Matrix Armageddon - Artificial Intelligence
For over 2000 years, all sorts of oracles, seers, prophets, and prognosticators had foreseen the upcoming End of Time, the Doomsday, the Apocalypse, and the Armageddon. Each described many different scenarios, but all are horrific and bloody. Some prophesy the coming of a messiah and some birth of the Antichrist, while others warn about nuclear war or a catastrophic climatic event.
Others, however, primarily writers of sci-fi fiction and movie scripts, warned us about how future intelligent machines, cyborgs, or even a digital matrix would overpower humans and destroy modern civilization as we know it. And now it happened! The prediction of Matrix Armageddon came true and is real!
It came in the form of Big Data and new technologies and services, such as Social Media, Mobile Apps and Online Games, Virtual and Augmented Reality, Cloud Services, Super-computing, Virtual Assistants, and, of course, Artificial Intelligence (AI), a core behind it all. Artificial intelligence is not new, but do we really understand it, and how is it being used? Do you realize how deeply AI is woven into our daily lives? But first, let’s define the meaning and essence of AI.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence is a technology for mining various consumers’ data, both structured and unstructured, analyzing it, and defining behavioral and purchasing patterns to predict our behavior and decisions. It employs multiple techniques and methods, such as Machine Learning, Statistical Analytics, Facial, Speech, and Image Recognition. The data being mined is a part of so-called Big Data and is based on our profiling and characteristics and on recorded activity, such as likes, comments, blogs, and even private messages and emails.
AI is used mainly as an integral part by businesses for what they assume is targeted marketing and advertising and to offer products and services they think a consumer is looking for and ready to buy. But that is not all. It is also used for influencing our decisions or behaviors and even indoctrinating into our minds specific ideas and dogmas for manipulating us as if we are a herd of cattle on the way to butchery. Artificial Intelligence gets smarter by processing more data and improving its machine learning algorithms and computation. It even uses Natural Language Processing (NLP), which can generate content to create e-mails, articles, and advertising texts to “talk” to us, to influence and “zombie” our brains. It uses facial and speech recognition, virtual assistants, location tracking, audio, visual, and text communications, and even motion tracking in VR games to “spy” on us, collect and build our dossiers. If that is not a new world of digital domination and cyber occupation, if it is not a new form of robotic dictatorship, if not Armageddon, then what is?
The temptation to know our every move, record every word, and collect our financial and purchase histories is tremendous. Businesses are hungry for such data and the “intelligent” predictions that AI algorithms can generate. They also want technology to help them create and deliver advertising, marketing, branding, political messages, and other content to all our online outlets.
Is The Threat Real?
The next question is, how practical is artificial intelligence a threat? Does it address the question of who all those accounts it monitors, how accurate is what the account owners say on social media and in their communication, and what are the consequences of the brutal and continuous invasion of our privacy, the consumers? While there are definite benefits in more precise targeting and adaptive advertising methods, the quality of such targeting, especially the predictability of human behavior, is questionable.
The second problem is even more serious. It is the authenticity of data and even the authenticity of the accounts themselves. The number of fake accounts, bots, and professional trolls is within a few percent margins across social media, but what makes it even more interesting is how people act online, which differs from what they are and how they act in real life. Most people tend to create a specific “idealistic” or” happy” image of themselves and pick mostly positive information for their posts and comments. In contrast, hers shows more “drama” than there is. In addition, people like to make jokes, post sarcastic memes or collages, or post quotes, comments, and images belonging to others. Many have more than one account on the same platform, and they often appear under different nicknames or use different photos for avatars. To all that not-so-reliable data, to say the least, we should add deliberate fakes and pranks, and we will get a picture in modern cyberspace, which is a distorted and misleading mockery of the reality being sold to advertisers for big fat bucks.
The losses businesses carry by using AI for their marketing because of false assumptions and fake or unrelated content is complex to calculate. Still, millions of dollars are entirely wasted. Even more challenging to calculate is the damage to brands themselves from unnecessary, annoying, and spammy advertising practices. Now let’s look at what “big’ guys who use AI and Big Data the most are doing. Amazon, Go Daddy, LinkedIn, and many other nationally recognizable brands with gigantic budgets are still advertising on social media and traditional channels, such as television, radio, press, billboards, and others. We might question why they do not use digital marketing exclusively. The simple answer is that it is not as effective as people tend to believe. The results from digital marketing businesses are achieved not because of AI but because of investing in wide and repetitive distribution of their ads across multiple platforms, especially when combined with traditional media. Therefore, the most accurate answer is that predictions made by Artificial Intelligence do not work at all.
Do the above facts mean that Artificial Intelligence and Cyber Surveillance are harmless? Not. As we all have heard, privacy is a big issue with social media, and the recent drilling of Mark Zuckerberg in the US Senate was a testimony to the hidden manipulations that Facebook has been doing for years. On April 30 - May 1, 2019, in San Jose, CA, Zuckerberg announced, "The future is private.” Well, it looks like “privacy” is going to be a “sexy” word in the content of social media for a while until another “hidden” privacy issue emerges, and the cycle will repeat. Facebook promises to create a new app for your desktop computer that will have all “privacy” covered.
„The way that people think about privacy is changing a bit. What people want isn't complete privacy. It isn't that they want secrecy. It's that they want control over what they share and what they don't.“
Following the trend, Alphabet Inc. (Google) announced that they will add new tools for users to control cookies on their Chrome browsers to minimize how advertising engines monitor user’s browsing activity.
But wait! We all realize that this new feature will allow Google to monopolize their advertising business further and that these new Facebook apps will have even more opportunities to mine for our data using cookies and more sophisticated technology such as facial recognition and motion tracking. We all store our private information on our desktops, and then it would be even harder to keep your sensitive private data from the “watching eyes and ears” of AI. When a business model of Facebook and Google gathers as much data on individuals as possible and sells it to third parties, building a new desktop app or cookie filter won’t make it more private, even if you use the word "Private" a million times. It seems like the “Private” will remain a constant promise to be given to us only in some imaginary “Future” and never “Now”.
Another issue is manipulating and indoctrinating ideas, dogmas, and fake information. A known fact of controlling people’s choices and values has been proven, as in the case of Russian influence in the 2016 United States elections documented by former FBI director Robert Mueller. But let’s set politics aside. What about online games, beauty tests, quizzes, “success stories,” and life coach’s posts that trigger you to click on them and suck you into their “Funnels,” while you “agree” to give all these apps and sites access to your private information either from your desktop or cell phone and often you are not even aware that you permit to harvest your private data.
We may ask: Why bother if AI analyses only old historical and often fake data? The answer is that AI is not that innocent and harmless at all. AI mines data and makes assumptions about people’s values and what they like to watch, eat, drive, and read. It continues to gather more data on us and becomes brighter. It then labels and segments us in a particular “box” so that third parties can be more precise about who to target, what content to distribute, how often, at what moment, etc. People whose views and opinions, analytical skills, and critical thinking are not very strong are vulnerable targets for such manipulations. If a person is not emotionally stable, then seeing disturbing images and posts and reading negative comments full of hatred and bullying could be damaging. If this person is a child, then the results of reading, watching, and seeing such content could be detrimental to this child’s self-esteem and life. Ads and messages generated by artificial intelligence are annoying and steal precious time from our lives, interfering with what we do and infecting our phones, computers, and minds. Even more dangerous is that the vast collection of our data and the deep integration with “smart” electronic devices make identity and sensitive personal data theft more common, putting our well-being and lives in danger. And not only ours but also our kids, family members, and friends.
What Can We Do?
What can we do to protect our privacy and the integrity of our identities? What can businesses do to maximize the effectiveness of their marketing and advertising activities? For consumers, the easiest, even though not so easy, is to change certain habits, fight certain addictions, avoid the tempting traps of entertaining apps and widgets, and learn about privacy settings, whichever are currently available. If most of us would stop using games, tests, click bates, if we would watch for warnings and disclaimers about collection of data, use of cookies, or our location, if we learn how to check the integrity of the information and its sources, then we not only would at least partially protect ourselves, but also reduce demand for such data from businesses, advertisers, propagandists, and even hackers, spammers and scammers. For businesses, our advice is to diversify their marketing and advertising strategies across omnichannel media, which includes traditional advertising and communication channels, such as TV, radio, and even direct mail, and to plan and construct integrated marketing campaigns that would reach a widbroadernge of consumers within controlled geographical areas and reasonable budgets.
And that is not all. On a larger scale, as awareness of privacy issues grows and the word “Private” becomes more than a “sexy” meme but a real trend, new business models that are not entirely dependent on personal data and advertising but are more interactive and consumer-oriented will emerge. However, despite all the threats, Artificial Intelligence can bring much value and reasonable use to humans beyond analyzing statistics. It can be used in scientific research, technological developments, data organization, space exploration, climate issues, social issues, and even medical diagnostics and treatments. It can help us move forward into the future instead of luring us into its hidden traps and holding us hostage.
Suley Group, a new Seattle startup, is building an innovative Interconnected Socio-Economic Ecosystem (I.S.E.E.). This ecosystem will give people new forms of self-expression and social interactions, as well as tools and controls for what they want to see, listen to, and watch, what they want to read, and what they plan to do and buy. It will also provide businesses with practical ways to build their brands, find successful and effective ways to promote their products and communicate with their consumers. Together, we can stop this Armageddon and conquer hordes of virtual machines and cyber goblins. We can harness the Matrix Monster and evolve as conscious and intelligent beings instead of becoming virtual nods and speechless units of someone’s manipulative digital game.
References:
Kietzmann, A., Paschen, J., Treen, E. (2018). Artificial Intelligence in Advertising. How Marketers Can Leverage Artificial Intelligence Along the Consumer Journey. Journal of Advertising Research
Mueller, R.S. (2019). Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election. U.S. Department of Justice. Retrieved from https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf
Price. R. (2019). Mark Zuckerberg says 'the future is private.' But his definition of privacy might not be what you think. Business Insider. Retrieved from https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-privacy-vision-2019-4
Haggin, P., & Copeland, R. (2019). Google Prepares to Launch New Privacy Tools to Limit Cookies. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from https://www.wsj.com/articles/googles-new-privacy-tools-to-make-cookies-crumble-competitors-stumble-11557151913