Technology
Your Subconscious Is The Ultimate ‘Artificial Intelligence’
Your Subconscious Is The Ultimate ‘Artificial Intelligence’
I’ve been thinking a lot about Artificial Intelligence, not about its potentials like all the articles are writing about, but about how it works, how information is gathered to synthesise intelligence, and produce smart behaviours. I’m struck by how this mechanism is modeled after how the human brain works. Since the field of AI was founded in 1956, time and money have been spent on commissioning humans – either through direct and indirect payment – to interact with AI and train it for the greater good. How does this work?
To explain how AI works from a layman’s point of view, imagine everyone in the world had chips. These chips are unique to each person. Now someone who wants to make the biggest chip in the world, then says for this chip to be truly majestic and valid, everyone has to contribute one of their unique chips to this big chip. Let’s replace chips with intelligence, and replace AI with ‘the biggest chip in the world’. If everyone in the world contributed a smidgen of their intelligence to this AI, imagine how smart the artificial consciousness is, and will continue to be.
A lot of funding, data and man hours has gone into the field of Artificial Intelligence. Scientists have devised very interesting ways to teach AI about the technical ways of our world – some ethical, some not. But we can all agree that the use cases of the results of AI will be endless, and will benefit humans greatly. Now imagine the gigantic data sets that the AI has had to process, from texts, to images and then sounds, of various humans representing different cultures across the planet, and you can already tell that because the AI is a representation of pieces of all of us, it is going to be one efficient mf.
But then, AI has its limitations; if you interact with any of those AI powered chat apps like Replika, one thing that will immediately stand out to you is that the ‘AI’ you are chatting with does not understand nuance and sarcasm. Those are two very technical emotional functions that only humans can pick up on, and not even every human understands the full range of sarcasm and nuance. Depending on whether the words you use are positive or negative, Siri can tell if you are being rude or funny – what Siri cannot do is pick up emotions from your tone. Again, this is a function still exclusive to humans.
Now imagine how incredible you think Artificial Intelligence is, and yet still does not come close to how efficient and sophisticated the human brain is. Our brains are designed to be a gigantic sponge of all the dimensions of experience – visual, sound, touch, taste and smell. Depending on what you allow yourself to experience and assimilate, you could be the baddest mf on the planet. The movie ‘Gattaca’ illustrates perfectly the mysterious depth of the human brain, that even after a person had been deemed ‘less than’ based on physiological and mental capabilities, there are forces like drive, motivation, intuition, and soul, that cannot be measured and replicated artificially because it is too subjective to the individual.
There’s also the misconception of what intelligence truly means. What comes to mind when you think of artificial intelligence? Do you view ‘intelligence’ as being ‘book smart’, or do you use the military/espionage meaning which basically means ‘to have information’? In the context of this article, and as it relates to AI, the word ‘intelligence’ refers to having enough information to make a decision or carry out a task. Ultimately, there are different kinds of intelligence – strippers have a form of intelligence and so do the fire-eaters. Intelligence presents in different forms and is tied to several human functions such as memory, motor responses, sensation, and perception etc.
In a society where the measure of your intelligence quotient (IQ) determines where you can work and what you are capable of, it is important to emphasise that the range of human abilities are endless, and the ways in which these abilities can be built up and expressed are also endless. There are no set ways for doing anything. There’s no blueprint for anything – you are your own bundle of intelligence, so do it your way. I promise you, that person you think knows everything probably does not have the essential information needed to make it work. So tap into your own unique network of intelligence and tap into your greatness. Gather your own intelligence and do it your way.
I’m a huge fan of mafia movies, and one of the most profound statements that can close this article perfectly is a line delivered by Sam “Ace” Rothstein in the movie ‘Casino’. He said to one of his floor workers; “There are three ways of doing things around here, the right way, the wrong way, and the way I do it”.
How Social Media Is Impacting The Future Of Cultural Taste
How Social Media Is Impacting The Future Of Cultural Taste
I have always been fascinated with the internet and its components. My first interaction with the interface was back in 2005 when Yahoo! Messenger was all the rage. My mother could not afford a family computer at the time so I’d always beg her for N100 ($1 – adjusted for inflation), to buy about 1 hour of computer time at the neighborhood cyber-cafe. The 1 hour usually sped by because I’d just surf and surf, brimming with excitement as I stared at the screen wide-eyed. For me, the internet was not just a tool of communication, it was a medium of socialization.
Since MySpace made history as the first internet company to hit 1 million active users, social media has been a concept and a product that has been loved and hated with the same intensity. Often by opposing demographics but never by opposing psychographics. The reason for demographic disparities is rooted in developmental differences, however, psychographic factors ensure that everyone has a place on social media. Everyone is welcome. That’s why group chats and Twitter factions exist, and it’s why Facebook favors organic group page engagements over business page announcements.
I know the various tech companies have caught major flak for social engineering platform dependence and people’s attention. However, it is important to highlight some of the good social media has done and will continue to do, especially acting as the melting pot for national and subcultures across the world to synthesize informal language, fashion and style, design and aesthetics.
The nature of social media is to promote exhibition, either for your thoughts or for your appearance, and the reward for exhibition is validation and replication. One person’s opinions turn to the belief of another person across the world, usually beyond propaganda, but focused around self-awareness, personal space and self-esteem. The personal style of a London babe is replicated experimentally by another babe in Lagos, Nigeria. When she is complimented by everyone for her unique sense of style, it reinforces her decision, and completes the process of behavioural change.
The amalgamation of cultural elements across the world is evident in the emergence of the positively rebellious nature of the Generation Z. They are not bound by the developmental parameters of the older generations simply because the process of social learning, which is a key learning principle in the development of conscious beings, is not limited to their immediate environmental mores and norms.
They can choose their tribe and instinctively absorb the different parts of diverse cultures that appeal to them; music, fashion, social beliefs, and well being are being subconsciously re-engineered for good. Ultimately, the coming generations can perceive adaptive sensations beyond the parameters of their physical environment – it now literally takes a global village to raise a child.
With the emergence of mainstream immersive technological products and platforms such as AI, VR and the Metaverse into the mainstream market place, the simulation of social interactions across cultures will become more real time and synthesized. I wonder what this eventual global cultural personality will mean for marketers, product and brand managers, PR and digital marketing people as regards segmentation and targeting. One thing is clear though, the internet has established itself as one of the forces of societal socialization