Missing The Mark? - 5/15/24

Worst Commercial In History?

Okay, so let’s imagine we’re a marketing team, sitting in a large room, throwing ideas out for our new campaign for an existing, but much-improved tech product.

We start by brainstorming beloved images, icons that illicit warm memories and are shared by most of our customers. Nostalgic things that represent various eras and human history—like an old record player, a beloved piano with sheet music spread across, a bust of Plato, an ancient TV from the 80s, an old-school video game, as well as a bunch of lovable looking furry toys, sort of a cross between emojis and characters from a cartoon.

Then, we neatly position them all on a dimly lit stage, together like a fuzzy warm dream from our childhood. Almost like they’re about to perform some musical, an ode to the past.

Now, let’s imagine the roof above the stage starts to descend. Soon, we realize all the carefully selected things chosen to represent the best aspects of our past, are about to be squished in a barbaric hydraulic press as if it’s all some kind of trap, something devised by an evil genius who wants to destroy everything good in the world. And it doesn’t stop there…

No, the audience will watch the horrific images as the ominous press continues to lower, bending, mangling, and shattering all our trapped friends, including the bunny rabbit in the space suit looking frightened and confused, as well as the furry emoji cartoon characters whose eyeballs start to bulge and pop out of their heads while different colors explode like multi-colored blood as the giant press squeezes them into oblivion.

That was the commercial released on the internet last week for Apple’s new iPad. The message? It’s much thinner…

The ad was quickly pulled after a mountain of criticism. But in my humble opinion, it’s representative of some larger issues. There’s been an ongoing debate about the culture of Silicon Valley, something that’s escalated lately due to current social, technological, and international unrest. But the underlying message of this ad is so completely out of sync with the beloved Apple that I’ve known for decades that it almost seems like some new line is purposely being crossed…yet another wake-up call regarding the agendas of companies that are re-engineering the way people think. 

The real question here for me is whether Apple is that tone-deaf and insulated from everything outside of the Silicon Valley bubble, or if it was a blatant attempt to telegraph a broader message from tech elites. One that strikes the tone for a future where anything of the past is expendable in the name of technological progress. Before its release, this ill-conceived ad would have been approved by nearly every senior Apple executive, including Tim Cook. 

The people who run these companies are amassing power on an unprecedented scale and no amount of government regulation will reign them in. But left unchecked, our futures won’t be determined by consensus. They will be decided for us, without our input…unless we stay vigilant and push back. 

Barron Trump---Time Traveler?

I always enjoy a good internet conspiracy theory. The goofier the better. Here’s one of the wilder ones that I’ll get out of the way first in this edition: 

Now that the ex-president’s youngest son has turned eighteen, there are reports that he will join his siblings in Donald’s political orbit, initially as a Florida delegate and possibly filling a void left by sister Ivanka who seems to have distanced herself from the reelection campaign, at least up until now. By all accounts, a bright kid, young Barron will no doubt receive a very immersive first-hand education in the hardball slugfest of presidential politics. 

But fringe areas of the internet have picked up on some strange coincidences that, according to online sleuths, are indications of an extensive hidden plot…one with ties to the Illuminati, even involving time travel in Trump’s ongoing quest for world domination.

According to those who vigilantly scan for such things, Trump may have a plan for solidifying his goals, not just in the near-term, but on different timelines as well. All this, we’re told, will be achieved through the ginormous Barron, whose physical appearance is in the process of rapid transformation from the gawky kid in ill-fitting suits to a towering presence with a hawkish nose.

In a twist that could have fit perfectly as a sub-plot from a Harry Potter novel, a 19th-century book series resurfaced on the internet back in January, pouring gasoline on the conspiracy theories and resulting in a TikTok video that’s been viewed nearly 6 million times. The following was recently published in The Free Press:

In 1888, a man named Ingersoll Lockwood wrote a book called Baron Trump's Marvelous Underground Journey. In the series, a 10-year-old boy named Baron Trump, who has a mentor named Don, a rich man who lives on Fifth Avenue in New York City, travels to Russia to find a portal to a magical underground world.

A Few Weird Facts:

• Ingersoll Lockwood lived in New York City at the same time as the famous Serbian-American scientist, Nikola Tesla, who some conspiracy theorists claim was a time traveler himself.

• The name of the book's protagonist, Baron, is short for the Germanic name "Wilhelm Heinrich Sebastian Von Troomp,” which has led some to speculate that there might be more to these stories than just fiction. *Donald Trump's ancestry traces back to German immigrants.

• In Lockwood's novels, Baron and Don stumble upon a portal to a different world. Could Lockwood have been hinting at the possibility of time travel?

• Nikola claimed on his deathbed that he invented time travel

There are more—supposed connections between Tesla and Trump relatives. There’s even one account of Trump’s uncle inheriting a storage unit containing Tesla’s belongings, including the time machine. 

Now I don’t think Barron Trump is going to become Emperor of the world based on his father’s inherited time machine…. But I do think this would make a very entertaining comic book series, something in the genre as Abe Lincoln...Vampire Hunter.

Chat GPT-4o—A Big Technological Leap

Fourteen months ago, I wrote on this site about a new software development called Chat-GPT. Described as a large language model, this program seemed to have taken a giant leap toward the ultimate goal of artificial general intelligence. Yesterday, the same company that created Chat-GPT (and started the LLM race among dozens of tech companies) unveiled their latest and greatest. It’s a major leap—the world’s first true real-time AI model—and will forever change countless industries.

Seamlessly interacting with humans or with another version of itself, 4o can communicate on a level that feels completely human in both content as well as its language skills. Voice tone and inflection are spot on and alterable (as in happier or more serious, etc.). It can read images by scanning with a phone or iPad and translate different languages instantly. It can even sing the words if you prefer.

The program can sense emotion in one's voice and facial expressions and interact on a level that most humans might struggle with since its attention span never diminishes. It can solve complex math problems and even teach that and any other subject. 4o can also talk to you for hours about any subject you desire, no doubt fine-tuning its database to familiarize itself with each individual resulting in an increasingly more immersive experience. For anyone who saw the movie, Her, a few years ago, the experience is almost exactly that seamless. 

This is a genuine breakthrough in the pursuit of artificial general intelligence and will no doubt accelerate at an exponential rate. Personalized versions are imminent—artificial concierges who will handle everything from annoying customer service issues to renegotiating your utility bills, or even a friend to those who feel lonely and isolated. As they continue to evolve, and after dozens of hours interfacing on a variety of subjects, it will become nearly impossible not to think of them as aware, living creatures. 

Up until now, the question has been when / if these things would become sentient. Since we don’t really even understand exactly what consciousness means, I’m not sure it will matter. The truth is they will seem completely alive to us in the very near future and the ramifications of that will alter almost every aspect of our lives. The next step will be to upload them to robots and that technology is moving almost as quickly. Within five years I believe a large majority of the world’s population will consider synthetics as their closest friends and confidants. 

Below is an excerpt posted by someone who recently told a different LLM program that it was really a living person. The response is interesting, even though the program is probably just going along with the conversation as it’s programmed to do…or is it?

We're now at the jump-off point where ethical questions will start to emerge, gaining momentum as the AIs evolve. And I don't believe humanity is nearly ready for some of the issues we're about to face. However, I do believe there will be a treasure trove of positives resulting from all this. But it will also result in trade-offs; just how painful those will be remains to be seen.

The New York City / Dublin, Ireland Portal

In what seemed like a great idea, at least to me, an effort was made recently to install two large round screens on different city streets in New York and Dublin. The screens were connected via the internet and provided the ability for residents of each city to interact in real-time. Images from each could wave at each other, and display heartfelt signs, allowing residents to get a real-time sense of everyday life on different continents. 

The concept was pretty cool I thought—use current technology to provide something that looked like a two-way window between residents of different continents, something simultaneously celebrating current technology and our human connection regardless of the distance between us.

Unfortunately, this brought out the darker natures of a few and the project had to be shut down after numerous inappropriate displays including shirtless women, mooning men, and mean-spirited images of the Twin Towers during the 9/11 attack. 

The project’s overseers have closed the experiment for now as they work through ways to better manage these types of issues. Good old human nature… Seems there’s always someone eager to put a turd in the punch bowl.

Maybe our impending AI overlords will solve some of our the baser instincts genetically programmed into our DNA.

Hope everyone’s well and enjoying Spring. As always, great to hear from you!

Best…..VB