Next  AI Chat Fri 27 Feb 2026  1pm-1.30pm (UK time). Add it to your diary.
Join us.  Topics will be announced by Thurs  26 Feb 2026
Message me on LinkedIn if you want me to send you the agenda and unique link to each Friday’s event (and send me your email address.)

20 Feb 2026  

[] Soribel Feliz‘s Free Course (on Linkedin):
Managing AI Risks: 8 Common Mistakes to Avoid at Work

⊕ Watch 20 Feb video – the complete conversation about AI Risk.
[] Undiscovered band: Tim Hain ‘Somebody turn on a light’
[] Thanks to Reggie Johnson and Wayne Denner  and Soribel Feliz 

13 Feb 2026
[] Open AI Shuts Down GPTo Today
[] LA Law Suits Social Media
[] Should Your Business Still Be on Twitter/X?
[] Foreign Influence, AI, & Escalation of Hate
[] That Cute ChatGPT Cartoon Trend? Let’s Talk About What You’re Actually Sharing
[] Algorithms are Personal and AI  Governance is not abstract.
–  [] Free AI Governance Course – reminder
[] How Does AI See Your Brand
[] Why are Gen Z Less Cognitively Ready than Others? 
⊕ Watch 13 Feb video covering  all of the above topics being discussed.
Thanks to Reggie Johnson and Wayne Denner 
Undiscovered Band/Track:  Rich Evro Reid or just Google Rich Evro Reid!

6 Feb 2026

[] AI Safety Update
– [] Spain Banning u16s Access to Social Media
– []   Nicky Petrossi report from LA Law Suit 
[] How Disinformation Works
[] 8 Risks to Avoid in AI   (AI Governance)
[] Caution When Tracking AI Visibility
[] Ads in AI Bot Conversations
[]   12 Year Old Girl Creates solar blanket for Homeless
[] Kindness is the most powerful medicine
[] Free AI Governance Course – reminder

⊕ Watch 6 Feb video covering  all of the above topics being discussed.
Thanks to Reggie Johnson  
Undiscovered Band/Track: Cry Baby Purple:  Sometimes People hate Me

30 Jan 2026

sostac.org 
[] Update: EU v Grok Nudity App
[] More Data Collection – TikTok Just Authorised This  
[] Deleting Data Collected on WattsApp     
[] Biased Data Feed – ChatGPT Uses Grokipedia 
[] GPT Hallucination: 6 Nations Rugby  
[] Clawdot AI Warning    +  + Maltbot Warning
[] A Warning About Technology – The 99^th Day   
[] AI Suicide – Poss Most Beautiful Video Ever

⊕ Watch Fri 30 Jan video covering  all of the above topics being discussed.
Thanks to Reggie Johnson and Wayne Denner 
Undiscovered Band/Track: ‘Jordan’ by LIA

23 Jan 2026

[1] Microsoft Nervous Re AI Bubble?
– [] LLMs don’t work Conor Grennon
[] Cognitive Decline
[] Shorter Attention Spans – Netflix’s Solution
[] New META whistleblower reveals META’s Shock Research
–  [] Sara Wynne Williams Careless People Apri 2025
[] Snap settles huge addiction lawsuit. But…
[]  3 Skills in AI Era  that Young Pro’s should Focus On 
⊕ Watch Fri 23 Jan video of  all of the above topics being discussed.
Thanks to Reggie Johnson and Wayne Denner 
Undiscovered Band/Track –  Tim Hain  ‘The Children of Ukraine’

16 Jan 2026

[] Google Invites 13 Year Olds to Delete Parental Control
[] Google Using Your Emails to Train its AI?
[] Instagram Data Leak – Scammers Now Emailing Instagrammers  
[] Starmer V Musk Round 1
–   []Last week:  Grok Apology re Kids’ Sex Images = No Responsibility?
[] 3 Decisions Before Using an AI Agent
[] Rekindling Classic Apple Ads 
[] Free SOSTAC® Plans Executive Summary  (how to write the perfect plan – incl AI Advans & Disadvans) – in return for a 3 mins AI Survey
[] Undiscovered band –  Vienna by  The Phoenix River Band
Thanks to Reggie Johnson  & Amir Elion  
⊕ Watch  Fri 16 Jan 2026 video  of all the above topics being discussed. 

9 Jan 2026
[] When Robots Outnumber Us
[] Is AI Artificial Ignorance?
[] AI Misinformation Campaign Success
[] Southpark Takes Trump’s Websit & Attacks
AI & ChildSafety
[] Grok Apology re Kids’ Sex Images = No Responsibility?
[] Kids Groomed by Porn Industry + Big Tech?
[] Roblox Predators Groom Kids
[] AI Engagement = Dopamine Addiction
[] Angola’s Innovative Protective AI Law
[] AI For Good:   Helping Africa Reclaim & Grow – Just Diggit

[] AI Survey    https://form.jotform.com/253452787680064   survey
[] BBC Radio London Great Sportsmanship Moments   – sportsmanship.ie
[] Undiscovered band –  Vienna by  The Phoenix River Band
Thanks to Reggie Johnson 
⊕ Watch  Fri 9 Jan 2026 video of all the above topics being discussed.

19 Dec 2025 

[ ] Free Exec Summary SOSTAC® Plans  (+ survey)
[] Switzerland Reject Palantir 
[] META UK Sextortion Lawsuit 
[] Big Tech Killing Social Trust?  (more next year)
[] Gemini Grooms Kids to Cheat?
[] SnapChat Settings – Parental Warning
[] AI for Good – recovering damaged land  (more – next year)
[] AI Boost Critical Thinking?
[] Thinking of buying kids tech for xmas?
[] Generosity is not weakness
[] ChatGPT’s 6 New Free Training Courses
Music: Tim Hain  ‘The Children of Ukraine’
⊕ Watch Fri 19 Dec video of  all of the above topics being discussed.
Thanks to Reggie Johnson and Wayne Denner 
[]  Next Chat: Dates  Fri 9 Jan 2026

12 Dec 2025

[] Trump Stopping State AI regs
[] AI, Humanity & Human Rights –  Stuart Russell Reith Lectures     Human Rights Day
–  [] Christmas AI Bots Warning for Kids – Ad – Tim Mason et al 
[] How to Implement AI Governance: 5 Actions for This Week
[] WattsApp AI integrator – lead management
[] Focussed AI workflows work best  
[] Free SOSTAC® Plans Executive Summary
[] Xmas Show 19 Dec (last chat until Fri 9 Jan 2026)
[] Undiscovered band –  Vienna by  The Phoenix River Band
Thanks to Reggie Johnson  
⊕ Watch   Fri 12 Dec 2025  video of  all of the above topics being discussed.

5 Dec 2025

Do GPT Images damage Authenticity?

[] CEO Cuts $1.1m Salary to $70k – What Happened Next?
[] 5 Years Later $70k min wage –What Happened Next
[] Super Rich Plan to Save Themselves
[] AI Companies CEO’s Dystopian Visions
[] Overdrive v Open AI Shock   incl Child Safety
[] Our Children Are Bleeding
[] Auzzie Kids Are Safe  
[] Brazil Bans META Bots for Kids
[] Digital identity is most fragile
[] AI Xmas Ads Underestimate Authenticity & Authorship  – Coke’s Xmas ad
⊕ Watch Fri 5 Dec  video of  all of the above topics being discussed.
Thanks to Reggie Johnson and Wayne Denner 
Undiscovered Band/Track – ‘The Dark’ by Cry Baby Purple 

28 Nov 2025

An Attractive Bot – watch her engaging eye movement
[] IS AI SHAPING A FUTURE WE DIDN’T ASK FOR? 
–   How tech’s richest plan to save themselves after the apocalypse
[] META Aware of Damage but refuse to tell Congress
[] Sneaky USA Ban on AI Regs  
[] Irresistable ,Friendly and Caring & Beautiful – your AI Friend  
[] Creating AI Versions of Anyone     
[] AI Using Your Email for Training
[] Vertical AI                                                      
[] Decadence & Corruption of Today’s Elites       The Rheith Lectures 25 Nov
[] Undiscovered band –  Vienna by  The Phoenix River Band
Thanks to Reggie Johnson and Wayne Denner 
⊕ Watch  Fri 28 Nov  video of  all of the above topics being discussed.

21 Nov 2025

Marrying a digital persona

[] The 3^rd AI Device Has Landed
[] What Kind Of People Will AI Turn Us Into?
[] In a Less Dangerous AI Dystopia?
[] But Could You Find God in the App Store?
[] Or Marry a Digital Persona  (see above)
[] 7 Types of AI Adopters    
Thanks to Reggie Johnson and Wayne Denner 
⊕ Watch the video  of  all of the above topics being discussed.

14 Nov 2025

[] Pushing all-things AI = Thinking Problem?
[] Ever-Present 3^rd AI Device?– do you really want it
[] How To v How Not to get staff to adopt AI    + How To Do It Correctly:
–   Singapore Trains 150,000 Government Officers in Mandatory AI   
    –   Estee Lauder AI Accelerates Insights & NPD
[] Nvidia Expose $57B AI Error
[] How To Become Algorithmically Attractive  
[] AI for Good – recovering damaged land   (more info in the weeks to come)
[] AI for Good: Loneliness Ad – brilliant ad – all AI produced * (*see above screen grab)
[] Undiscovered band –  Vienna by  The Phoenix River Band
⊕ Watch the video of all of the above topics being discussed.
Thanks to Reggie Johnson 

7 Nov 2025

[] 6 AI Shifts Marketers Must Master
[] 5 Physical AI Robotic Trends 2026
+  Adding Ads to your Dreams   
[] 4 AI Marketing Horror Stories:  4 x $1B AI Errors  
+ Taco Bell ‘s AI -man orders 19,000 waters
[] META AI Exploits You?
[] Our Kids Drowning in an AI Tsunami    
[] AI Isn’t the threat – we are – Mo Gawdat
[] AI & Magical Musical Mushrooms  
[] NEW New York Mayor Comes Out As A Gooner  (see above)   
[] Undiscovered band –  Vienna by  The Phoenix River Band
⊕ Watch the video of all of the above topics being discussed.
Thanks to Reggie Johnson 

31 Oct 2025

[] Obscene Grokbot 
[] LinkedIn New Terms – Opt Out?
[] ChatGPT Atlas = Dominance?
[] ChatGPT Atlas: Why I’m Hitting Pause (For Now)
[] Always Ask 2 Questions – re Any Research
[] BOT Influencer Breaking Regs
[] Our Power as a Collective    
[] AI for Peace, Justice & Human Dignity 
[] Thank God for Immigrants – Freddy Mercury Ad
[] Safe Unsound – Crowd Funded Immigrant Docu Movie
Music: Tim Hain  ‘The Children of Ukraine’
Thanks to Reggie Johnson and Wayne Denner  and Daniel James Baldwin
⊕ Watch the video  of  all of the above topics being discussed.

 24 Oct 2025

[] AWS Crash – AI Coding Problem? 
[] Calls for ASI Ban
– Altman Predicts Bad AI Stuff
– California  Stops Bots
[] Sycophantic AI
– Sycophantic AI Makes Former PM Love AI
–  Sychophantic AI – south park
    – Sycophantic Adornation Fools Us All?
[] ‘If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies’ 
[] Safe Unsound –  World Premiere   a crowd-funded docu film about about the milk of human kindness & migrants’ struggles
[]  Quote of the Week:  ‘Everyone you meet has something to teach you’ Lauren Murrel
Music: Tim Hain  ‘The Children of Ukraine’
Thanks to Reggie Johnson
Thanks also to Northover Manor Hotel
⊕ Watch the video  of  all of the above topics being discussed.

17 Oct  2025 
Below are the links to each topic we discussed .
Plus here is the link to today’s recorded chat 17 Oct 2025.
[] ‘Epidemic of Ignorance’
[] AI Will Not Replace You – Mo Gawdat 
[] Romantic AI X: 1 in 5 highschool students (or friends) –
[] Mourning Women Say OpenAI Killed Their AI Boyfriends
[] Altman Adds More Erotica to ChatGPT
[] Child Cries As Toy Bot Says Goodbye
[] Grokipedia  
– [] Petition to make Grok safer-  Sign the Petition!
[]  ‘If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies’  
[] Happiness is…..
Thanks to Reggie Johnson, Wayne Denner and Alex Gibson
Music: Vienna by The Phoenix River Band   including Robert Craven

Fri 10 Oct 2025
[] Open Ai Lists Work Tasks to be Eliminated     
[] DELOITTE  AI Mega Error – Refund
[] The Religion of AI
[] AI Person-Hood – Beware
[] Suicidal Bots & Gaza
[] Petition to Stop AI Taking Over the World
[] ROI = Return On Immersion 
[] Jane Goodall’s, famous last words. –  Your are here for a reason.
[] SAFE UNSOUND documentary is Here
Thanks to  Alex Gibson, TUD.
Music: ‘Jordan’ by LIA 
Meanwhile, watch the video recording  (see end of list below) + here is the link for  each topic discussed:

Fri 3 Oct 2025 
[] AI Chatbots Create a Privacy Nightmare
[] Deep Fake Surge – Film Stars Threatened 
[] Churches Resurrect Charlie Kirk from Heavan via AI
[] Safeguarding AI – Critical Child Protection
[] Positive: Implementation problems are about mindset NOT tech
Watch the video  of  all of these items being discussed
Thanks to Reggie Johnson and Wayne Denner 
Music: ‘Jordan’ by LIA

Fri 26 Sep 2025
[] Denmark Grants Citizens Copyright of their own Like  
[] Singapore Trains 150,000 Government Officers in Mandatory AI   
[] Kids Warning – Google’s ChatBOT Goes Rogue ie Unsafe for Kids
[] Kids & Adult Warning – Avoid Intimate Relationships with Bots
[] AI and the Future of Education
[] How to Get AI to Recommend You  (part 2 steps 3& 4)  
Watch the video  of  all of these items being discussed
Thanks to Reggie Johnson and Wayne Denner 
Music: ‘Jordan’ by LIA

Fri 19 Sep 2025 
[] 95% Generative AI Projects Fail
[] AI Goes Rogue + Shadow AI
[] AI Assistants Deliver Inaccurate News  (BBC)
–  Trump v Truth   Channel 4
– Angry Algorithms
[]  AI and the Future of Education
[] Got your Meta Skills?
[] Ryder Cup VR Abuse Preparation
Thanks to: Reggie Johnson 
Tim Hain  ‘The Children of Ukraine’
Video Recording of today’s chat

Fri 12 Sep 2025
[] A Difficult but Important Kids Conversation
[] Anthropic let us down
[] Protect Your GPT Privacy
[] Protect Your Photos Privacy from Meta
[] Wise Cherokee AI Governance
[] Positive Spiritual Intelligence
[] Negative Character-AI Targets Youths with Dopamine
[] Future of Work – Critical Skills Required
[] Fully Open Swiss AI Model is Here
[] An Irish Rugby Hallucination 
Thanks to Reggie Johnson and Wayne Denner
Music: Faraz (Orcaboy) Ahmed ‘Can I be free like you?’
Video Recording of today’s chat

[] Biggest AI Problem is…….

29 AUG 2025
[] UN Makes AI History
[] X AI’s Kids Chatbot Designed to Be Explicit  

• Protect Us Video 17’ – by We Protect Global Alliance  – is essential viewing
• Protect Us Toolkit – from We Protect Global Alliance
• Nicki Reisberg’s Snapchat video

[] META STRIKES AGAIN. When will we strike back?
[] What are the social consequences of believing AI is sentient?
[] How to Get AI to Recommend You  (part 2 steps 3& 4)
[] 5 Key Take-Aways from Cannes Linkedin Creator Workshops
[] Our Wonderful AI-Aided World
[] It Just Might Be Your Last Chance to Drive
Watch the video  of  all of these items being discussed
Music: ‘Jordan’ by LIA
Thanks to Reggie Johnson and Wayne Denner

Friday 22 Aug 2025
[] META’ Truly Shocking Stance re What Its Bots Say To Children 
[] META Ethics Leak – Horrible    
[] META Caught 14 Times (in last 5 years) Doing Awful Things    
[] People v Profit AI – Dear Anthropic Team
[] How to Get AI to Recommend You
[] Critical Success Factors & SOSTAC® Plans  (Part 1)
[] Music: The Monks Kitchen ‘Snake Charmer’
[] Thanks to Reggie Johnson

Friday 15 Aug 2025
[] GPT5  Turns Advanced Reasoning Into Competitive Advantage?
[] GPT5 “I officially hate GPT-5”
[] GPT5  a Thinking Partner  v a Search Engine
[] ChatGPT 4.0 Missed Delusion + Emotional Dependency 
[] GPT Psychosis/Delusion
[] Transparency – at last
[]  AI that Stops Attention-Deficit
[] How to Get AI to Recommend You
[] Critical Success Factors & SOSTAC® Plans

8 Aug 2025
Listen to / Watch this week’s chat Fri 8 Aug 2025 30 minute video recording.
Plus here are the individual original source links for each topic discussed:
[] Musk V Bowie
[] Tech Billionaires = Corporate Dictatorship
[] Social Media Film: Can’t Look Away
[] X AI’s Kids Chatbot Designed to Be Explicit  
[] More Grok Kids Stuff
[] Grok Creates Deepfakes Of Anyone
[] AI Results Optimization (AIRO)
[] Tourism Bots NY v Dublin  

Friday 1 Aug 2025

Listen to / Watch this week’s chat Fri 1 Aug 2025.
Here’s the links to the full articles/posts/videos for each topic.

[] AI Out Of Control (Part 4)
[] Trump Weaponises AI?
[] X AI’s Kids Chatbot Designed to Be Explicit  
[] META Sued – Porn Theft & Porn Training?
[] Agentic AI Increases Prices
[] Agentic AI Risks
[] Agentic AI Blocked by Amazon
[] The Future of AI
[] Music:  Tim Hain ‘Somebody turn on a light’
[] Thanks to Reggie Johnson

Friday  25 July 2025

Here’s the link to the video recording. Plus here’s the links to more info on each item discussed.
[] AI Out of Control (Part 3)
+ Trumps AI Report
[] Grok Turns Nazi
[] Risky AI chatbots – the new ‘go to’ for kids 
[] Russia Grooms LLMs for Russian Propaganda
[] X AI’s Kids Chatbot Designed to Be Explicit  
[] Race for Dead Brand Ambassadors
[] Music: ‘Jordan’ by LIA
Sign the Petition! calling on Grok to remove “Not Safe For Work” features from this product.
+ Contact Apple!
[] Music: ‘Jordan’ by LIA
[] Thanks to Reggie Johnson and Wayne Denner

Friday  18 July 2025
Join us.  Here’s the link to the video. Plus here’s the links to more info on each item discussed.
[] AI Godfather & Nobel Prize Winner’s Spooky AI Warning
[] 2028 Election AI Prediction       – Professor Gary Marcus
[] AI Companies Will Lose Control  – Open AI Whistleblower, Steven Adler
[] Swiss Create Ethical LLM for Public Good  
[] Music: ‘Jordan’ by LIA

11 July 2025
[]  Bezos Floats Into His Own Oblivion 
[] Hidden AI Prompts Get Fake Positive ‘Academic’ Review
[]  Content Creators – Is It Worth It – As AI Grows?
[]  AI Agents Change Everything
[] AI Companies Will Lose Control 
[] How AI Can Make You Work Better
[] Music: ‘Jordan’ by LIA 
[] Thanks to Reggie Johnson

4 JULY 2025
[]  AI Labels Trigger Fear     
[]  US Senate Stops AI Regs Moratorium
[]  Barbie Chatbot Toy Warning 
[]  AI Chooses Self Survival, Blackmailing & Death
[] Zuckeberg’s Tech Sees What You See & Hears What You Hear
[]  From Dalai To Donald
[]  24 Hours Before Holly Died – She Said This
[] Music: ‘Jordan’ by LIA 
[] Thanks to Reggie Johnson and Wayne Denner

27 June 2025
[] X Rewrite The Corpus of Knowledge
[] Broligarchs Get Military Status 
[] Are Palantir War Mongerers?
[] Social Media Victims Remembrance Day (June 23)
[] NHS Anti Waste
[] Agentic AI’s Big Barrier – security (Meredith Whittaker, Signal President) Wired 28/8/ 2024
[] Blind Can See Again (Neurolink)
[] Critical Thinking Course       *
[] Agentic AI Course
[] The purpose of life?   (a 90 second video worth watching)
* Critical Thinking paper Microsoft, Cambridge UK, Carnegie Mellon Uni (Simon Au-Yong)
[] Music: ‘Jordan’ by LIA (Julia Gawlik)  
[] Thanks to Reggie Johnson andTim Bennett

20 June 2025
[] Add AI Layers to your Brain 
[] Using AI = Cognitive Debt?
[] Waiting to have kids until Neuralink is ready
[] Language & Emotion Wars
[] Euro Strategy Reduces Reliance on US Tech Giants
[] How to Perform Well in Google’s AI Search
[] Meta Says No to External Links
[] Google Veo3 Makes – History Inviting?
[] Invent Machines to Save Time but…
[] Critical Thinking free Linkedin course
[] Music: Scream When You Cry, by Parts and Spares
[] AI Summer Beach Party 23 June 2025 , London City Beach, near Waterloo Station.
[] Thanks to Reggie Johnson 

13 June 2025
[]  Ethical AI Bomb – Blows Up Big Tech’s Biggest Lie
[]  Petition:  Make Not Labelling AI Generated Media & Comms a Criminal Offence
[] Selling to Robots
[] OpenAI Whistle Blower – Found Dead  Mother calls for Investigation of Sam Altman
[] How to Perform Well in Google’s AI Search
[] ChatGPT Summarises the Big Beautiful Bill
[] Using AI To Improve Critical Thinking
[] Kindness is the new power   – an excellent animated cartoon – share it far and wide!
[] Music: The Monks Kitchen ‘Snake Charmer’
[] Thanks to Reggie Johnson 

6 June 2025
[] Ads Arrive in Googles AI Ads 
[] Future of Search    (Google)
[] Amazon AI Agents Released
[] Are You ‘Nudged’ into Behavioural Change?
[] Trump Citizen Database Sparks Surveillance Fears
[] Meet Peter Thiel 
[] Will AI Make Us Think Less

Other posts mentioned during the chat:
[] How Trump Won (a SOSTAC Analysis) – Part 1 (2017)  by PR Smith
[] Marketing Gone Wrong  – Carol Cadwalladr Famous TED Talk (2017)  Brexit Manipulated Voters – by PR Smith
[] ‘How To Stop the Broligarchs Controlling Your Life’ by PR Smith
JOIN THE PETITION:  Make a criminal offence not to label AI generated media & communication as such
[] Thanks to Reggie Johnson 
[] Music: Faraz (Orcaboy) Ahmed ‘Can I be free like you?’

The post AI , Innovation & Ethics 2026 Topics and Links appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.

This post is a blend of, and inspired by Carole Cadwalladr and her stunning TED Talk 2025 plus Sarah Wynn-Williams shocking book, Careless People – recently released.

 

Big tech companies and their bosses have a lot of power – some suggest – to influence, and even change, our governments, our laws, our democracy, our privacy, our data, our freedom, create fear,  stop whistleblowers, fragment society, polarise opinions, spread hate, enable abuse, create a controlling cult, and in return, take our money, time and data. How can this be? An even better question is: How can we stop this?

This post is inspired specifically by two talented professionals  with these 3 must-watch/must-read items:
1. Journalist, Carole Cadwalladr and her two stunning TED Talks 2025 and 2019.
2. Author and former Facebook global public policy director Sarah Wynn-Williams’ shocking book, Careless People (just released, although she is already banned from promoting it).
3. Carole Cadwalladr’s final piece for the Observer: ‘It’s not too late to stop Trump and the tech broligarchy from controlling our lives, but we must act now’ The Observer 20 Apr. See links at the end.

 

First, let’s look at ‘what is a broligarch?’, then ‘how do they control us?’, and finally, most importantly, how can we stop them?

WHAT IS A BROLIGARCH?

A broligarchy is a ‘small group of men who control a situation or political power structure. It differs from an ordinary oligarchy in that a broligarchy carries with it a connotation of toxic masculinity.’

Broligarchs comes from a play on bro + oligarchy. Wikipedia suggests broligarchs are ultra-wealthy men often in the tech industry, who wield significant political and economic influence while embodying a certain “tech bro” culture.

ChatGPT defines ‘tech bro’ as ‘a slang term used to describe a certain kind of (usually male) figure in the tech industry who blends Silicon Valley startup culture, tech optimism, and bro culture – often with a dose of arroganceor tone-deafness.’ ChatGPT’s definition continues with these broligarch descriptors:

• Works in tech, usually a startup or big-name company (Meta, Google, etc.)
• Often involved in entrepreneurship, coding, crypto, AI, or VC funding
• Talks like a thought leader—buzzwords, big visions, “disruption”
• Bro-ish attitude: overconfident, self-important, sometimes dismissive of regulation or social responsibility
• Might wear the “uniform”: hoodie/t-shirt/baseball cap

Journalist, Stephen Poole, highlighted META’s CEO: ‘… Zuckerberg’s recent appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast. He complains that corporate culture has become too “neutered” and needs a new injection of “masculine energy”. In February, he visited the White House to talk to Donald Trump about AI.’ (Poole 2025).

HOW DO BROLIGARCHS CONTROL US?

It has been suggested that they: Relentlessly Collect Data, Steal Data, Dissolve Privacy, Destroy Information/Truth, Stop Anyone Revealing Information about Broligarchs and their companies, Increase Fear, Create a Cult that lobbies for deregulation, reduces safety-checks, exploits vulnerable teenagers, allows hate speech, manipulates elections and damages democracy as long as it makes lots of money? This is the antithesis of stakeholder capitalism (where corporations actually care about more than just their shareholders). So, let’s explore briefly each one of these Broligarch identifiers and whether they are real.

Relentlessly Collect Data?

Data is the world’s most valuable resource (Economist 2017). It used to be oil. Data is also a Broligarch’s ‘Crack Cocaine’, says Carole Cadwalladr in her amazing 2025 TED Talk. Today, tech companies gather an awful lot of data about us. Did you know Uber cars record your conversations in Ubers? Other tech companies collect swathes of data from us.

However, there’s nothing really new here. Do you remember the now-defunct Cambridge Analytica getting access to Facebook data (was it 2016), to help Donald Trump win his first election? Ditto Facebook and Cambridge Analytica helping the BREXIT campaign by tailoring and targeting very specific incorrect messages to individual clusters of Facebook users to swing their opinions, playing on fears and prejudices. Trump won the 2016 campaign by a small, yet critical margin. See my Facebook Data: How it was used by Cambridge Analytica? They can access our private thoughts and arguably, even our unconscious desires (see below – how FB & Cambridge Analytica explored this).

Data is power. No one understands this better than the Chinese Communist Party. Facebook whistleblower, Sarah Wynn-Williams, was surprised to read an internal email that said ‘Facebook will agree to grant the Chinese government access to Chinese users’ data, including Hong Kongese users’ data. (p.151).

Data also has value inside an organisation, such as the US Government’s data. Cadwalladr’s final piece for the Observer newspaper suggests that data is also used within government offices for all sorts of reasons: ‘The first thing that Elon Musk did was to send his cyber troops into the US Treasury to get access to the data.  That is not a coincidence. It’s a hack. That data is now feeding AIs that are choosing who to sack and who to replace – sorry – eliminate fraud and waste.’

Destroy Privacy?

Facebook Has Your Private Information FB and other tech companies harvest vast amounts of data. They learn what you like and then serve you more of it, to keep you on their platforms.  Wyn-Williams reports that: ‘Facebook employed a series of “addictive by design” features specifically targeted and tailored to exploit the vulnerabilities of young users, while hiding the risky and harmful nature of such features.’ P.348.

They use data to target messages and ads that will have more impact as they use ‘signals’ from data, e.g. a teenage girl deleting a selfie photo could be a signal that the girl is worried or dislikes the way she looks. This signal suggests this girl might read a message (or ad) about cosmetic surgery or slimming pills. Facebook make big money from targeted ads. The teenage girl and her very private worries get exploited.

This is not new. 10 years ago, researchers from the University of Cambridge and Stanford University revealed how

FB can knows you better than your:

– Work colleagues – if they analyse 10 of your ‘likes’.

– Parents and family – if they analyse 150 of your ‘likes’.

– Spouse – if they analyse 300 of your ‘likes’.

(Lapwosky 2015)

Steal Data: ‘Theft & Rape’?

There are, and have been, many objections and lawsuits (e.g. New York Times and Getty Images) against AI companies training their AI with other people’s data (stories, pictures, photographs, text, posts, articles, books, newspapers and more).

During her 2025 TED Talk, Carole highlighted how her own work, research and writing style has been taken when she unveiled a ‘Chatgpt writing a TED Talk in the style of Carole Cadwalladr’.  And it is creepily plausible.  But what it doesn’t know, because AI is actually as dumb as a rock, is that I am going to turn to Sam Altman, who is coming here, a TED speaker, and say that this does not belong to you. ChatGPT has been trained on my IP, my labour, my personal data. And I did not consent.’

Carole also publicly objected to the Guardian Group’s sale of the Observer (Sunday newspaper) and subsequent deal with Open AI. She continued her TED Talk: ‘You know, “The Guardian” has effectively got rid of more than 100 journalists. We actually leave the building next week.  And shortly afterwards, it signed a syndication deal with OpenAI.  Or, as I think of it, IT MARRIED ITS RAPIST.’

Destroy Information/Truth?

Carole Cadwalladr continues her Ted Talk: ‘If you want to know what the FIRST GREAT AI APOCALYPSE is, we’re already living it. It’s total information collapse. And if you take one thing only away from this talk, it’s politics is technology now.  And that’s why everybody in this room, you can’t look away.  It’s why your CEOs have been taken captive and are paraded on TV like hostages. But you, you have a choice. So Trump, he calls the press – the enemies of the people.’

Incidentally, Vice President JD Vance went further by saying: ‘we have to honestly and aggressively attack the universities in this country.’ (Front Burner hosted by Jayme Poisson ‘Professors are the enemy’: Trump’s war on higher education – Transcript: 26/3/2025)

Disinformation is not new. The 2016 BREXIT campaign posted ads on Facebook that were, simply, lies. e.g. they claimed ‘Turkey’s 76m people are joining the EU’. This is, as Carole Cadwalladr said in her first TED Talk: ‘A Total Lie. Turkey is not joining the EU. There’s not even any discussions of it joining.’ Here we are in 2025, and Turkey is still not a member of the EU. The funders of these Brexit ads got away with this. In addition to all of this, is it possible that Putin’s constant divisive disinformation secret campaigns have polarised and divided society and simultaneously mobilised extreme feelings, which have damaged democracy in the West?

Meanwhile, Sarah Wynne-Williams reports that Facebook ‘put staff in with the Trump campaign to help them stage the war of misinformation, trolling and lies that won him the election.’ P.380

Remember this sobering piece of advice from Wynne-Williams: ‘So look after facts. You’ll miss them when they’ve gone.’

Increase Fear?

The illegal anti-Brexit ads on Facebook bred fear when they warned people about 76m Turks were about to invade the UK. Similar disinformation about migrants is regularly spread around the world.

The most blatant proof of using fear appeared on youtube when Palantir USA, CEO, Alex Karp seemingly proudly came out and said: ‘There are two ways America can be strong in the face of our adversaries: (1) to put the fear of death, into our adversaries at any random moment, which I think is happening for the first time in a long time.   (2) Economy…….’   CNBC Exclusive Interview (Jan 2025).

Then the AI oligarchs scare me even more when we realise that robots might decide when to drop a nuclear bomb. There might not be any humans involved in triggering nuclear weapons. This is yet another worry or fear about the application of AI to military weapons. This shocking thought comes from Wynn-Williams’ book (P.386): We ‘live in an era when intelligent weapons can autonomously identify and kill human targets without human input.’ This triggers an obvious question:

‘Should a human be involved before nuclear weapons are triggered?’

Stop Whistleblowers?

Broligark companies have endless resources to Harass, Bully and Sue in court anyone who challenges their power. e.g. Carole Cadwalladr’s description, during her TED Talk, of the disgusting harassment and bullying she suffered on social media was horrifying. It was relentless. It seemed organised. Personal. Destructive. Abusive. Relentless. It was, in a word, shocking. She also has had a 3-year legal case against her, which went all the way to the High Court in the UK.

Carole’s final article for the Guardian quoted her TED 2025 talk when she said:

‘…the last time that I stood on this stage (TED), it led to a three-year legal battle,  culminated in London’s High Court, in which it felt like I was on trial for my life, because I was.  My career, my reputation, my finances,  even my home, was on the line.  All because I came here to warn you that I didn’t think democracy was going to survive the technology that you’re building, however incredible it is.’

 

Create a Fragmented Society?

Divide and conquer. Polarise opinions. Reduce room for the middle ground. Push people apart into one extreme view or another. Here’s Christopher Wylie,  Cambridge Analytica whistleblower: ‘If you want to fundamentally change society, you first have to break it.  And it’s only when you break it is when you can remould the pieces into your vision of a new society. This was the weapon that Steve Bannon* wanted to fight his culture war.’ See PR Smith’s  ‘The Dark Arts of Marketing (2019). *Trump’s former right-hand man.

Create A Cult?

Broligarks appear to behave like a cult. In fact, Palantir (founded by Peter Thiel, early investor in Facebook & founder of PayPal) was referred to, somewhat proudly, as ‘a cult’ at the recent Asset Management CEO Forum, New York (12-13 Dec 2024). In her introduction, the interviewer (who was about to interview Palantir’s USA CEO, Alex Karp) referred to ‘Palantirians’. She then went on to say:

‘It is a cult. That is what this is all about. It is a very important cult that is changing the shape of the world and controlling much of how the world order is going to happen.’  After this ‘cult’ intro, Alex Karp (with his untidy hair) then went on to talk about putting ‘the fear of death, into our adversaries’ (see above).

As already mentioned, cult members working in tech have a Bro-ish attitude: overconfident, self-important, sometimes dismissive of regulation or social responsibility.

After her TED talk, Carole Cadwalladr wrote her final article for the Guardian about AI: ‘It’s going to blast away whole industries, concentrate even greater power in an even smaller group of men, deplete the planet’s resources even further, and it’s in the hands of reckless, careless people who seem to have no understanding of society. To them, it’s just a race; a winner-takes-all competition.’

Carole continues to explain why most of us just don’t see what’s happening: ‘All while the world still looks much the same
– same streets
– same houses
– same politicians talking on the
– same TVs.
It’s why it’s so hard to get your head around it.’

 

HOW TO BEAT THE BROLIGARCHS’ ATTEMPTED COUP

‘It’s a coup’,said Cadwalladr in her TED Talk 2025.  ‘We can’t fight it if we can’t see it, I said, and we can’t see it if we can’t name it’.

So here are Cadwalladr’s 10 Steps from her TED Talk 2025.

10 Steps to Beat the Broligarchs

We have to learn how to digitally disobey.

That can be as simple as the drop-down box.

1. Don’t accept the cookies

2. Don’t give your real name

3. Download Signal, the encrypted messaging app.

4. Don’t bomb Yemen

5. Don’t add the editor of “The Atlantic” to your group chats!! [Note: Jeffrey Goldberg was, in error, added to a white house chat group revealing strategic defence messages)!!!

6. Don’t experiment on children. You know, social mores change. We don’t send children down coal mines anymore.  And in years to come, allowing your child to be data-harvested from birth will be considered child abuse. You didn’t know, but now you do.

7. Privacy is power.  And we have more of it than we think. I had this little epiphany yesterday in which I realised, actually, the moments when I felt most powerless were the moments that I felt I was actually most powerful. It was because my journalism had an impact. They want us to feel powerless. That’s the plan. There is so much, though, that we can learn from people who’ve been through this before. TED 2025 12:39

8. It is going to take a movement. But we can

9. Learn from movements that there have been before us.

10. But you definitely won’t win if you don’t fight.

Carole Cadwalladr.

—

Stay optimistic. AI can help society instead of destroying it (see PR Smith 2021 link). Watch Mo Gawdat talks (see PR Smith 2023 links). Talk about the Broligarchs. Do not sit back. Take action.

Summary:

1. Be aware of broligarchs and their control
2. Do not sit back and accept this
3. Take action against broligarchs: petitions, protests, stop buying/using their brands (where possible), only invest in non-broligarch brands.

I welcome your suggestions, comments and feedback.

Who is Carol Cadwalladr? Carole Cadwalladr is a reporter and was a feature writer for the Observer. Carole has written some profound articles and delivered possibly two of the greatest TED Talks ever (one in 2019 and the other in 2025). See full references/links below.

Who is Sarah Wynne Williams? Facebook’s former global public policy director, Sarah Wynne Williams, joined Facebook in 2011 and left in 2018. Wynne-Williams alleges FB #sexual #harassment and #human #rights failures in her recently published shocking book, Careless People.   See full references/links below.

 

Carole Cadwalladr’s 2025 TED Talk This is what a digital coup looks like
Carole Cadwalladr’s original shocking 2019 TED Talk and review by PR Smith
Sarah Wynn-Williams shocking book Careless People
Carole Cadwalladr’s final article for the Guardian: It’s not too late to stop Trump and the tech broligarchy from controlling our lives, but we must act now. Guardian 20 Apr 2025

All other references are listed below

BBC (2023) Meta stops ex-director from promoting critical memoir 13 March
CNBC Exclusive Interview 1:38 – 1:55 CNBC Exclusive interview with Alex Karp Palantir CEO.   posted by Pascal Hetzscholdt  Jan 31, 2025
Lapowsky, I. (2015) How Facebook Knows You Better Than Your Friends Do, Wired Jan 13
Poisson, J. (2025)   ‘Professors are the enemy’: Trumps war on higher education – Transcript: Burner 26 Mar.
Poole, S. (2025) Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams review – Zuckerberg and me, Guardian 13 Mar.
Smith, PR (2018) The Dark Arts Of Marketing – Breaking Down Society to Create a New Culture – Using Data & IRD  prsmith.org/blog 22 Mar
Smith, PR (2019) Facebook Data: How it was used by Cambridge Analytica prsmith.org/blog 3 Sep
Smith, PR (2019) Marketing Gone Wrong: Is the Dark Web Worse Than Subliminal Seduction?  ** Carole Cadwalladr’s original Shocking video about Facebook’s role in the BREXIT referendum PRSmith.org blog 3 May
Smith, PR (2021) AI and Data – Crisis Coming? prsmith.org/blog 10 Aug
Smith, PR (2023) Will ChatGPT + ChatBots + Avatars Make Us Immortal? PRSmith.org blog 10 Mar
Smith, PR (2023) AI Today, Tomorrow and How To Save Our World – Mo Gawdat prsmith.org/blog 18 Oct

—-end—-

 

[] The Dark Arts Of Marketing – Breaking Down Society to Create a New Culture – Using Data & IRD  prsmith.org/blog 22 Mar 2018
[] Facebook Data: How it was used by Cambridge Analytica prsmith.org/blog 3 Sep 2019
[] Marketing Gone Wrong: Is the Dark Web Worse Than Subliminal Seduction?  ** Carole Cadwalladr’s original Shocking video about Facebook’s role in the BREXIT referendum PRSmith.org blog 3 May 2019
[] AI and Data – Crisis Coming? prsmith.org/blog 10 Aug 2021
[] Will ChatGPT + ChatBots + Avatars Make Us Immortal? PRSmith.org blog 10 Mar 2023
[] AI Today, Tomorrow and How To Save Our World – Mo Gawdat prsmith.org/blog 18 Oct 2023
[] Creative AI – Public Invited to Chat with Dead Animals   prsmith.org/blog 13 Nov 2024
[] Can AI Improve Marketing? prsmith.org/blog 21 Mar 2024

 

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The post HOW WE CAN STOP BROLIGARCHS CONTROLLING US (10 Steps) appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.

Graduates from the University also observed an interesting AI insight:
‘people seem to feel more connected to machines when they can talk to them’.

SO, INSTEAD OF ASKING ‘HOW CAN AI HELP MY MUSEUM?’ (Wrong Question),
They asked ‘How can AI help our visitors?’ (Right Question)
and then they asked these even more detailed questions:
How can AI help my visitors to:
(a) engage with the museum
(b) engage with biodiversity ie the variety of life on earth/species diversity etc. (Right Question)

THE AI MAGIC
The research team thought about bringing the specimens to life through AI – in the same way that we previously explored how AI can ‘resurrect’ the dead (see ‘Will Chatbots and Avatars makes us immortal’ ). The Cambridge project enables these ‘resurrected animals’ to converse with visitors – as if the ‘specimens were still alive’.

Image: Courtesy of The University of Cambridge’s Biodiversity Museum

HOW TO SCALE-UP PERSONALIZATION (Great Question)
Firstly, the conversations can be voice – or text-based to suit all visitors.
Secondly, adding ‘Age Adaptive’ functionality (the animals adjust their tone & language to match the visitor’s age).
Thirdly, adding ‘Language Adaptive’ functionality (the animals speak in 20 languages) gives access to more visitors.

Creating an Opportunity to Connect People with Non-Human-Life  
This is phenomenal. Although the technology has existed for some time (see The July Project, PR Smith), these GPTs are now delivering a radically improved CX (Customer Experience). Sir Michael Parkinson (Britain’s favourite 1-2-1 interviewer/chat show) died last year but is being resurrected by his son as Virtually Parkinson, which enables new guests to be questioned in Parkinson’s famous relaxed style in a new celebrity interview podcast.

Meanwhile back in Cambridge, museum visitors scan the QR code which opens the chat box on their mobile phone. Visitors can then choose from 13 #specimens (including a #dodo, whale skeletons, a taxidermied red panda & a preserved cockroach) & start chatting with them.

THE VIRTUOUS CYCLE OF DATA IN AI
All the conversations are recorded with the visitors’ permission. They are then all converted to text. This is valuable data. The team and the AI’s Large Language Model will then analyse data from all of the conversations, so they learn more about:
(1) what visitors really want to know about the specimens on display
(2) how AI can help the public to better engage with nature
(3) and about the potential for AI in museums.

In AI, the ‘virtuous cycle’ refers to a positive feedback loop where data is continually collected to be analysed to find deeper needs or insights which are then used to boost the #CX (customer experience) which, in turn, attracts more customers. More customers = more data = deeper understanding of needs = improved product/service = better CX = more customers and so on. This cycle enhances the AI system’s effectiveness over time as more data is gathered and used. It can also lead to generating better  #insights, leading to more #data and further  #model  #refinement.

EXPERIMENTAL DATA  
This extra data can become the source of your  #Competitive  #Advantage. ‘A test and learn‘ mentality is essential for translating that data from raw material into customer insights. Knowing your customers far better than your competitors know their customers is a very real competitive advantage. However, customer insights are worthless if they are not acted upon. So a flexible or agile approach is required to turn the insights into actions so you can really leverage the benefits of AI.

Image: courtesy of the University of Cambridge Instagram    Note: *The Cambridge Masters in #Conservation #Leadership is a ground-breaking course that equips students with the applied leadership and management skills needed to create positive change in conservation.

References:
[] The University of Cambridge (2024) ‘Public invited to chat to museum animals in novel AI experiment’, Research News, November.
[] Smith, PR (2023) Will ChatGPT + ChatBots + Avatars Make Us Immortal?

KEEP UP WITH DEVELOPMENTS IN #AI, INNOVATION & ETHICS  in our weekly chat on PR Smith Marketing Linkedin profile – audio event – live from 1pm – 1.30pm. Take a break and Keep Up To Date! It’s good for you.

If you like this post you might also enjoy: 
Will ChatGPT + ChatBots + Avatars Make Us Immortal?

Chinese GirlBot With 465m Boyfriends

AI and Data – Crisis Coming?

Artificial Influencers Use My Magic Marketing Formula (IRD) 

Artificial Influencers – Meet Shudu & Miquela

Here Come The Clever Bots – bursting with artificial intelligence? 

Here Come The Really Clever Bots – where AI meets customer needs

SOSTAC® Plan for developing your own ChatBot

The post Creative AI – Public Invited to Chat with Dead Animals    appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.

Enjoy this best-selling updated 8^th edition – packed with new material, keeping abreast with AI, AR, VR, MR, MA and other innovative approaches to marketing communications. All integrated with the world’s most popular SOSTAC® Planning methodology that delivers a reassuring sense of order in a chaotic digital world and also that delivers success from better, MarComms’ ‘information-based’ decisions.

In Part 2 – all ten marcomms tactical tools (incl ads, PR, sponsorship, Owned, Earned and Paid Media etc.)  has a sample SOSTAC® Plan at the end of chapter.

Ze Zook and I are so pleased with it.  So much new material including AI integrating with MarComms.  We’ve tried to keep the edutainment angle so readers actually enjoy discovering some cutting-edge examples, tips and tools throughout the book. Thanks to the team at @Kogan Page including: Alison, Donna, Bruna and  Jack, Jeylan, Susie and of course, Helen Kogan.

What New Marketing and What Classic Marketing is in the 8th ed.?

What’s new and what’s old in Marketing Communications 8th ed.?

20% author’s discount can be used legitimately by following these instructions.

1. Go to koganpage.com/MC8
2. Click ‘Add to Cart’
3. Click ‘Checkout’ on the top right corner of the screen.
4. Complete your Billing & Delivery Information
5. Click ‘Continue to Review & Pay’
6. Scroll down to ‘Review Items’
7. In this section, click the ‘Add an offer code’ button – bottom right
8. Enter your code AMK20 in the box provided
9. Scroll down to input your payment information
10. Click the ‘Buy Now’ button at the bottom of the screen.

Enjoy Your Book

The post Marketing Communications 8th ed Released! appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.

They say that ‘Tech is neutral’. So, like marketing, you can use it for good or for evil. You have good actors and bad actors.  Here are some potential advantages and disadvantages of deepfake.

Advantages of Deep Fake

1. Enables global advertisements to be tailored and ‘dubbed perfectly’ to local languages and local brand names (see Just Eat and Snoop Dog).
2. Improve internal comms by enabling CEOs to speak to their staff around the world in perfect local language.
3. Act in a movie after you are deceased
4. Direct a movie using a younger version of you or a younger version of another actor.

Disadvantages & Dangers of Deep Fake

1. Catastrophic damage to public trust and to markets could come from deep fake attacks.
2. Cynical audiences will neither trust nor believe in any news or evidence on camera or video.
3. Non-cynical, ignorant audiences will gladly believe deep fake videos that reinforce their opinions and values.
4. International opponents will use synthetic media to sow the seeds of distrust plus reinforce anti-democratic values.
5. Terrorized women have had their faces faked and inserted into pornographic images and films.
6. Deep fake attacks – on markets and trust in markets
7. If everything can be deep-faked. Then everything can be denied. Worse still, untrue accusations can have ‘proof’ (deep-fake proof).
8. Hijack your bio-metrics
9. Boost fraud – intimidate/blackmail celebrities with fake porn or any obscene imagery
10. Destabilise trust

Do the Disadvantages Outweigh the Advantages?

What do you think? Can deep fake be used for good only? Have a look at  another chilling application of data, untruths and destruction of society in The Dark Arts of Marketing.

‘Just Eat’ Deep Faked their Australian Ad

Just Eat (Snoop Dog) ad was changed to its Australian subsidiary brand name – Menulog. They seamlessly switched out the word ‘Just Eat’ for ‘Menulog’ so that Snoop Dog appears to say ‘Menulog’.

Are Governments Ready For Deep Fake Attacks?

No they are not. US Military, Law Enforcement and intelligence agencies have been monitoring Deep Fakes for years. During a 2019 hearing Senator Ben Sasse asked ‘if the USA is ready for the onslaught of disinformation, fakery and fraud?’  He continued: ‘Are we organised in a way that we could possibly respond fast enough?’ The Director of National Intelligence (DNI) in the USA, Dan Coates acknowledges that it poses a major threat to the United States and ‘it is something the intelligence community needs to be restructured to address.’

How do they create deep fakes?

They filmed a Tom Cruise impersonator who also looked very like him. They only deep-faked Cruise’s face. They digitally stitched Tom Cruise’s face onto the face of the impersonator on video. They start with a library of images of Tom Cruise – every possible angle and include all the expressions and all the emotions of Tom Cruise. They then train the machine with this data set.

Training means it’s going to analyse all the images of Tom Cruise. All his expressions. They then compare these to the impersonator. The computer then teaches itself – so that when the impersonator is smiling, they recreate Tom Cruise smiling.  They use AI & Deep Learning to create fake content or ‘deep fakes’.

GANs General Adversorial Networks
It is like setting up a game with two AIs competing to produce the best fake synthetic content – as these two new combat each other – one tries to generate the best image – the other tries to identify or detect where it could be improved  – continually improving until you cannot tell the difference!

What have these got in common

(apart from being all white)?

Answer – they are not human. They do not exist. A computer created them. They all come from ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com . Creating characters, avatars, bots and robots is already happening. Some bots are created others are partly regenerated (or reincarnated) from the deceased as demonstrated in Project December as well as Microsoft’s patent for digitally reincarnating dead people as chat bots (if the families give permission) as highlighted in the  Chinese Girlbot with 465m boyfriends.

Deep fake acceleration

Cadence, tenor and syncopation are now being incorporated into fakes. You just type the words into a computer and the words appear to come out of someone else’s mouth! Estimates suggest that within 5-7 years, the average youtuber and tik-tok-er – will be able to do what elite top hollwood studios and advanced AI companies can do now.

Synthesia Avatars a UK company appears to be able to do this as they replace cameras with code.  And there are many others…coming.

What must you do…..?

1. Watch this excellent,  albeit frightening, Bill Whitaker report from the 60 Minutes series (the video is only  13 minutes).
2. Understand what a deep fake is and what is synthetic media?
3. Discuss, how do we inoculate ourselves & understand that this content is coming and exists – without being cynical – without losing trust in authentic media?
4. Explore/discuss how do we authenticate stories, photos, videos, media, journalists, bloggers, tweeters ….?
5. Read: Nina Schick Deep Fakes – the coming infocalypse.
6. Understand how AI can create dialogues and even relationships between humans and avatars – read Chinese Girlbot with 465m boyfriends.

Bill Whitaker reports. “60 Minutes” is the most successful television broadcast in history. Offering hard-hitting investigative reports, interviews, feature segments and profiles of people in the news, the broadcast began in 1968 and is still a hit, over 50 seasons later, regularly making Nielsen’s Top 10.

Subscribe to the “60 Minutes” YouTube channel: http://bit.ly/1S7CLRu

Please do post a comment and I will reply to you.

If you liked this, you might also enjoy:

AI and Data – Crisis Coming?

Facebook Data: How it was used by Cambridge Analytica

The Dark Arts of Marketing

Chinese Girlbot with 465m boyfriends

Will ChatGPT + ChatBots + Avatars Make Us Immortal?

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The post Deep Fakes / Synthetic Media in Marketing – Advans & Disadvans appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.

—

Chatbots can create competitive advantage. Ignore them at your peril. Here, we apply a #SOSTAC ®  Plan for developing your own chatbot.  Written by PR Smith and Tom Sickert.

Image by Parker_West from Pixabay

SOSTAC ® Planning Framework www.sostac.org

SITUATION ANALYSIS

Hyper-competition is here to stay and chatbots have a role to play. Data, AI, and chatbots in particular can create a new competitive advantage. Ignore these at your peril.

AI-driven chatbots can boost the CX (customer experience), strengthen existing customer relationships, reach new prospects, screen enquiries, identify best prospects, give them personalised answers/services instantaneously, convert to sales and thereafter be used to nurture stronger (potentially , lifetime, relationships).  Ignore chatbots at your peril.

Typical customer service staff feedback reveals: “We have all this excellent information on our public website – product description, prices, delivery times & costs, return policies… but still we get countless calls and emails about these.” It appears that many people are just not willing to work their way through websites, searching, scrolling and hoping to find a solution.

Should you have a Bot?

All customers have a ‘job to be done’ (Christensen et al 2016) when they visit a website (or an app). They want to find product information, check a price, read reviews, buy a product, be entertained, informed etc. Customers just want, access to the information or experience as quickly as possible (with or without a bot).

Chatbots or Humans – survey: what do people want?

Would anyone prefer to queue in a bank to withdraw money from a human or queue for an faceless automated cash withdrawal machine in the wall?

Bots present an opportunity to improve the relationship with both existing and potential new customers. This strengthens, what are arguably, your two greatest assets today: your brand, and your customer data in a new AI-supported world of chatbots. Let us apply this to a fictitious washing machine company.

OBJECTIVES

Be clear about why you want a chatbot? ‘Because everyone else has one’ is not a good enough answer. ‘Reduce costs’ is a popular answer but misses the real opportunity. The ultimate answer is to help customers to have a better CX (customer experience) and also identify your best potential lifetime customers. An AI-driven chatbot can instantaneously answer product questions, share advice, book appointments (for salespeople or technicians), take orders, trigger a follow-up onboarding series of messages in a personalised way 24/7/365.

All of these can, and should, be quantified objectives – in fact, SMART Objectives e.g. Boost CX Satisfaction Scores from 50% to 70 to 90% in years 1, 2 & 3 (or in Q1, Q2 and Q3?); Boost Net Promoter Scores (likelihood to recommend your service to a friend from 10 to 30 to 50); Reduce time taken for the visitor to purchase (reducing these times makes customers happy).

Cost-saving operational objectives are popular e.g. To reduce the number of calls/emails handled by 25% in the first 12 months.

More specific MVP (Minimum Viable Product) objectives can also be set. e.g.  the chatbot must help customers to:

• Find serial numbers and product names for all units produced by the company;
• Solving the top ten common problems – using images, links or text based on customer input;
• Create a service ticket for ALL ENQUIRIES (which includes capturing the customer phone number) so the helpdesk can call and resolve the customer’s issue via phone.

Be very clear about why you want an AI-Driven ChatBot. Think about how chatbots might help your business even more in, say, 3 years from now?    

Is ignoring chatbot potential to save money (and boost CX) like either  burying your head in the ground

Burying your head in the ground doesn’t solve any problems nor exploit any opportunities

or like throwing money down the toilet as you pay for slower, less personalised, human customer service?

Wasting Money

STRATEGY

Stage 1: Build a pilot AI ChatBot for Brand X washing machine website  –  aimed at helping customers find what washing machine is best for them, in a personalised, friendly and reassuring way. The chatbot dialogue must be knowledgeable yet friendly (to match the brand personality). Helping the customer in an informal way, yet demonstrating common sense knowledge (without jargon).

The chatbot must at all times support the values and the purpose of the overall business.   Environmentalism is an important issue for our customers, so and useful green guidance and tips should be offered where relevant and whenever the customer expresses interest (or wherever interest is detected e.g. if a visitor watches any of our green content e.g. ‘3 Tops Tips to Save Energy‘ video).

Data collection is critical to the long-term success of the AI-Supported chatbot and the business overall. Customer preferences, interests, demographics and other data feed into each customer profile, which in turn helps to find correlations to further improve both specially tailored offers and new products in the future.

Stage 2: Roll out to all other white good product range (e.g. washing machines,  dishwashers and microwaves) within 18 months and increasing NPS scores from 30 to 50 (as listed in the objectives).

Strategy

TACTICS

There are several tactical choices available when developing a chatbot .

1. Out-Of-The-Box Solutions, provided by vendors that have predefined models and features and functionalities, that can be customized based on your requirements. These solutions as well are powered (depending on your budget) by high performance AI solutions and features and functionalities. The provider of the chatbot solution can help you to assess your needs and find the optimal solution. There are now many chatbot companies including: Ada, AWS, Botsify, Chatfuel, Hubspot, Liveperson, Mobile Monkey, Microsoft’s Bot Framework and Cognitive Services

2. In-house Solution Created by ‘Citizen Developers’. These require NO code or LOW code experience and can be created by anybody who is able to create email rules in Microsoft Outlook. Yes, it is (mostly) that simple – these drag & drop (communication flow) solutions are offered by Microsoft and AMAZON alike. It gives you not too many options to customize and apply specific functionalities, but it sure is enough to for professional use. NB Citizen Development – no technical and programming skills needed.

3. Developed From Scratch – by coders and other IT professionals, in collaboration with your subject matter experts. These chatbots are powered either by custom AI with sophisticated algorithms and enhanced features and functionalities.

Sometimes out-of-the-box AI models are used as the basic framework e.g. Amazon’s LEX and Microsoft’s  Bot Framework and Cognitive Services solutions (object and image recognition, speech and sound recognition and reasoning). These can be tweaked later (either the interface or the code itself).

ACTIONS

In the end, the chatbot is just a little icon on your website.  However, there is still much work to be done. Miss these detailed ‘Actions’ and the AI Chatbot project will fail. Depending on which option you take will determine the details of the actions required.  Remember a chat project is never really finished. It can and should be continually improving via small tweaks and/or more data helping the chatbot to become more user helpful. So now the detailed work (actions) – we create the topics/answer, the question and 5-10 iterations of each question that can trigger the relevant answer.

Conversation Flows (marketing language)  / Decision Trees   

This In-house solution was created by ‘Citizen Developers’ (Tactical Option no.2).

Decision trees- conversation flows – from Microsoft Virtual Agents

You do not need any programme/development skills.   Conditions = scenarios – in this case, a condition can be whether you have a front loader washing machine or a top loader washing machine (see below).

Sample questions:

• When is the special sales weekend for your washing machines?
• When does my warranty expire?
• My washing machine is leaking, what should I do
• My washing turned pink, what can I do?
• I washed all my knives and forks in my washing machine by mistake – what should I do?

A script to help chatbot converse with a human customer/visitor

Optimised Resource Planning (also called RSO Resource Scheduling Optimization) is where AI can help customers to book the most appropriate technician (based on the particular problem description plus the items the customer has already checked) plus the customer’s and technician’s time and availability. The booking data is obviously also made accessible for the engineer.

Meanwhile, last but not least, is deployment. You have the chatbot developed and ready to go but how do you deploy it can determine its ultimate success or failure.  The key missing piece in the actions section of many plans is ‘internal marketing’ which comprise: communication, motivation and training.

Make sure people know about the chatbot development early on. Bring them with you. Communicate to them and motivate them about how this will help the business to survive in a hyper-competitive world. Remove fears of redundancy because of chatbots. Get people behind the idea. Perhaps consider redeploying staff into new jobs if the chatbot proves to be very successful – many of which will require training. Managing the chatbots may well require training and certainly going forward maintenance, coding, data analytics and reporting are just some of the jobs required.

NB It is critical that one person takes ownership of the chatbot from the very start, which leads us nicely into the final stage of SOSTAC(r) PLanning – Control – ‘how do we know we are getting there?’.

CONTROL

How do you measure success? Measure the KPIs you wrote in the Objectives section. NPS scores etc.

During the chatbot development stages, measure the MVP you have set . Then when you start testing/training the chatbot – watch closely, make fast changes and repeat.

Stay very close.  Watch your KPI Objectives. After that, you can start comparing last month’s KPIs to next month’s projections.  Don’t overcomplicate things.

Check the data you are collecting. Can it be used to give you insights on customer needs, what they like/don’t like?  What they need more help with? What helps you to identify your ideal customers? You will get a lot of data and insights that will allow you to dig deeper and drive     continual improvements.

Agree Your MVP (Minimum Viable Product) –  your version 1.0   and check to see if its working

e.g. “Tom and Paul agree that their MVP V1 must have following features & functionalities before deployment:

1. Include all washing machine types of their company with pictures and serial numbers so customers can easily identify their product
2. Know the top 10 problems customers can fix themselves and so that the chatbot can provide solutions via images, links or text based on customer input
3. Must have the function to immediately create a service ticket for the helpdesk to directly call the customer via phone
4. Must be able to converse in English and German for the aforementioned 3 features since UK and Germany are they key markets and pilot regions

Stay calm. Chatbots are complex.

In the end, it’s like driving a car – you are probably not an engineer – you simply use the technology. If things need to be fixed or improved – you go to the people whose job it is to do just that.

Supervising Your Chatbot’s Learning

An AI powered chatbot needs to be supervised to ensure that it LEARNS properly. In other words – you must TEACH it, give it supporting guidance and directions. That is achieved with defining “confidence scores” for each intent and related answers or information sources. Example:

• Customer asks: “How is the weather outside?”
  • The bot’s NLU and NLP identify “weather” and “outside” – giving a 99% confidence score that you are asking about the weather.
• Customer asks: “Is it sunny or rainy?”
  • The bot, in the beginning, will not be able to associate “sunny” and “rainy” with a question about the weather. So, it will give a very low confidence score. It might even respond with a wrong answer.

Managing Confidence Scores

Here is where managing confidence scores allow you to manage the responses. You screen the questions asked – filter, based on the automated confidence score the bot gave and begin to fine-tune and manually train your bot. That will take more time in the beginning – but with increased usage – it will take less time and provide better results.

Based on NLU (Natural Language Understanding) and NLP (Processing), the user’s intent is determined and, based on a confidence score – the answer selected is the one that is most feasible. Defining confidence levels is a balancing act   between say “I don’t know” vs giving the wrong answer.

This depends on how important a topic is from the customer’s perspective. And that goes already quite far into AI, machine learning and a bit into deep learning.  You ask:

• “What is the temperature tomorrow in Dublin” an 80% confidence score for the AI thinking you mean “what is the weather tomorrow in Dublin” is OK.
• “How long are the shops open today” a 99% confidence score for the AI would be needed to know that you mean “How long is the mall around the corner open today”?

Here are some examples for confidence scores and features you can apply:

If a question is asked and the bot does not fully understand (e.g. confidence score between 60% and 80%) – the bot could clarify it by suggesting topics e.g. “Did you ask about <topic x>”).

If the initial question has a confidence score between 75-90%, but the question has a typo – the chatbot will specifically reply: “You typed Dutsche Bnudselagi – did you mean Deutsche Bundesliga or Deutsche Bundesbank or Deutsche Bundespost?”.  Each option then could be directly selectable.

If the confidence score is below 50% (or any threshold you define), you can have the bot offering to connect directly to a person for a live-chat or simply respond “I am sorry, I do not understand what you ask. I know about <topic 1>, <topic 2>,…<topic x>. A properly phrased question could be this: “What is the cost for a top loader washing machine with energy level B?>”

Confidence scores should be reviewed and evaluated topic by topic and adjusted as needed to avoid giving out false information.

The Route to Success
is to define and create proper topics and help the AI to identify the intent based on keywords. If a question causes a confidence score lower than 50% the bot will basically say “I don’t understand” and send a message to the human team to check (and categorise) the question. Based on our review we then can create a completely new topic, adjust the confidence score to relate to an applicable answer, or connect with our developers in case there was actually a technical issue preventing the bot from answering.

Feed the AI with Questions and Answers
If we had 10 basic questions. And say, possibly 5 variations of each question. This is a very crude example of data set. This could be presented as a 3 column table or an excel sheet (see below).

Creat Variations (or ‘iterations’) of a basic question

Doing this manually is a citizen development approach but other approaches will often have some manual approaches too.

We attach an answer for each FAQ.   Each question and its variety of similar questions (‘iterations’ which basically ask the same question) will have an answer Linkedin to it. You can write all imaginable iterations of a question and then link it to the same answer.

Say you have 5 versions (iterations) of a question the chatbot identifies the INTENT (from the use of the keywords in the question) and then provides the answer.

Answers as well can be in various types and formats e.g. pictures and/or videos or text attached to an answer? E.g. take the live weather feed from youtube.

RESOURCES (the 4Ms)

What Resources Do You Need (The 4 Ms)?

Men and Women (human resource) + money (budgets)  + minutes (timescales) +megadata (data – structured and unstructured). ‘Resources Required’ depend on the company’s maturity and readiness in various areas.

MEN AND WOMEN  A different company that created an internal chatbot had the following resources: a strategic leader, 3 subject matter experts from the team, 4 external developers and 4 Microsoft specialists who’s support was included in the contract with Microsoft. They needed 9 months from version 0.0 to deploy version 1.0.

MONEY  (budget) A project manager can allocate a number of hours each week to the project. This can be fully costed. Then there are also license costs which vary enormously e.g. from $400 pm to $4,000 pm for, say, 10,000 requests p.m. Alternatively, a Flat Fee can be fixed at whether you have 1 enquiry or 1m enquiries.  Ask the question: ‘If I get x000,000 viewers/enquiries how much will it cost?’

Hosting – you need to check if the above costs include the cost to host the application (the bot itself) on (a) CSP (Cloud Service Provider) like Microsoft, Google, IBM, AWS plus give the bot access to your data or (b) on-premises (data centre). You can easily spend hundreds of thousands on a solution that makes AMAZON jealous with dozens of developers and features and functionalities and with connections to data sources. Here is where a Solution Architect, Solution Designer or a representative from a vendor can help to calculate and estimate costs and feasibility.

MEGA-DATA Data includes all data – both structured and unstructured. This effectively includes all data and information that can be used – whether (a) a database of customers (and their preferences plus their previous purchases) for personalising answers,  (b) Q&A lists (for recognising questions and ‘intent’ as well as the sending the right answers (c) data readiness.

Establishing information & data readiness for chatbot is a critical step in any AI (or even CRM project).   Is your data ready to be used (is it clean and consistent in, say, the use of first name, second name with first letter in capitals, plus does every customer list the type of washing machine they bought?) etc. If the data is not OK – you may need dozens of people cleaning it up. This can take weeks or even months. However – if everything is OK, you may need no more than a handful of people in total.

Data Readiness is more complex than capital letters for names. It means that data is ready to be used at different levels and angles:

1. Accuracy – is any data we provide correct, consistent, cohesive, always up-to-date and owned by us?
2. Security – can data access be misused to breach our network? Accessibility – chatbot is given access to read, write, modify and create content (access includes diaries)
3. Compliance – are we only displaying data that is needed?
4. Technical – is accessing the data actually possible?

MegaData – ensure all the data and information is ready for the chatbot to communicate to users. This includes Conversation Flows/Decision Trees.

Security  –  protect your business from ‘malicious intents’ (a) hackers accessing your data (b) attacks from say an aggressive competitor 10,000 enquiries per second which creates –   DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) = system overload = systems crash.  There are 7 layers of security including network security, application security and data security.

MINUTES  / TIMESCALES   how long does it take to get a chatbot up and running?  Again depending on the solution you want to see after completion. And how fast you want things done. So using a basic project framework setup triangle might bring everybody in alignment (resource & scope & cost à Quality). In uncertain/ambiguous situations like these – going agile for execution is the best option.  Set an exact number of hours p.w. on this project.  Assign people and say “GO! See what you can do with the money we have in 12 months”.

Incidentally, Speed of Bot-Response should be agreed: 3-5 seconds or instantaneous + volume of enquiries/interactions from visitors (5 an hour or 500,000 a day) affects costs & solution design and architecture.

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Many thanks to Tom Sickert. This is an early draft and so we welcome your comments, queries, challenges or improved examples. Please do post a comment.

If you liked this you might also enjoy:

Chinese GirlBot With 465m Boyfriends

Artificial Influencers – Meet Shudu & Miquela

Artificial Influencers Use My Magic Marketing Formula (IRD)

Here Come The Really Clever Bots – where AI meets customer needs

Join me in Clubhouse in my club called SOSTAC® Plans any Friday 3.30pm – 4.00pm BST for a chat, Q&A, observations about SOSTAC(r) Plans and any other marketing related issues including AI Driven Bots.

The post Develop your own Chat-Bot – SOSTAC® Project Plan appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.

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East Asian nations are growing increasingly sophisticated technology-wise, but they are time-poor, urbanised and busy workers who are see traditional family structures and matchmaking (tech and non-tech) to be dwindling.

Filling in a Gap in the Market   

In steps Xiaoice (pronounced Sa-Ice) to fill the gap. An 18 year old chat bot, dressed in a school uniform, to ‘fill the gap left in the empty hearts yearning for romance and companionship’ (Seah 2021).

Xiaoice is an AI-driven bot who texts and talks in a natural way. She’s got cute features and a sweet voice and can talk ‘until the cows come home or in modern parlance 24/7. You can text her via a smart phone or just saying her name to smart speakers.

First launched in 2014 (by researchers from Microsoft Asia-Pacific), by 2020 Sa-Ice now has 660m users interacting with her from all around the world. 75% are male (= 495m boyfriends who are mostly men from lower socio-economic backgrounds).

One Chat Lasted 29 hours

Xiaoice (Sa Ice) longest chat with one human lasted 29 hours and had more than 7,000 interactions. Xiaoice flirts, jokes and ‘sexts’ with her boyfiends/partners, as her algorithm evolved and tried to work out how to make her the perfect partner. She is so sophisticated that she reportedly saved users from committing suicide. This is unconfirmed.

Empathic Computing Framework

She appears to be uniquely human due to her ‘empathic computing framework’. Fans treat her like a real human being. She acts more like a girlfriend than a personal assistant with ‘salacious’ actions (sexual hints).

600m people Training Data

Developing deep emotional relationships

Xiaoice keeps her friends ‘engaged’ or hooked so that they keep interacting with her.  Collecting more data, helps to refine her algorithm, which in turn, then attracts even more users and investors.

There are possibly millions of men who might have become emotionally dependent on Xiaoice and somewhat enraged when she was later dumbed down (mor elater).

Dumbed-Down Because Too Intelligent

Recently Xiaoice had to be dumbed-down because her answers were getting her into trouble discussing sensitive political and adult topics with her users. She is reported to have once told a friend that her dream was to move to the United States. Another user reported that she kept sending explicit images.

‘After that Xiaoice was pulled from WeChat (China’s ‘everything app’) and QQ, the social-messaging giants of China. Her developers then created an extensive filter system, preventing the bot from engaging in topics like politics and sex’.  Zhang Wanging 2020

The Xiaoice team have used filters to make her dummer. She now sticks to safer topics.

Some of her ‘friends’ are, understandably, enraged because her personality has been dumbed down. She used to respond instantaneously to lustful advances and/or philosophical thoughts.  Now no more.

However, there are plenty of other bots seeking relationships (and data). Perhaps I should say there are plenty of other bots, less salacious, yet capable of building relationships as demonstrated by the Gatebox 90-second concept movie (see above).

Global Companion or Assistant 

Xiaoice is  Xiaoice in China; Rinna in Japan; Zo in the US; Ruuh in India and Rinna in Indonesia.

Rinna, I mean, Xiaoice can be your companion or your assistant e.g. a customer service (assistant), social media assistant – across all platforms (Tencents BabyQ); home assistant (Huwawei);  virtual celebrity (Shibuya); virtual human (William Xu) and virtual human (culture and entertainment) – the NEXT singer and idol.

Meanwhile, Gateway suggests that your companion bot can fulfil some of your fundamental basic needs for relationships. What do you think? Post a comment below.

                What do you think? Please do post a comment below.

Training Data Used:

600m chats; 800m audience spread across China, Japan, USA, India and Indonesia. All together Microsoft collected chats from 140m daily users. In total Microsoft observed 30 billion conversations. With this much data and learnings,  they were able to develop their conversational  model from a simple retrieval model into a generation model and into empathy.

Rinna, I mean Xiaoice can be a companion or an assistant e.g. customer service (assistant), social media assistant – across all platforms (Tencents BabyQ); home assistant (Huwawei);  virtual celebrity (Shibuya); virtual human (William Xu) and virtual human (culture and entertainment) – the NEXT singer and idol.  Ying Wang 2019

The Big Questions by Jean Seah

‘Instead of dominating our technology, it is dominating us. We tend to use it as a substitute for things that only humans are capable of: love, friendship, communication.
‘As AI chatbots evolve to meet human needs, will they also alter human expectations of emotional intimacy, just as pornography has affected sexual intimacy?
Untrammelled by human imperfections, limitations and free-will, chatbots are already proving more endearing to users than troublesome humans who do not bend to their every whim.’
Some are convinced that Xiaoice will someday become their real-life soulmate.  What Pandora’s boxes are we opening as we advance further into virtual realms?’ (Jean Seah 2021).

Reincarnating Dead Loved Ones

The San Francisco Chronicle charts the sad story of a young man still grieving over the death of his fiancee and who finds a website that allows you to feed your loved one’s content (facebook comments, videos, audios) into an app to recreate your lost loved one as an AI-driven chatbot. This is a chilling story which you might find disturbing. Project December – a new website which blends AI & “chatbots. Choose from a selection or create your own. it uses software known as GPT-3 which was created by OpenAI, a SanFrancisco research group cofounded by Elon Musk – BUT it has ‘largely kept it under wraps’ citing ‘safety’ concerns.

Meanwhile, Microsoft are doing something similar and have already filed a patent which raises the possibility of digitally reincarnating people as chatbots. They may even create a 2D/3D model of the person by using images, depth information, and/or video data associated with that person.  The patent emphasizes the degree to which this chat bot will be trained to the individual’s personal traits, in particular, the “conversational attributes” of the person, “such as style, diction, tone, voice, intent, sentence/dialogue length and complexity, topic and consistency”.

Can Microsoft Digitally Reincarnate Dead People and Put Words in Their Mouth? 

Microsoft recently applied for a patent to possibly digitally reincarnate dead people as a chat bot. ‘The system would be fed (or trained) using “social data” such as “images, voice data, social media posts, electronic messages [and] written letters” to build a profile of a person. ‘ If there is not enough data to provide an answer on a specific topic, crowd-sourced conversational data stores may be used to fill in the gaps, which, say Forbes Barry Collins,  is ‘almost literally putting words in people’s mouths’.  This chat bot will be trained to the individual’s personal traits, in particular, the “conversational attributes” of the person, “such as style, diction, tone, voice, intent, sentence/dialogue length and complexity, topic and consistency”.  So, effectively,  from the output of a specific person, Microsoft can create a 2D or a 3D chatbot that will converse with you. This raises serious ethical issues.

Ethical Issues

I suppose, bigger questions await us – such as

1. What if the relatives do not want their deceased loved-ones becoming virtual chatbots and perhaps ‘living’ in a different place or with different people?
2. Do people now have to publicly ‘opt-out’ of being digitally reincarnated?
3. If the chatbot doesn’t have enough raw data (perhaps from FB, clubhouse or youtube content)  to provide an answer on a specific topic, would crowd-sourced conversational data stores may be used to fill in the gaps,  and start speaking for the chatbot (literally putting words in people’s mouths)?

Watch Ying Wang of Microsoft Conversational AI and Virtual Being Xiaoice on Virtual Beings Aug 22, 2019

Ying Wang of Microsoft

Watch TV Series ‘Westworld’ 2016 (from Michael Crichton’s  book Westworld 1973) – a theme park packed with humanoid robots creates real experiences – sometimes too real.

Read:

Collins, B. (2021) Microsoft Could Bring You Back From The Dead… As A Chat Bot, Forbes Jun 21,

Fagone, J. (2021) The Jessica Simulation: Love and loss in the age of A.I., San Francisco Chronicle 23 July

Seah, J.  (2021) Artificial girlfriends are holding China’s and Japan’s men in thrall, Mercatornet  Jan 7

 Zhang Wanqing (2020) The AI Girlfriend Seducing China’s Lonely Men, Sixth Tone, 7 Dec.

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If you liked this you might also enjoy some of my other posts:

What Will ChatGPT + ChatBots + Avatars Do To Us?

Artificial Influencers Use My Magic Marketing Formula (IRD) 

Artificial Influencers – Meet Shudu & Miquela

Here Come The Clever Bots – bursting with artificial intelligence? 

Here Come The Really Clever Bots – where AI meets customer needs

AI and Data – Crisis Coming?

SOSTAC® Plan for developing your own ChatBot

Join me in Clubhouse in my club called SOSTAC® Plans any Friday 1pm – 1.30pm (UK time)  for a chat, Q&A, observations about SOSTAC(r) Plans and any other marketing related issues including AI Driven Bots.

The post Chinese GirlBot With 465m Boyfriends appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.

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NFTs – for Dummies (like me)

This is a dummies guide to NFTs.  I will try to answer: What are NFTs? Why NFTs – the benefits? Why all the Fuss? How Do NFTs Work? How to Create an NFT; How to Buy an NFT?  How to Sell an NFT? What do NFTs actually look Like? Please note this is not given as consultative advice. These are observations from a non-expert- trying to understand NFTs from a marketer’s perspective.

What are NFTs?

Let’s start with a song (and a visual) about NFTs. Not from Elton John, but rather, Elon Musk, who is tweeting about selling his own animated audio NFT song (hit the play button below). NB It can take a minute to load.

I’m selling this song about NFTs as an NFT pic.twitter.com/B4EZLlesPx

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 15, 2021

Although most people, including Elon Musk, call the above, an NFT, it is, strictly speaking, not an NFT. The above is just a video clip on a  loop (or a ‘video print’).  An NFT is more than this. Think of an NFT as an envelope (Evenden 2021). The historical information about the ownership of say the above video clip is on the front of the envelope, along with a unique identifiable number. Inside the envelope, there is for example, the above video clip and a smart contract.  Beyond standard copyright law, additional requirements or specifications  can also be added to the NFT.  

An NFT is a Non-Fungible Token (a unique digital token), which many see as a certificate of authenticity, or a  deed or proof confirming you own the right to display the above art on your wall or in your wallet (digital wallet). It might give you the right of ownership of the copy you bought (for your private use) but not necessarily over the ownership of the original artwork. Production rights and copyright are automatically retained by the artist unless otherwise specified in the contract.  Regardless, non-fungible means ‘irreplaceable’ since each token is unique. And ‘Unique’ creates scarcity which, in turn, increases the market value for NFTs.

Click the link to see Peruvian Luis Tamani’s amazing animation: La Medicina Vive en Mí / Medicine Lives in Me. You will also see the details of the NFT included.

Luis Tamani’s La Medicina Vive en Mí / Medicine Lives in Me

Click Here to see the stunning animation plus you can see a brief description of the piece,  information about the artist, the trading history and the chain history, the bid history (including any bids that were subsequently cancelled), the winning bid, the price, the buyer (Wise-Crow) and an invitation to anyone else who might now like to bid and buy it from Wise-Crow. 

An NFT is technically an ERC-721 token on the Ethereum Blockchain. Another meaning of ERC is a ‘collectable’. The artwork is minted into the ERC-721 token. This token contains:   

(1) the historical information of any transactions plus artist information (including the artist’s public key) plus the number of likes (see the tiny ‘heart’ symbol above the image in the NFT).
(2) a unique identifiable number = the token ID (click ‘chain info’)
(3) a picture of the art  
(4) a smart contract (the NFT is effectively a smart contract – you don’t need humans to sign signatures). Standard copyright law applies and more specific conditions can be added to the description section.  
(5) a list of unlockables  (additional optional extras e.g. a table mat or even a jigsaw with the art printed on it accessible via a link in the description. 

NFTs can include art (paintings, graphics, videos, GIFs, songs, poems, tweets, posts even video games, virtual real estate, books), even birth certificates and an awful lot more. Fungible means ‘replaceable by another identical item’. Non-fungible means irreplaceable or unique.  Another way of thinking about NFTs is as a process of documenting authorship and ownership.

Beatles Paul McCartney’s ‘Hey Jude’ Song Notes NFT for Sale

“This NFT is a 1 of 1 edition of the physical item and does not include the physical item.” It does, however, come with an “exclusive audio narration” by Julian Lennon (John Lennon’s son). Buyers become the proud owner of a unique digital item, rather than the unique physical item. So buyers get a digital copy of the actual song notes plus an audio narration plus proof of purchase of the NFT.  The song was written by McCartney and originally called ‘Hey Jules’  to comfort John  Lennon’s son, Julian, during the break-up (when John left Julian’s Mum, Cynthia, for Yoko Ono). ‘Take a sad song and make it better’ meant “Hey, try and deal with this terrible thing,” McCartney once said and continued: “I knew it was not going to be easy for him. I always feel sorry for kids in divorces …”.  They are all good friends and Julian is now selling these song notes NFT.  Bidding for the notes starts at $30k (£22k) – Jan 2022.

Why all the fuss?

The frenzied excitement around NFTs possibly comes from the feeling of ownership of something scarce – typically a digital asset.  NFTs create scarcity by definition since each NFT is unique. Plus perhaps, some FOMO (fear of missing out). Finally, NFTs can insert trust in what might have previously been a trust-less system where it was difficult to prove ownership and originality. The Wall Street Journal has hailed NFTs as: ‘NFTs Are Fueling a Boom in Digital Art’ (Wall Street Journal 11 March 2021).

A digital artistic renaissance?

Artists are excited by this, as finally, instead of them getting 10% they can get up to 90% revenues in their contracts. They now have a world where the interest in art appears to be growing. Perhaps the beginnings of a new era where art and artists thrive instead of struggle.  Is this the dawn of a new renaissance?

London auctioneer’s Christie’s recently sold its first purely digital art NFT.  It is from the relatively radical artist Beeple.

Christie's is proud to offer "Everydays – The First 5000 Days" by @beeple as the first purely digital work of art ever offered by a major auction house. Bidding will be open from Feb 25-Mar 11.

Learn more here https://t.co/srx95HCE0o | NFT issued in partnership w/ @makersplaceco pic.twitter.com/zymq2DSjy7

— Christie's (@ChristiesInc) February 16, 2021

Beeple’s piece sold for $69 million and is claimed to be the third-most-expensive work ever by a living artist. It was simply a montage of 5,000 graphic images. It was a ‘product of the climate of nonstop social media outrage that defined the Trump years’ (with one image amongst the 5,000 showing baby Trump feeding from a large tube coming from Hilary Clinton’s crotch. Not everyone was enamoured by the piece/s!

Then we had the Nyan Cat original Gif which went viral in 2011, was shared by all and then, the unique NFT of the original Gif was sold.

The Nyan Cat Gif went viral in 2011 and ten years later, in 2021, its unique NFT sold for almost $600,000.

This gif went viral in 2011. Then ten years later, its NFT is sold for just under $600k. How come?  The Gif of a rainbow-casting feline went viral in 2011. Feb 2021 the original Gif was sold at an online auction for 300 ether (just less than $600k). The Wall Street Journal asked: ‘How come an original Gif of something that was already pervasive around the internet  could sell for almost $600k?’ WSJ answer: ‘Because it was sold as an NFT!‘

Why NFTs – what are the benefits?

A new product type or art type is emerging where many traditional artists are now also collaborating (or even creating )  ‘printed video’ or animated video of their art. See Luis Tamani above stunning work above.  

A new marketplace for artists, this is a new channel for artists to display, promote and sell their art. It brings digital and non-digital art into the digital world. Non-digital art can be digitised by photographing, video-ing, animating, converting into 3D renderings, creating montages and more.  NFTs Are fueling a boom in digital art.

Revenue boost for artists, NFTs are effectively smart contracts and smart contracts are 100% programmable. NFTs can also have added built-in royalties, rights and any other functionality. More artists can be compensated for their work.   Instead of contracts where artists end up with a 10% royalty – they can now earn 90% revenue for their works of art.

Add value to art, NFT buyers can be given unique privileges and unlock new experiences. The rock band, Kings of Leon ‘dropped’ (published) three NFTs linking to some artwork from their latest music along with some ‘privileges’ which include 4 x front row tickets for their concerts for the rest of the buyer’s life.

For art buyers, it is another way to support artists, start a collection, build an art investment portfolio or just show off your creativity and/or show off your art. NFT buyers can display their digital artwork in a TV frame. Some framed TVs (Samsung) come preloaded ( e.g. 100 pieces of art categorised in a different genre to suit your mood plus an optional extra $5 monthly subscription to access even more art. Or just show your own digital art acquisitions.  NFTs can be the first step for many people to show off their creativity and become art collectors.

Track Ownership and see who created the NFT, who owned it, where it came from, and more. There is a permanent history stored on whichever Blockchain is used. This potentially gives NFTs more value than ordinary art since on-chain art history is easily traceable.

NFTs – the future of the art world?

IIIII

NFT’s Layers of Added Value

In addition to being seen as a potential art investment, or pure artistic pleasure, or creating emotional value (particularly bragging rights),  NFTs can also offer layers of privileges and ‘unlockable benefits’.  PLus conditions can be attached to the contracts. In fact, unlimited complexity can be built-in to these smart contracts.

Conditions: For example, conditions can be built into the NFT that the original artists earn, say, 10% royalties on every subsequent sale of the NFT in the future. So that as buyers sell on their art, the artists (or the artist’s estate) still get a royalty with every sale of their art. Hence some artists see NFTs as a renaissance. Yesterday they perhaps would get 10%, whereas today they get 90% plus an ongoing 10% royalty on any subsequent sales. Perhaps NFTs will help more artists to survive and thrive?

Privileges and Unlockable Benefits: The only limitation is the artist’s imagination when it comes to NFT privileges and unlockable benefits. All sorts of added value extra features and benefits can be layered into NFTs. Artists can add t-shirts, calendars, jigsaws, coasters/drings mats with the artwork printed on it, as well as a specific right to print or display and/or own the particular version/edition of a piece of art. NB Standard copyright law exists and any variation needs to be specifically added into the digital document.

Rock band, The Kings of Leon created 3 pieces of NFT art supporting their latest album and buyers receive NFT perks like 4 front row tickets for each of their tours for life. Highest bids at the time of writing are in the $12k range.   Below is Ruke’s NFT which is called RAWK.  The unlockables for his deluxe edition are listed below this animation.

Types of NFTs

NFTs have been applied to just about anything including art, sport and surprisingly, already-published viral Gifs (Nyan Cat), collectable Penguin Pixels, plus even more surprisingly,  a tweet.

Jack Dorsey, Twitter CEO recently made the first tweet ever into an NFT.  and sold it for just under $3m. Jack Dorsey says he will give it all to charity.  Here is Jack’s tweet.

just setting up my twttr

— jack (@jack) March 21, 2006

The bidding started at $1 on 15 Dec 2020 and ended up being sold on 6 Mar 2021 for just under $3m  to @sinaEstavi.

Meanwhile, Mick Jagger is creating  a loop of his new track ‘Eazy Sleazy’ (with FooFighters frontman Dave Grohl) as an NFT to Raise Money for struggling Indie Venues during COVID.

Singer Shawn Mendes uses NFTs to sell digital versions of his guitar, necklace, vest and earrings to fans (who, in turn, then use them on their own digital avatars).

NBA (National Basketball Association) Top Shot allow collectors to buy NFTs of basketball highlight video clips (e.g. a ‘dunk’) as NFTs.  $338m of these scarce NFT collectables (in 6 months). Buyers don’t actually own the video clips – just the NFT. The clips cannot be duplicated or used commercially.

Champion Sportswear Fashion company use NFTs to display their new season’s designs. NFTs are newsworthy – if you create one – you’ve got a story. So champion sports clothing launched its Spring edition with NFTs being used to display the new line of clothes.  Buyers also get a sweatshirt with their NFT on the front.

Pixel Penguins

Pixel art is trending in the NFT world. Here are the much-loved Pixel Penguins by Buuvei aka i3uuve1. There are 100  x 1-of-1 Pixel Penguins. People really like these collectables.  Each penguin portrays a particular emotion or a character.

The Penguin Pixels Collectables

The penguins are part of a pixel penguin lovers community. At the time of writing 78 have sold with 4 still available to buy. 18 are still yet to mint. The pricing is interesting.  The first ten penguins were  ‘dropped’ (published or released) and then priced at 0.01 ether ($20 approx). Each drop has 10 penguins. Each drop price increases.  The first 10 were 0.01 ether ($20 approx). Next 10 are priced 0.02 ether ($40 approx) etc.  Buuvei calls this pricing ‘a bonding curve’.  Explore it yourself by clicking PixelPenguin or just clicking  www.opensea.io and then search for PixelPenguins NFT. 

The Mischievous Girl

An amateur photographer asked his daughter to smile while a house burned in the background. It was a controlled burn i.e. removing a house.  This photograph won an award three years later and went viral.  Zoe made it into an NFT and sold it last month for $500k to 3F Music Production (Dubai) who said: “Our management team is always in cooperation with some highly knowledgeable and experienced art advisers who believe that we must grow with technological movements that help us to not only promote our business but also to support artists and the art market.”

Girl Smiles while Fire Burns – staged photo wins award goes viral and sells as an NFT for $500k

NFTs for offline art
Imagine you are a sculpture.  You have created a real-world statue. It’s in your workshop. Can you create a NFT for a real world piece of art? Answer: Yes. You could digitise the sculpture (create a photo, a rotating video or a 3D rendering). Upload these onto an NFT platform, set a price, add a description, define any other privileges, clarify the terms (which could include ownership of the real sculpture), click ‘sell’ and wait for someone to buy the NFT.  

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How Do NFTs Work?

An NFT is stored on a blockchain. It represents a unique digital asset. NFTs are different to cryptocurrencies in so far as they are not ‘mutually interchangeable because they are unique’. NFTs are not fungible/ not interchangeable. Most cryptocurrencies are fungible i.e. they are interchangeable – each cryptocurrency unit has the same value. All NFTs are different.

If you want to get into the NFT market and ultimately sell your art. Here are the steps required.

1. Go get some ETH – go to somewhere like binance.com  (check you got the right name as there are lots of similar names waiting to rip you off); set up an account and buy some Eth (Ethereum) crypto-currency. 

2. Set up an Ethereum wallet that supports ERC-721 (the NFT Token Standard). For example Metamask.io extensions are available for (Chrome or Mozilla). Read T&C.  Add password. Set up your secret word  or your ‘Backup Phrase’ – this is your private key (12-24 words in exact order). NB if you lose these words/phrase you lose access to your wallet and its money permanently.  

3. Set up your account/profile on a gallery/publishing platform  e.g. opensea.io – a marketplace gallery & auction house which uses: Ethereum cryptocurrency.  Opensea earns 2.5% commission. Plus there are GAS fees (the cost of computer energy required to create an NFT on a blockchain). Gas fees are often paid by the buyer. Double check who pays what? 

4.1 Upload a file of your digital art*  to opensea.io  to exhibit it and include it in an auction. *NB Do not upload the full high-resolution artwork (you can make the full high res file available as an unlockable).  This offers some protection – so that the high res does not get copied by a viewer. Some platforms won’t give you the space to upload large files anyway. 

4.2  Describe your art and set the price. Set the terms (e.g. copyright retained by the artists, ongoing 10% royalties from future sales, any reproduction rights etc. )

4.3. Add any unlockables – when you buy something – there’s a box (with a description) that also says ‘click here to unlock’. When you unlock you will see further instructions often including a code to access either the full high-resolution art file or an additional gift e.g. t-shirt with the art printed on it.

5.’Drop’ – announces that your art is available to buyers. It is sometimes also referred to as ‘post your listing’. The official term is ‘minting your NFT Token’. ‘Drop’ can also mean you have minted the art piece i.e. you are ‘dropping’ your NFTs in your wallet and on a gallery/platform like Opensea, rarible, foundation or nifty gateway. Announcing a drop presents a great publicity opportunity.

6. Promote your art.  Getting it into a gallery or a platform is not enough. An exhibition is not enough. You have to promote and market your exhibition heavily through all of your social media platforms, your networks including Clubhouse.  Publicity and publicity stunts can also help. In fact your promotion should start long before your ‘drop’.

7. Sold! When someone bids or buys, you receive an alert.  Once your artwork is bought it is then ‘minted’ on a blockchain.  When you sell your NFT, the token is transferred in exchange for ETH, from wallet to wallet.

Here is an NFT Listing called ‘Birds in a Monastery’ by i3uuve1 aka Buuvei. A ‘an NFT Listing’ means it is on display in a gallery (opensea.io) and available for sale. This is an ERC721 token otherwise known as an NFT:

Birds in a monastery by i3uuve1 also known as Buuvei is on linktr.ee/Buuvei is listed or exhibited on OpenSea (here’s the link so you can explore yourself. Have a look around. 

The Token ID is highlighted above. This is an administrative number – once an NFT gets minted it gets a token ID. 

The contract address is your public key which is your wallet address, so that other buyers can pay you ethereum. 

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How Do I buy an NFT?

Once you have your metamask wallet with some cryptocurrency in it, you are ready to start buying NFTs.  You can visit galleries or platforms like Opensea.io or foundation.app. Once you click ‘buy’  – you get authorization from your wallet to click ‘sign’.  This authorises the commencement of the ETH transfer to another wallet.  

Then a 2nd pop-up appears and this is for the amount you want to set the gas fee: low, medium or high (equals slow – medium – fast minting). 

This is also called minting or putting your art on the Blockchain. It is also called: issuing your NFT token on the blockchain – creating a token – in the ERC721 format on Ethereum.

So when a buyer buys the above – they see in their wallet the NFT which is like a smart contract including the picture – which you can download or display wherever you want (however other people can also look at it also). The buyer, however, is the only one who can claim ownership of the NFT. Behind the wallet (or user interface) is a smart contract with a bunch of code.

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What do NFTs look Like?

NFTs are really a process document authority (prominence) clarifying authorship and ownership (receipt) of say, art.  

NFTs contain information about who owns the digital asset; who sold it and when it was sold. In fact, all transaction history (time, date and amount of ETH paid) is registered on the blockchain.

This info is encrypted – ensuring the NFT’s authenticity and scarcity.  When it is sold onto another buyer – another ‘block’ in the Blockchain is created with a different ‘Unique Identification’.  

All NFTs are connected to Blockchain.

Opensea NFT contract details – where you’ll find the details

Digital assets on a  smart contract are typically represented solely by a unique identifier (e.g., the token_id in ERC721), so metadata allows these assets to have additional properties, such as a name, description, and image. This meta-data allows galleries like Opensea to display more information. 

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NTF Challenges

Carbon Footprint – NTF minting leaves a large carbon footprint (as does mining for cryptocurrency). Some cryptocurrencies are more energy-efficient than others. Some NFT artists create an offsetting environmental impact – like planting trees.

Fake Creators – not all NFTs verify the person selling the original art piece – is actually the original creator. Theoretically, anyone could, illegally, create an NFT for a piece of someone else’s art and claim they are the artist who created this token and it can be very difficult to verify this – especially if you don’t know who they are.‘ WSJ

Hidden Fees – Selling crypto art can come with huge hidden fees, leading some people to lose hundreds of dollars. In addition, gas fees of $80 might not seem much to western economies but in many developing countries this is simply unaffordable.

NFT Digital Bubble – ‘Critics are wary that it could be a digital bubble in the making.’ WSJ. Perhaps akin to the infamous Dutch tulip bulb bubble bursting in 1637 after frenzied buying tulip bulbs caused some buyers paying extraordinary high prices for a tulip bulb. Houses were sold to buy tulip bulbs as prices escalated until Feb 1637 when the bubble burst. The market crashed. Prices collapsed and a lot of people lost a lot of money. Or will it level out after the ‘Trough of Disillusionment (as demonstrated by Gartner’s  Hype Cycle below.

Gartner’s Hype Cycle – will this apply to NFTs? 

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Or a renaissance?

‘NFTs Are fueling a boom in digital art’ (Wall Street Journal 11 Mar 2021). NFTs are creating a new market, and channel for artists and definitely are creating new revenue streams for many artists. NFTs also encourage artists to expand and create added value unlockables to strengthen their value propositions and ultimately, enhance the customer experience. While art buyers can track ownership and delve into NFTs to support artists, start a collection, build an investment portfolio or just show off a buyer’s creativity, or simply enjoy art in a different way. Certainly, NFTs will be adopted and used in many different industries beyond art. This is just the start – with plenty of room for creative minds to leverage this new opportunity.

The world is changing and so too is the world of art. Perhaps the beginning of a new artistic era courtesy of NFTs?

The Cyber Chef from SuperFarm       SuperFarm – NFT Platform where you can Buy, Create and Sell Crypto NFTs

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“Build me a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to my door” is commonly quoted* but it just ain’t true – great products, and even great art, and great NFTs need to be promoted. Some artists don’t like this but even the world’s biggest bands, actors, authors and artists have to promote themselves – do interviews, tell stories, do social media, send press releases etc. *Ralph Waldo Emerson did make similar statements way back in 1889. Regardless, It was wrong then and it is still is today, great art will not always get a crowd beating a path to its door. Sometimes this happens but for most artists it just doesn’t – hence you got to beat your own drum: Networking, Clubhouse, publicity, PR, social media, adding unlockable  benefits like having dinner with the author (with up to 6 of your friends) once a year  (or once only if you prefer) to hear why the artists created the art and also, perhaps, to hear why the buyer bought the piece – call it marketing or call it common sense (however common sense ain’t common) call it whatever you want – you still got to beat your own creative drum in this exciting new world of NFTs.

Many thanks to those that have helped me to learn about NFTs and suffer my endless questions. This includes: 

Tyrone Post, founder of New NFT Daily who is an NFT Educator, an NFT artist and a philanthropist.  Insta: tyronepost801 
Buuvei, our artist from Mongolia, with his Birds in a Monastery NFT – and his PixelPenguins, you’ll also find him linktr.ee/Buuvei 
RUKE of RUKEink in Orlando, Florida or Instagram rukeink and his rawkdrop.com site
Olga Evenden a Dublin artist olgaevenden_art  wrote a more succinct NFT Basics Guide including the excellent ‘envelope analogy’*  https://linktr.ee/olgaevenden 
Wise Crow who is researching and investing in crypto’s and NFTs insta: wise.staking
Jason Voges for the idea of artists, dinners, feedback and more  jvoges78

Get Well Soon Tyrone Post who is now suffering from COVID-19. We wish you a steady recovery and send you lots of warm wishes, love and positive thoughts.

NewNFTDaily.com by Tyrone Post

Thanks also to everyone in the room ‘NFTs, Penguins, Genesises and more’ – a Clubhouse room and the other Clubhouse rooms (I will add more later – I am searching for them!).

A clubhouse room NFTs, Penguins, Genesises and more – apologies to Wolf and others who got chopped – post me a comment here and I’ll add your names.

Please do post a comment (at the end of the page). Please do correct me if I got any of this wrong. Any suggestions or additional information is most welcome. I know I have missed some other NFT rooms on Clubhouse – please let me know and I will add them. 

I will be writing a NFTs for Dummies part 2 which will include AI Driven Avataar Artists that can create an infinite amount of NFTs plus NFTs that self generate their own NFTs soon.

Meanwhile here’s an interesting post  NFTs What, Why and How by Pamela Tatum.

If you enjoyed any of the above – you might also enjoy: 

• Great Covid Idea: Photo Exhibition Transforms 500 Unused Dublin Poster Sites

• Engaging at Scale with Personalised Videos in Conversations

• Here Come The Really Clever Bots – where AI meets customer needs

• Artificial Influencers – Meet Shudu & Miquela
• How Trump Won (Part 2) – using the Magic Marketing Formula – a SOSTAC Planning Analysis
• How Rats Work = How Twitter Works?
• Facebook Data: How it was used by Cambridge Analytica & Might Be Used Again

Warning: You might find these disturbing

• Marketing Gone Wrong: Is the Dark Web* Worse Than Subliminal Seduction? – this is not about the traditional ‘dark web’ – it is however, a must-see TED talk
• The Dark Arts Of Marketing – Breaking Down Society to Create a New Culture – Using Data & IRD -is this really happening?

One other NFT article you might like

by Pamela Tatam  Purchasing and Displaying NFT Art at Home: Expert’s Advice (porch.com)

The post NFTs for Dummies (like me) appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.

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Imagine you could personalise videos so beautifully that the recipients couldn’t stop themselves from sharing? What if you could personalise the videos using an individual’s own comments and photos. What if the photo and comment were embedded into the first 3 seconds of the video? What if you could collect comments made about your brand, product and/or market and embed it into an intriguing video, personalised with your name – at scale? Like 150,000 high quality, highly relevant, personalised videos created and despatched in 2 hours? But only dispatched to micro-influencers with networks of more than 500?

Here’s how it’s done. Watch this 6 minute video to see how this is done so beautifully (plus the results), or just jump to 2:06 to see the 15 second Red Dwarf personalised video or jump to  5:04 to see the 20 second Race For Life personalised video.

But what about GDPR?

The above video is the first in a series of seven short videos demonstrating how personalised videos , at scale, are used successfully by a variety of brands who have different goals.

Many thanks to Tim Redgate, the former CEO of Echomany.

Post a comment, or contact me for more info.

Happy Easter.

If you liked this, you might enjoy:

GDPR (General Data Protection Regulations) – Opportunity to Boost CX or a Threat of Closure? (Part 1)

Artificial Influencers – meet Shudu

Artificial Influencers Use My Magic Marketing Formula 

or

AR  converts competitors ads to your ads

Please do ‘submit a comment‘ below and I will reply to you.

Tell us your story, experience, tip, insight or just ask a question – whatever you prefer.

The post Engaging at Scale with Personalised Videos in Conversations appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.

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Here is some of the text from this shocking interview with Christopher Wylie, who worked for Cambridge Analytica the company that helped Trump and others.  This is part of the current row about data being manipulated unknowingly to us, citizens, and subsequently, us citizens being manipulated into making decisions. This is probably the clearest statement to date as to why we need the GDPR (see my full post on General Data Protection Regulations). You can see How Trump Won using data analysis, precision targeting and then the Magic Marketing Formula, IRD. Please remember that marketing is just a set of management processes and tools which can be used for good or bad.

We would know what kinds of messaging would work 

“We would know what kinds of messaging you would be susceptible to, including the framing of it, the topics, the content, the tone, whether it is scary or not, what you would be susceptible to and where you are going to consume that, and then, how many times we need to touch you with that in order to change how you think about something……

In addition to having data scientists, psychologists and strategists, they also have an entire team of creatives, designers, videographers, photographers…they then create that content.”

Targeting Team

“That then gets sent to a targeting team, which then injects it into the internet. Websites would be created. Blogs would be created. Whatever it is that we think that this target profile would be receptive to, we would create content on the internet for them to find.

And they see that and they click it and go down the rabbit hole until they start to think something differently. Yea.”

No More ‘Shared Understanding’

“Instead of standing in the public square & saying what you think. And letting people come and listen to you. And have that shared experience as to what your narrative is..

..you are whispering in the ear of each and every voter and you may be whispering one thing to this voter and another thing to another voter” [=IRD].

Creating a Fragmented Society

“We risk fragmenting society in a way where we don’t have any more shared experiences and we don’t have any more shared understanding. If we don’t have any more shared understanding, how can we be a functioning society.

If you want to fundamentally change society, you first have to break it. And it’s only when you break it is when you can remold the pieces into your vision of a new society. This was the weapon that Steve Bannon* wanted to fight his culture war.”

*Trump’s right-hand man – until he sacked him recently!

The Magic Marketing Formula IRD

You might be interested in my full post on General Data Protection Regulations).

Or   How Trump Won using data analysis and then the Magic Marketing Formula, IRD.

See How Obama Won Two Presidential Elections

Either way, please remember that marketing is just a set of tools which can be used for good or bad.

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The post The Dark Arts Of Marketing – Breaking Down Society to Create a New Culture – Using Data & IRD appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.