Years ago, there was an ad campaign that touted the accuracy of a new cassette tape which promised to capture sound so realistically that a recording could trick the human ear into believing that they were hearing a live performance. They had a catchy catchphrase:
“Is it live, or is it Memorex?”
There was also a version which asked:
“Is it real, or is it Memorex?”
I know that some of you reading this do not know what a cassette tape is, and that’s good news for you, because it means that you are not as ancient as I. They were invented quite a while after vinyl records and well before compact discs. They broke often. The tapes got stretched and had to be rewound, some of them becoming hopelessly tangled. They were portable though, and cheap, and were a boon to the bootlegging business.
I saw a poster/ad in the window of a store called “Campers”, which makes rather simple footwear, most of which seems meant to be utilized as sportswear. The model in the ad had swept-up Marilyn blonde hair and a nose so altered that it was barely a slit in her face, which also sported huge, improbable lips. Below she had extremely large and exaggeratedly round breasts, which would have to be rock-hard to be situated so high on her chest. How this young, mangled woman relates to sneakers is anyone’s guess, but there she was in all her unreal glory.
The handbag industry is obsessed with real. Folks charging thousands of dollars for a small accessory used to house wallets and tampons have “real” as the only verity for its value. Some of these bags are equipped with sensors that can inform their owner if the woman sitting across from her has a knock-off. That’s a long way to go as a branding exercise, but I guess there are gals who are happy to walk around with a pocketbook that is also a snitch.
We have public figures like the Kardashians who are celebrated for their artificiality, both in their persons and appearances. Fake noses, lips, boobs, and giant, tacked-on behinds. (The point of which is something I will never understand.) They are a gazillion-dollar industry, so I guess folks are attracted to that sort of thing. They are also about to have some very real competition in the world of fake.
In a recent issue of Harvard Business Review (yes, I read it; I am addicted to it), there is a very detailed article which breaks down the pros and cons of using digital humans in many, many aspects of business.
I repeat: Digital humans.
There is a gal called Lil Miquela who is an influencer with 3 million followers. I have been on television for damn near 40 years, and I have 88.2 thousand followers. The fact that I had to go to my phone and look that up might be an indication that I am a bit underwhelming as a social media poster, but I try, and I try to keep it real. Lil doesn’t have to go to the grocery store or cook dinner or wash the dog. She doesn’t have to pick up medications or fly off to film a show. Lil is just hangin’ on the internet, doing the one thing that she has been designed to do.
Influence folks.
The millions of people who follow Lil know that she is fake, but–according to HBR–they think she’s super cool and relatable and down to earth. They want to be just like her. Hmmmm. Forgive me if I find this all just a wee bit disturbing.
There are digital companions, digital agents, digital influencers, and–my favorite–digital virtual assistants. These figures can speak multiple languages and accomplish a multitude of tasks. Every utterance, every nuance of your exchange with one of them, can be measured.
Big corporations love to measure outcomes: daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly. “Outcomes” are where it’s at.
In response to studies that show that children will pay more attention to a demonstration when it is done by another child, digital child instructors are being developed. So your kid can and will be taught by a very real-seeming robot in the near future. The only problem with this is that these real/not-real children can’t decipher human emotional states and have no emotions of their own. So these very young people will be interacting with a bot in a classroom setting where empathy and humor will not be on offer.
What could go wrong?
No one in the business world seems to care. The deep thinking about consequences will be left to the private sector and, hopefully, a few governmental agencies with their own versions of measurable outcomes.
Big business is trying to figure out what sorts of fake folks to develop, but have zero interest in the impact of that on the flesh-and-blood variety.
How will this affect employment numbers? Will we need a “universal income” to support the folks that used to do jobs which will soon be delegated to the digital crowd?
The folks at HBR conclude their article with a big thumbs-up for a future of non-human human beings. They encourage their readers to join the “first-mover” crowd, which is embracing AI employees. They also offer a stern warning to those who do not: if you insist on clinging to your actual humans, you could find yourself falling behind. This is, of course, unthinkable in a world which exalts profits over all other values. It is time to put some robots on those payrolls! Real people be damned; there is money to be made!
The artificial human is a flexible creature. It can sport tattoos, foreign accents, be any color, size or shape you can imagine, and wear all the hottest fashions at the push of a few buttons. It can keep your aging mother company, teach your child, track your employee’s efficiency and tempt your teens with the newest styles. It can do everything except actually care about anything it does.
Dang.
On we go …
This freaks me out. Good ‘un, hon.
This is a wonderful piece. Memorex and Ella Fitzgerald and love the last line