This is a working post, it will update and get more bells and whistles as I continue to expand on the idea.
Without hyperbole, this is all Facebook’s fault.
Over the past year I have felt a rise of something I’m calling Techocalypse (apocalypse via technology). Last night, as the election results rolled in, I kept thinking back to how this all started when you no longer needed the .edu address to access Facebook. The platform took a sinister, un-fun turn the second your mom started an account to log her Farmville achievements.
Not just Facebook, or Meta, but anything that could be deemed “social media” in any sort. Any platform that lets anyone upload just about anything, any platform that gives an audience of millions to someone who has no idea how to handle the attention of that many people.
Techocalypse – The Principles
Tools Use Us.
Beyond the whole “if you aren’t paying for the product, you ARE the product,” we are each armed with tools that have found ways to use us to their own ends. We don’t so much jump on to TikTok to find out new information so much as to provide an advertising engine with engagement data.
Too Much Trust in Tech.
More tech has led to reduced critical thinking. As we rely on our tools to handle more cognitive tasks, our creative skills diminish from a lack of use. On one end, this means less appreciation for the arts – why spend time hunting for new music when the algorithm can serve you up with and endless stream of artists who all start to sound the same? On the other end, we are filing fewer patents than ever with the U.S. Patent office – a literal brain drain. Fewer new ideas from fewer places.
How many of your friend’s phone numbers can you recall off the top of your head? Would you know how to get across town without a Maps app? Do you know how to meet new people without an online introduction?
The AI Ouroboros
The problem: no one told the average consumer the implications of large-scale AI. In my business, OutWord, I am seeing a rise of clients asking for my help writing something they can use – the ChatGPT they’ve counted on to this point is failing them. The Generative AI of today has learned through the backlog of text and is now feasting on the fruits of its own production – AI training on what AI put out. Why bother thinking about, creating, and publishing new ideas if we just know that AI will vacuum them up and spit them out as summaries in someone else’s inquiry?
Algorithms over Audiences
The promise was simple: we’ll show you more of what you like. If you like dogs, we’re going to show you a lot of dogs. The reality: the algorithm was more beneficial to the creator than the consumer. Now we make things that the algorithm, not the audience, will like.
Everything is Entertainment, brought to you by…
Creators who are financially incentivized to create content eventually make really bad content. For one, we can easily call it “content,” the formless garbage that fills our frames. If it is driven by revenue, it ends up looking like entertainment. It needs to be flashy and it needs to be new.
When money is in play, quality falls away to quantity.