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“The economics of Internet created a twisted set of incentives that make traffic more important—and more profitable—than the truth. Our news is what rises, and what rises is what spreads, and what spreads is what makes us angry or makes us laugh. Our media diet is quickly transformed into junk food, fake stories engineered by people like me to be consumed and passed around. It is the refined and processed sugars of the information food pyramid.” –Ryan Holiday, “Trust me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator”
10.5.2020
Somewhere in the States
Lil Miquela is a virtual baby doll character developed for a killer Instagram profile.
“She” had more than 1 million Instagram followers in 2018. Today she has more than 10 million followers.
Guys keep on commenting about having a huge crush on her. Girls are desperately trying to copy her laidback, “I’m so cool and I don’t give a fuck about your human shit” pose.
“She” is a team of people crushing it with a rising form of advertising: a virtual influencer. A human avatar that is more controllable and available than the obscure and old-fashioned human influencers.
And she costs much less than humans. In the long run. And this is the long run, boys and girls. Things with AI are just starting to take off.
Miquela promotes only creme de la creme brands like Adidas, Balenciaga, and Converse.
She’s famous.
She’s THE celebrity of the future.
Tomo Luetić is a relatively unknown, middle-aged, private investigator, who specializes in cases of fake social network profiles and online abuse of men.
His grumpy, addictive but “always in mole mode” persona is ideal for sitting half the day in front of a little 2007 MacBook and catching the fake ones.
He’s a strange mixture of Gary Oldman from “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” and Sterling Hayden from “The Long Goodbye”.
He was hired by Tim Ferris to conduct the main investigation in his brand new online dating experiment.
He’s planning to find the real Miss Miquela out there and publicly propose to her.
The biggest problem Tim’s facing right now is a bunch of virtual influencer ladies who are spamming his “especially for the occasion” developed Tinder profile. He’s not taking it lightly—Tim’s got some serious stress issues.
There’s a bunch of marriage proposals and carefully designed, attention-grabbing, virtual sex tapes of his avatar and young ladies at this point. Some of them even claim he got them pregnant. This little incident needs a firm hand and thorough procedure.
That’s where Tomo comes in with his notorious Soviet secret police style and socially unbearable set of questions. He has a reputation of really torturing his suspects during unusually long interrogations.
He can throw questions at them with the same machine vibe like Pete Sampras used to do his serves. And this is considered to be an easy day with Tomo.
When was the moment you felt most emotional pain? Describe this in bloody specific details.
Or he can catch them off guard.
What was the color of your poop this morning?
Relationships are his all-time favorite.
What’s your attachment style? How did your mother feed you? Too much ha? Or not so much?
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The future is so much closer than it ever was. And now, more than ever, it’s time to ask ourselves some questions. Not about where technology is going or how AI is going to look in 2, 5, or 10 years.
Let’s ask ourselves where we, as humans, are going. What is it we find important in our human-to-human relationships? How well do we know each other? What is it that really makes us human?
Because there is a trend of dehumanizing that we cannot deny.
There are young entrepreneurs who call relationships “a waste of time”. There are young women who try to be everything and everyone but themselves. The Big Victory of Machines is only possible if we become one of them.
So, when was the last time you told someone about your loneliness, your depression, and your failures?
When was the last time you asked someone how they feel, what is bothering them, or whom they love?
When was the last time you checked in with your significant other about their digestion?
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Photo credit: Getty Images