The Robot in My Pocket
The Digital Age of Glorious Manipulation (Day 74)
Today, I was going to write about snow slushies, but then I noticed that my phone made this Memories slideshow for me. It’s not the first time the robot in my pocket just randomly created a film designed to break me, and it won’t be the last. I’m sure you’ve all experienced this.
The whole thing is remarkable. First, here, take a look. My phone called it Portraits for some reason. The slide show features mostly Little Bean, but also me and my wife. The robot has selected photos from the course of what looks to be about four years. Users have the option, of course, of editing the video or changing the music, etc. but I’ve left it for you as it came to me.
And it got me thinking about algorithms and the nature of digital meaning.
First some background. Apple introduced the Memories feature on smart phones all the way back in 2017 and it’s come a log way since then. Even as recently as last year, the robot would sometimes get confused and toss in a meme you were saving or a random food picture when it was trying to create a family album. Not anymore though.
After quite a bit of trial and error, my Memory slideshows are now pretty on point - about a minute of my family set to sentimental music. My robot is getting to know me. In the slideshow above, I might tweak a couple pics, toss out a couple blurry or off-center ones, but basically it’s fine.
Speaking of knowing me, the music for this particular memory the robot selected is a song called “Pearl” by none other than Mark Motherbaugh. Don’t know who that is? Go look him up. Here’s a link to his greatness: My Robot Knows What I Like
Anyway, digital memories. There was a study done a couple years ago that illustrated that this sort of artificial intelligence (meaning social media, smart phone tech, websites etc.) was better at predicting your personality then even your own family or friends.
My phone goes back, mines my photo log, notices a lot of outdoorsy shots with my daughter, slaps a Portrait tag on there and boom, a one minute video full of nostalgia that is probably as good if not better than I would have been able to create.
So my friends, is the digital age forward-looking or are we losing our soul to the algorithms. When a computer can randomly make you feel something, what does that mean? I’m a Star Trek kind of guy. I love my Alexa. I wish she’d actually be able to make my coffee instead of just reminding me that coffee is on my shopping list.
I can’t imagine living in a none digital world, but that’s just me. I like my robot.