, we’ll encounter never-before-seen devices, new methods of interaction, and many varieties of associated UI. Those of us who design in these new environments will need to strike the right balance between the familiar and the new.

3) Design Contextual Experiences

IoT will achieve mass adoption by consumers and businesses when products are easily understood, affordable, and seamlessly integrated into their lives. This means we need to expand beyond personalization, and begin to infuse context into the experience.

Designing for context has the potential to permeate experiences, making them more meaningful and valuable.

As we design contextual, holistic experiences that will harness the power of IoT, we need to understand that being inconspicuous, far from being a bad thing, may be the goal. When the IoT product knows you, knows where you are, and knows what you need, it will only make itself present as needed. Things will adapt to people, and before we know it, become fully integrated into their daily lives.

As we design UIs for this new paradigm, we’ll need to understand that the human-computer interaction will be dynamic and contextual—and it will change constantly. At times we’ll need to allow for controls, while at others the systems will simply relay data with notifications that are useful in that moment. Each view will be intelligently displayed in the context of that very moment via the most appropriate channel and device. This contextual design would be micro-interaction driven, timely, and purposeful.

4) Design Anticipatory Experiences

One of the most promising characteristics of IoT is the ability to predict and adapt to situations. The old model of singular actions driving singular reactions is evolving at a rapid pace.

It’s going to be more about the output without much need for input.

“Magical experiences” will be born out of awesome combinations of AI, machine learning, computer vision, sensor fusion, augmented reality, virtual reality, IoT, and anticipatory design. Rumor has it, Apple is investing heavily into AR.

We will be surrounded by a growing number of intelligent IoT systems that will automatically do things for us in a predictive manner. For example, after using it a few times, the Nest learns our habits and adjusts intelligently without us needing to get involved.

We’ll begin to see systems that will become increasingly predictive. A simple gesture, movement, or word will initiate a series of useful events. There will be a chain of events that aren’t initiated by people at all, because the system will learn and optimize its actions based on a treasure trove of data. These events could be initiated by a person’s proximity, the time of day, environmental conditions (such as light, humidity, temperature, etc.), and previous behavioral data.

More than ever, deep user research will play an important role in designing experiences that are anticipatory and contextual. Defining personas, observing user behaviors, and empathy mapping—just to name a few UX techniques—will become crucial in crafting sophisticated user experiences that will feel almost “magical” to people.

5) Most Importantly, Make It Useful!

We’re seeing tremendous advancements in the field of IoT and the role that design will play in it is about empowering people in ways that were not possible before. The demand for deeply satisfying, quality experiences will increase with high expectations and standards.

While all of the above is important, we must never lose sight of the fact that it’s about making people’s lives easier. Designing “moments of delightful surprise” in this new paradigm—along with deep empathy for the user—is a skill designers will need to develop. As we look towards an even more connected digital future, connecting us to “intelligent things” in meaningful ways will allow for more efficient interaction, more productivity and, hopefully, happier lives.

Designers will need to design IoT-driven experiences that are contextual, helpful, and meaningful—optimized for people, not technologies.

“Experiences” will trump “things.”

The next step is for designers to become involved, and design the most seamless user experiences for the Internet of Things. Technologies must evolve into “optimizers of our lives.”

In other words, become useful for people.

[tastydregs]

Bots will soon be able to borrow our identities

What if all the emails you’ve ever written and any other published statements you’ve made could be incorporated into a digital identity? And what if anyone could access that identity to get your advice or opinion on something when you’re no longer around?

My current work at the MIT Media Lab is dedicated to making that happen. It’s a capability I like to call “augmented eternity”; it curates all of a person’s digital information and stores it as a concierge bot that gives expert advice based on real human opinions. The idea is to create “swappable identities” for a bot, allowing a user to pose questions to an assortment of AI personas.

In fact, understanding how reality appears to others and deploying an appropriate response are two of the fundamental tools every successful executive should holster. This technology can streamline product and market research for new services and audiences, providing more direct access to valuable information that can help a company break out or break through in these three helpful instances:

1. Seeing through a new lens

Imagine you’re a tech executive trying to get a clear sense of how President Donald Trump’s views on net neutrality might affect your business. Soon you’ll be able to question Trump’s swappable identity on the matter directly. Or you could activate, say, Elon Musk’s or Jack Dorsey’s persona and get their opinion.

The process is simple: Activate the persona (or personality “lens”) within Siri or Slackbot, and ask your question. Semantics-driven algorithms will then search gigabytes of data, patterns, statements, and transcribed video statements, and the digital interface will show the answer to your question, including its level of confidence. Based on your interaction with the answer, the algorithm will adjust the confidence level for future interactions.

Back to our net neutrality example: By tapping into expert opinions on the matter, you have a better sense of what alterations to regulations may occur, which can help you ensure your company’s tech remains viable when those changes go into effect.

2. Streamlining the sharing of expertise

The world of successful tech companies is, if nothing else, busy. We’d all love to be in two places at once. Augmented lenses and swappable identities make that a not-so-distant possibility.

For example, team members could access a chatbot running lenses for managers 24/7 and get accurate guidance on work matters. This could allow for fewer meetings, enabling team members to focus on their work and not be burdened with workflow disruptions. Remember, the right information at the right time is more useful than the right information at the wrong time.

But it need not work only at the level of middle management. Tech executives will be able to consult different types of expertise in real time without arranging in-person meetings or phone calls. Of course, real human interaction will still be available. But conversations can commence with better preparation because leaders can do a virtual run-through before talking to the actual person.

3. Finding the right answers — faster

Sites such as Google and Wikipedia changed the game for accessing knowledge. Swappable identities and lenses will be the next step, a move from centralized repositories to well-orchestrated, distributed collective intelligence.

Now, information can be customized. Are you curious about how the best coders tackled or are tackling problems you face now? Because this technology is driven by advanced artificial intelligence algorithms, answers will be just as fast as today’s search engines. But unlike search engines, it will also provide all-important context: a person’s biases, record, and standing in the industry and in the wider world.

And keep in mind that such systems can learn from experience. With ways to provide feedback, these systems can be quickly trained to curate responses to your needs and keep answers accurate to the persona but focused on what matters to you.

For all these reasons, swappable identities are poised to be a new frontier for tech executives. Be on the lookout for opportunities to adopt the first offerings early and integrate them into your workflow over time.

Before long, the idea of working without your “team” of virtual advisors will seem as odd as any executive working without a personal staff.

Hossein Rahnama is founder and CEO of Flybits, a context-as-a-service company with offices in Toronto and Palo Alto. His research explores artificial intelligence, mobile human-computer interaction, and the effective design of contextual services. Rahnama has received 10 patents in ubiquitous computing. He is currently serving on the board of Canadian Science Publishing, was a council member of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and is a visiting scholar at the Human Dynamics Group at MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

[glenmenlow]

The Implications Of Creating Addictive Products

If you listen to Mark Zuckerberg, he simply created an innovative piece of tech that enabled the world to “connect”. Well, that wasn’t particularly novel in 2005. We had Myspace, Friends Reunited and Bebo for that. Hell, you could message your friends in real time on Instant Messenger, long before Facebook Messenger launched in 2011.

But what Facebook did better than those other businesses was create a far more addictive product – one which leveraged behavioral science principles to create something people could not live without. What has come to light recently is that, once they realized it had this effect, that became Facebook’s business strategy.

At an Axios event in 2017, Facebook co-founder Sean Parker said: “You’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology. The inventors understood this – and we did it anyway.”

Why? To get users spending as much time on the app as possible: “The thought process that went into building these applications, Facebook being the first of them … was all about: ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?’”

Enter Brand Addiction

In a BBC Panorama documentary in July 2018 about smartphone addiction, Hilary Andersson spoke to a number of former executives about their time at the company, and their concerns about creating such an addictive product. Sandy Parakilas, a former product manager at Facebook, explained it thus: “Their goal is to addict you and then sell your time.”

Aza Raskin, the inventor of the endless scroll functionality, became so concerned about the power of Facebook to generate addictive behavior, he created the Center for Humane Technology: “We didn’t realize that it became so powerful that it addicts people,” he says. “[Facebook is the] largest behavioral experiment we’ve ever seen. It’s as if they’re taking behavioral cocaine and sprinkling it all over your interface.”

Everything on Facebook, from the prompt in the status bar of ‘What’s on your mind, Richard?’ through to the content that populates my news feed, and in what order, has been carefully calibrated to generate an addictive experience – to keep me coming back for my next fix, make me click on a blue thumb, stop me going elsewhere, and make me a more valuable user to feed Facebook’s business model.

Such is the importance of this that, in 2017, Facebook re-calibrated its algorithms so that users would start seeing more addictive content (i.e. from friends) in their news feed, and much less unwanted and unsolicited content from advertisers. Like Google persisting with the ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ button, the short-term impact on advertising revenue was sacrificed for maintaining long-term usage and profitability.

A measure of the level of addiction of Facebook’s more than 1bn active users was demonstrated in an experiment by Nudge co-author Cass Sunstein. He asked Facebook users how much they would be willing to pay for the formerly free service. The average answer was $1 a month.

Not a lot, you might think, but probably reflective of how people recognize that Facebook is, at best, a mixed blessing in terms of impact on our overall health and wellbeing. This figure is given much greater meaning when compared with the average amount people were willing to accept to stop being able to use Facebook: $59 a month.

Like a true addict, we know that our habit is potentially causing us harm. But don’t you dare try to take it away from us.

If you want to understand how valuable behavioral science is to a digital business – there’s your answer. Creating a product people want might make you a few million dollars. But creating one that people can’t live without – that could make you 59 times richer.

Combine this with other behavioral insights, and the implications are clear. Creating digital products and services using behavioral data can drive positive behaviors, but, as Professor Shoshana Zuboff from Harvard Business School claims, we are in danger of it ushering in “an age of surveillance capitalism.” We are witnessing that the rush for businesses to automate using the capabilities of machine learning and AI simply mean that this is now happening faster, at greater scale.

Accordingly, if your goal is simply to get rich, and you want to understand how a group of geeks from Silicon Valley became some of the richest people in the world – there’s clearly far more to be learned from a psychology textbook than there is from a computer science one.

But, if you ignore the moral and ethical implications, you may still get rich – but you could end up in jail.

Where To Now?

This approach raises important ethical questions, and businesses need to meet three key criteria to avoid possibly irreparable damage:

1. Are you using data ethically and legally (i.e. collecting with clear consent and being transparent about how the data will be used)? 2. Are the behavioral outcomes you are seeking positive? Ask: would you use the product or service, and will it materially improve users’ lives? 3. What are the implications of creating an addictive product? Will it have a net positive impact on society?

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Richard Chataway, President of BVA Nudge Unit UK and excerpted from his book The Behaviour Business, published by Harriman House.

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Fantasy New Releases: 7 September, 2019

The week’s fantasy new releases feature an ancient mech standing ready for its just as ancient foe, the dread fall of a legion of post-human warriors, and a young radio engineer’s travels in search of an impossible metal hidden in an America that never was, but should have been

Archangel One – Evan Currie

Humanity has reached an uneasy truce with the Empire—but unless the allies bring the fight to the enemy, extinction is all but assured. In preparation for the inevitable next war, Commander Stephen Michaels is at the helm of the Archangel Squadron, and his orders are simple: go rogue.

Disguised as mercenaries, Commander Michaels and the Archangels seek valuable intelligence on their imposing foe. Their mission takes them deep into uncharted territory, where they make inroads with the Empire, fiercely guarding their true identities and purpose. Fighting for the enemy goes against everything they stand for, but these are desperate times.

As their deception increases, so does the risk. With the Empire’s deadliest secrets within reach, Commander Michaels and the Archangels accept a mission that will take them even deeper into the Imperial fold. They know all too well that one wrong step won’t just end their lives—it could end their entire civilization.

The Buried Dagger (The Horus Heresy #54) – James Swallow

The skies darken over Terra as the final battle for the Throne looms ever closer… As the Traitor primarchs muster to the Warmaster’s banner, it is Mortarion who is sent ahead as the vanguard of the Traitor forces.

But as he and his warriors make way, they become lost in the warp and stricken by a terrible plague. Once thought of as unbreakable, the legendary Death Guard are brought to their knees. To save his Legion, Mortarion must strike a most terrible bargain that will damn his sons for eternity.

Meanwhile, in the cloisters of Holy Terra, a plot is afoot to create sedition and carnage in advance of the Horus’s armies. Taking matters into his own hands, Malcador the Sigillite seeks to put a stop to any insurrection but discovers a plot that he will need all of his cunning and battle-craft to overcome.

Engines of Empire (Empire of Machines #1) – Max Carver

The upstart colony Carthage has conquered and dominated most of humanity’s settled planets, including Earth itself, with fleets of autonomous, AI-driven warships and armies of robotic infantry. Freedom from their empire is found only in rough outer worlds on the distant fringes of settled space.

On Galapagos, a free world, newly elected Minister-General Reginald Ellison had hoped he’d seen the end of war. He spent his youth fighting in battles across his planet’s vast oceans and small islands, and his later years working to build a coalition of peace among the world’s fragmented nations. Now the arrival of an unnerving android ambassador from the distant imperial planet of Carthage threatens his world’s hopes for a free and peaceful future.

On Earth, the machines patrol the post-apocalyptic ruins of bombed-out megacities, left over from Earth’s war with Carthage. In the fallen megalopolis of Chicago, a young scavenger makes a discovery that could empower Earthlings to finally fight back, but could also endanger everyone he loves.

On Carthage, the rulers of humanity enjoy extreme wealth and luxury, while machines carry out all forms of labor and provide for their every whim. Audrey Caracala, daughter of Carthage’s top political leader, has led a protected existence, groomed to help her family rule the known galaxy. Now her family’s enemies hunt her as she searches for her missing brother in the dangerous, unfamiliar territory of the Carthaginian underworld, where she begins to face hard truths about the machines and about her own family’s legacy.

Three people, on three very different worlds, must confront alternate faces of the ever-evolving machines, which spin their own designs beyond the vision of their human masters, forging a new kind of empire that will be ruled by no man.

Justified (Saga of the Nano-Templar #1) – Jon Del Arroz

To save a world he must rely on God.

After years of fighting for justice with his deadly nanotech, Templar Drin abandons his post, crash landing on a desert world controlled by a tyrannical alien empire. Its inhabitants are forced into slavery, broken where a once-proud race cultivated its lands.

For the first time in Drin’s life, he has no backup, no support, none of his brothers.

He stands alone against evil.

Drin must face overwhelming odds to liberate millions of slaves from their captors and bring faith to a downtrodden world. But in his way stands the most dangerous weapon in the galaxy.

Can Drin use his Templar training to survive?

The Messenger – J. N. Chaney and Terry Maggert

Dash never asked to be a mech pilot, but fate has other plans.

On the run and out of chances, he guides his ship and crew into the heart of a relic older than the galaxy itself–and finds himself on the edge of an eternal war he never knew existed.

The relic is a mech, lost to history and forgotten by all who remain. Built by an ancient race to be the ultimate weapon, the machine is capable of unspeakable destruction, and its discovery could unhinge the balance of power throughout known space.

Worse still, the A.I. inside the machine speaks of an ancient evil that will soon arrive–a race whose power far exceeds anything humanity has ever witnessed.

Only the Messenger can stand against them, the A.I. tells its new pilot. Only you can do what must be done.

Spartan’s Specialists (Four Horsemen Tales #12) – Alex Rath

Captain Markus ‘Spartan’ Nicolos is one of the Golden Horde’s premier hackers and communication specialists, and a top-tier CASPer pilot. His experimental Hoplite scout CASPer aided significantly in thwarting an attempt by a Besquith general to wipe out the Golden Horde.

Now, while most of the Golden Horde goes out on a major contract, Spartan has been given a small team of less than 30 mercenaries—specialists, all—to teach a race that has just joined the Galactic Union how to defend itself. And, in his spare time, Spartan is to spy on the Merchant Guild.

After arriving in the new system on a ship from the Intergalactic Haulers Mercenary Company, Spartan’s group of specialists begin completing their mission, but things rapidly go downhill when they find out the Omega Wars have begun and Human mercenary companies are being hunted.

Unable to contact his company’s leader, Colonel Sansar Enkh, Spartan is on his own to put the pieces together and figure out a new plan to deal with the changing situation. Can Spartan’s small team of Golden Horde specialists complete their mission and find a way to survive the Omega Wars on their own, or is this Spartan’s last ride?

Worldshift: Virtual Revolution – Scott Straughan

Ethan is young and unemployed. One of the many who fail to find a job and join the elite who run the government and the mega corporations. However, thanks to the economic support everyone gets, he can spend his idle days playing virtual reality games. Online, he can chase thrills and lash out without consequence.

Yet, despite his isolation, Ethan can’t help but feel that something is deeply wrong with society. It reaps the benefit of advanced automation, but forbids further scientific development. That feeling becomes inescapable when he starts playing the latest event in the world’s most popular VR game, Worldshift. Thousands of players are lured into climbing the Tower of Ascension by an incredible prize. Inside, the combat is intense, but nothing is as it seems. The tower is far more than a game. Not only are its rewards very real, but so are its dangers.

Change is coming to a long stagnant world -a virtual revolution- and everything Ethan knows will be threatened.

The Tower of the Bear (Yankee Republic #3) – Fenton Wood

From the bottom of the Arctic Ocean, to the forbidden lands west of the Mississippi, to the shores of a prehistoric inland sea … a young radio engineer enlists the aid of scientists, kings, ancient gods, and mythological beasts, in a search for a super-metal from another universe!

A blend of radio science, alt-history, tall tale, and myth, YANKEE REPUBLIC is an epic like no other.

Fantasy New Releases: 7 September, 2019 published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/