artificial intelligence

Dispatch from an advertising future #136

https://www.engadget.com/ai-covid-19-cough-detection-from-recordings-213858299.html He should be used to it by now. Trying not to look at his own image in the corner of the matrix; raising his electronic hand; remembering to unmute and then… starting. He’d not been particularly confident in The Before. He knew he often stumbled and always felt every… Read the rest

Dispatch from an advertising future #126

https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/15/21518182/google-new-hum-to-search-feature-identify-song-machine-learning It was liminal. On the edge of consciousness, the tip of his tongue. It must have been something he saw or heard yesterday and now it was like a nagging loose tooth he couldn’t help worrying. He couldn’t do anything about it until his break, he told himself, his… Read the rest

Dispatches from an advertising future #117

https://adage.com/article/special-report-40-under-40/ad-ages-list-40-people-under-age-40-shaping-marketing-media-and-agency-industries/2285111 I’d like to thank all those who made this possible. We’re a youth-centred industry but there are many older colleagues without whom I would not be on this awards call today. I’ve been lucky to work for some of the greats in the industry, real Ad Men and Ad… Read the rest

Dispatch from an advertising future #116

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-future-brain/202009/new-brain-computer-interface-transforms-thoughts-images They said he could think anything, imagine anywhere, dream whatever. They said something about really wanting to know how young people thought. It was much more fun than his previous job with them: watching ads. This was so much better he thought as he imagined the gig, the holocrowd… Read the rest

Dispatch from an advertising future #112

https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/24/1008882/facebook-ai-test-benchmark-people-break-adversarial/ He’d told her he had a job with “a big tech company”. She was so proud. He’d spent three years in his room: in lectures, tutorials, ‘socialising’ or whatever students did. She had wondered if the fees had been worth it. But now he had a job. She’d heard… Read the rest

Dispatches from an advertising future #107

https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/18/1008559/letter-writing-lockdown-loneliness-get-out-the-vote/ I imagine them opening it. You’ve seen feeds of them waiting by their new letterbox for my papergram to arrive: expectant, delighted. Sometimes they rip them open, sometimes they take endless time. I can almost feel it when I’m writing. Of course I’ve always had their profile to work… Read the rest

Dispatch from an advertising future #103

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/09/ai-ruined-chess-now-its-making-the-game-beautiful-again/ They called me the “ugly duckling”. They were the ones people wanted to see. “It’s a revolution, a whole new world,” the press marvelled. There were documentaries and of course awards. I knew they were the next big thing when commentators used the word “dangerous”. They were perfection. And… Read the rest

Dispatch from an advertising future #93

https://www.warc.com/newsandopinion/news/food-ads-should-tap-feelings-of-nostalgia-and-togetherness/44034 Even in The Before, nostalgia and family were staples in our food marketing diet. A boy pushing a bread-filled bike up a hill in Northern England, the all-American family sitting down to Thanksgiving, the glow has worked. And in the New Normal, we’re pulling those heartstrings again. And with… Read the rest