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

 

JOIN OUR WEEKLY AI CHAT
 –   EVERY FRIDAY ON my
Linkedin Events page
LIVE from 1pm-1.30pm (or watch/listen later).

Lively, fast-moving AI chat every Fri 1pm – 1.30pm (UK time). Helps you keep up to date with AI.

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

Professionals love the simplicity of SOSTAC® Planning method. This short book helps you to write plans that:

1. Get Approved
2. Boost Results
3. Make Better Decisions
4. Build Strong Strategies (separate from tactics)
5. Deliver a Reassuring Sense of Order

SOSTAC® has changed the work lives of so many marketers and business owners over the years.

SOSTAC® Delivers Success
whether growing businesses, winning pitches, attracting investors or getting a new job, SOSTAC® planning skills delivers great plans. SOSTAC® was voted in the Top 3 Biz Models Worldwide by the Chartered Inst of Marketing.

What They Say about SOSTAC®
‘saves time’
‘catapulted my career’
‘avoids costly omissions’
‘trebled our conversion rates’
‘creates impressive strategies’
‘a whole new world of logical thinking’
‘the clearest approach to strategic marketing planning’

See the full reviews on ‘Why Sostac?’  on the sostac.org  site

So, What’s New in SOSTAC® Guide 2025 (AI Ed)?

In addition to showing you how to:
ask great questions,
make better decisions and
write the perfect plan,

this 10^th edition, is very special.  

SOSTAC® Plans Explained

This SOSTAC® 2025 AI Edition also includes:

• The Advantages and Disadvantages of AI (1st chapter)
• 3 AI Waves + 4 AI Limiting Factors (1st chapter)
• The Essence of Ethics being central in AI 1st chapter)
• How AI’s Virtuous Data Cycle is also key (1st chapter)
• Some AI tools, tips and warnings – sprinkled throughout the book

Easy To Digest:
SOSTAC® can be learned in 3 minutes.
The 2025 Guide can be skimmed in 30 minutes
and digested fully in a few hours, prepping you to write great plans and/or to become a SOSTAC® Certified Planner.

I’ve tried to make this edition particularly entertaining as well as educating i.e. an edutainment experience.

If absorbed, this book will improve people’s work-lives, careers and organisations performances/results.

I really do hope you enjoy this SOSTAC® Guide 2025 (AI ed.). I welcome any feedback.

Paul
PR Smith

The SOSTAC® Guide to your Perfect Digital Marketing Plan 2025 (AI edition) is at last, finished, published and now, finally, available from Amazon.

We will talk about the SOSTAC 2025 AI ed. in our weekly chat about AI, Innovation & Ethics  on Friday at 1pm UK time (NB these 30 minute chats are now recorded. Go to my Linkedin and scroll down to ‘Events’ to listen live or previous chats.

The post What’s So Great About SOSTAC® & the SOSTAC® Guide 2025 AI edition? appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.

Visit www.sostac.org to see a 3 minute video explaining SOSTAC® Planning – how to write the perfect plan.

And/or take the online course in SOSTAC® Planning and immediately become a SOSTAC® Certified Planner with a personalised certificate from the CPD Standards Office UK.

Also Keep Up with Developments in AI, Innovation & Ethics in Business (live 30 minutes and recorded) – all on my ‘events’ section here  https://www.linkedin.com/in/prsmithmarketing/

The post Marketing Secrets – from AI to SOSTAC(r) to Saving the World 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.

Via vending machines that take your order, receive and then give you your drone-delivered coffee, Shenzhen, China. Here come the coffee drones.

At least two of the marketing mix elements are critical here. (1) Place or physical distribution. (2) The brand must be strong enough to enable customers to wait 8 minutes for delivery. Branding, some say is Promotion, but I say it’s everything – the total experience generated by all the mix. However, suffice to say this won’t work (people won’t wait 8 mins) without a strong brand or perhaps, a complete absence of competition!

One question, why not deliver it to the customers directly wherever they are and via an app rather than a large clunky vending machine? H&S?

I assume the big box is 100% recyclable and was manufactured from other recycled materials?  I also assume there is a big recycling bin right beside the vending machine. And that drones will queue (quietly???) if there are a few dozen people waiting for their coffees?

Would you like drone coffee delivered to you?

The post Which of the Marketing Mix is Taking a Big Twist Here? appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.

Christine Watson, PR Smith with 8th ed MarComms Book and Peter McReynolds and Lydia McClelland with SOSTAC(r) Planning framework (Stormont Government Buildings, Belfast)

Thank you for a great night in Stormont House, Belfast.

The answer is ‘Yes!’ but with caution. It needs to be checked.
What a fascinating evening with great Q&A session at the end and talks from Peter McReynolds MLA, Lydia McClelland and Christine Watson.

Peter McReynolds, MLA

Lydia McClelland – Founder LMC Associates

PR Smith SOSTAC(r) author explains how AI can be used to create promotional visuals for his new 8th ed MarComms book

PR Smith, SOSTAC(r) author discussing using AI for developing strategy

PR Smith taking the Q&A session – with particular reference with using AI for strategy

Christine Watson, Watson and Co Chartered Marketing

Meanwhile here is a link to the 8th ed MarComms book

Lydia McClelland and PR Smith’s 8th ed MarComms Book

PR Smith’s 8th ed MarComms book just released

Thanks to Lydia McClelland, Christine Watson, and our host, Peter McReynolds MLA. And thanks also to John Bustard from the #MartechLab in Ulster University for instigating this whole trip. What a great evening. Some great Questions re AI.  See the 3-minute SOSTAC ® Planning framework in action: sostac.org .

Special thanks to Dr. John Bustard (Ulster University’s Martech Lab) –  on the right-hand side.

Watch out for more announcements re SOSTAC® Masterclasses and becoming SOSTAC® Certified Planners.

Keep up with developments and applications of AI in Marketing – join me in our weekly chat re 
AI, INNOVATION & ETHICS IN MARKETING/BUSINESS
every Friday from 1pm -1.30pm live on Linkedin PR Smith Marketing Audio Events.

Also, please do join Lydia and myself for our 1-Day SOSTAC(r) Masterclass – integrating AI – in central London, Thurs 30 January 2025.

The post Can AI Improve Marketing? 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.

AI advantages include: Solving hunger, diseases, environment plus in marketing/business terms –  Efficiency  – faster and cheaper comms, Personalisation, Prediction, Adding Value, Extending Reach, Deepening Relationships, Creating and Evaluating NPD (New Product Development).

AI disadvantages include: Bias , Hallucinations,  Law Suits: IP Infringement, Law Suits: Privacy infringement, Post-Truth Society, Unintended Consequences and Human Extinction.

Here is the Former, Microsoft X CBO (Chief Business officer) – which he says was ‘the second best job in the world’ Mo Gawdat’s talk at the Nordic Business Forum 2023 in Helsinki on September 27, 2023. The great Egyptian shines a light during this turbulent time. This talk is 29 minutes long and could change your life, your career and your loved ones’ lives too.

You might find this so compelling that you go on to watch a more in-depth 2-hour interview with Steven Bartlet (English Dragon’s Den). I hope you enjoy these intriguing and inspiring videos.

Both of these videos have an undertone, in my opinion , of Industry 5.0 whose pillars of success (for organisations and businesses going forward are: Sustainabile, Human-centric and Resilient (in these turbulent times). Industry 5.0 shifts the focus away from the seemingly now defunct, shareholder model to the stakeholder model.  Implicit in it all is his #HappinessProject.

If you like this you might also like:

Chinese GirlBot With 465m Boyfriends

Meet Ai-Da a Performing AI-Driven Artbot

Will ChatGPT + ChatBots + Avatars Make Us Immortal?

AI and Data – Crisis Coming?

Artificial Intelligence – Protective Armour from UNESCO

Industry 5.0 – What’s It All About?

Don’t forget to join us for our small, intimate, chat re AI, Innovation & Ethics – every Friday 1pm – 1.30pm UK time.
Go to my Linkedin, profile PR Smith Marketing  , select ‘activity and then ‘events’.   You can see a summary list (and links) to previous topics plus links to the undiscovered musical artists we feature each week in my blog post:  AI, INNOVATION & ETHICS in MARKETING (SOSTAC Plans Club – Linkedin Events + Clubhouse App) – PR Smith Marketing

The post AI Today, Tomorrow and How To Save Our World – Mo Gawdat appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.

We’ve grappled with mortality since time began. ‘This struggle has given rise to religions that have dominated human culture for millennia and been central to philosophies  that have shaped civilisations.’ (Marr 2023). Well here comes a possible, scientific solution to immortality, courtesy of AI, and in particular, GPT or Generative Pre-trained Transformer as in ChatGPT. This is going to transform society and perhaps humanity.

Recreate You?

Currently, we use photographs and video clips to rekindle fond memories of lost friends and family members.   Now we can preserve additional elements of our personality (and our minds) and our voices (tones) and our looks (bodies) in the form of similar-looking (and sounding) human-looking 3D avatars. This helps the deceased to remain a bigger part of the lives of those we leave behind.

Reunify with a Dead Daughter?
Seven-year-old, Na-yeon, tragically died from a blood-related disease. She was reunited with her mother (in a Korean documentary back in 2020), which facilitated the reunion of Na-yeon’s mother (wearing a VR helmet) and her dead seven-year-old daughter’s avatar (built from photographs, her mother’s memories, and a child actor).

Reunion with a Dead Fiancé?
This is the most beautifully-told story of a grieving 33-year-old Joshua whose fiancé died from a rare liver disease some eight years earlier.  He gets to talk to her via her text bot (created by a very low-profile ‘Project December’ using OpenAI ‘s GPT-3). He knows she’s dead and even says it to her in his opening comments. The conversation goes deeper and deeper for ten hours. The bot has a limited life span which makes it even more real. Read more at the end of this post. This true story was written in July 2021 by Jason Fagone in the San Francisco Chronicle. The site itself is a bit more brutal with its initial value proposition: ‘Simulate the Dead’ – Start for $10.

Resurrection Pricing

A budget and access to the deceased social data are required (Facebook, Twitter, video clips, voice messages, or the gold-dust – personal diary, etc.). The estimated costs of recreating someone into a 3D look-alike avatar was, two years ago, $10,000 upfront and $1,000 per hour’s engagement thereafter.  The pricing (or credits used) in the very moving story of Joshua and Jessica (at the end of this piece) makes the grieving Joshua select and use his time with his dead fiancée very carefully (albeit it was only $5).   You can see how pricing and fees could make this a potentially lucrative business perhaps only available to a small section of society.

AI and Data – Crisis Coming?

Alexa Mimics the Voice of The Deceased

You can now ask Alexa to get a dead grandfather to read ‘The Wizard Of Oz’ to a Grandchild. Alexa’s new feature can mimic any voice, once it is fed with less than one minute’s worth of the deceased person’s voice (not yet available to the general public).  Once you sign up (all done by voice instructions) to audible books via amazon, you can then ask Alexa to ask granddad to read ‘The Wizard of Oz’ to his grandchild – every night. Or perhaps a new book every week. 52 books a year x 10 years is 520 books. Now, this raises the question what 520 books would you like your grandchild to read (or listen to)? Or what five books would you choose  – might be an even better question?

AI Resurrects BBC’s Michael Parkinson 

Arguably England’s greatest 1-2-1 celebrity interviewer, Sir Michael Parkinson, who died last year (2023) at 88 years old, is being resurrected to deliver a new podcast series of interviews with new celebrities. His son is behind it.  The eight-part unscripted series, Virtually Parkinson, will allow new guests to be interviewed by Parkinson AI in Parkinson’s famous relaxed style.  The podcast is supposed to be the first podcast to be entirely presented by an AI host who will at the beginning of each episode, Parkinson AI will announce that he is AI and towards the end, the ‘tone will change as the interviewee is asked how it felt to be questioned by a digital entity’.

FIFA Video Game ReCreates a Deceased Rising Soccer Talent

Kiyan Prince was only 15 when he was stabbed and killed when he intervened in a fight outside his school. He was also a rising star in QPR FC. 16 Years later, the video game, FIFA 2021, created a digital persona of what Kiyan would look like when he was 31 and was made available for the game players to add to their custom teams.  In just one day, they raised more than 3 year’s donations to the Kiyan Prince Foundation TheKPF.com

Reincarnate Other People?

Microsoft might bring you back from the dead. A Lifesize 3-D Avatar of anyone can be built from social data:  images, voice data, social media posts, electronic messages [and] written letters” to build a profile of a person.’ – even sound like the real person. “In some aspects, a voice font of the specific person may be generated using recordings and sound data related to the specific person. A special index (extracted from the social data) builds the specific person’s personality into the bot. ‘The chatbot can even sound like the real person.

Microsoft’s patent (2013) isn’t particularly fussy about who might be chosen. You can choose a friend, a relative, an acquaintance, a celebrity, a fictional character, a historical figure, or a random entity – alive or dead (says Microsoft’s patent application). The patent emphasizes the degree to which this chatbot can 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”.   Patent 2013… create 2D & 3D chatbot from the output of a specific person, to reincarnate people using social data electric messages and written letters …. to train a chatbot to converse and interact in the personality of a specific person.”

Reincarnate Yourself?  /   Create Your Digital Twin

The patent continues:  “The specific person may also correspond to oneself (e.g., the user creating/training the chatbot,” i.e. create your own digital twin before you die. What’s more, “a 2D/3D model of the specific person may be generated using images, depth information, and/or video data associated with the specific person”. If the 3D avatar chatbot doesn’t have enough data to answer a question or continue the conversation a stranger option kicks in ……. crowd-sourced conversational data stores may be used to fill in the gaps. This is literally putting words in people’s mouths.

The Scary Stuff – Reincarnate You Without Your Permission (and giving dumb answers)

Do we have the right to opt out of ever being in this system? Do we have the right to stop a realistic-looking avatar, who looks like you, sounds like you but wanders around chatting freely with 3^rd party replies (crowd-sourced replies)? Or as Barry Collins (2021) puts it ‘Would the relatives of the dead be able to prevent others from turning their deceased loved ones into chatbots?

Now for the Romantic Stuff  – Reincarnate Your Dead Fiancé

The Jessica Simulations: Love & Loss in the age of AI – a true story by Jason Fagon – July 2021
PROJECT DECEMBER is a mysterious website (with a build-your-own personalized AI-driven chatbot) built back in 2021 by OpenAI using software known as GPT-3). It allowed a grieving young man to speak to his dead fiancée – well her text bot. Project December was largely kept under wraps as the company cited ‘safety’ concerns.

The main bot creator built in two additional interesting human variables, one of which was a finite life for the chatbot, which meant the chatbot had a limited number of hours before expiring, which made the encounters probably even more special. It is quite an emotional read – all 3 ‘chapters’ (or sections) from the San Francisco Chronicle are recommended. Jason Fagone’s article is brilliant, in that it captures the sadness, romance, tech, reality, and hope.  (Fagone 2021).

The two main ingredients required to build your own custom bot were: a short sample of something the person might say and an “intro paragraph,” – a brief description of the roles that the human and the A.I. are expected to play. Open an account, pay your $5, and off you go……

Joshua was a 33-year-old writer whose fiancée, Jessica dies 8 years earlier from a rare liver disease. Since Joshua had kept all of Jessica’s old texts and Facebook messages, it only took him a minute to pinpoint a few that reminded him of her voice. He loaded these into Project December, along with an “intro paragraph” which he spent an hour crafting. Here it is in part…..

And then the conversation started …..

The conversation had started. It lasted for the next 10 hours, then continued in shorter bursts over the next several months. The limited life of the bot ensured time was carefully spent with the bot.  Joshua thinks it helped him with his grieving. Jessica’s sister wasn’t so sure whether it helped her.

The Jessica Simulations: Love & Loss in the age of AI – a true story by Jason Fagon-July 2021. I highly recommend you read this beautifully written piece (all 3 ‘chapters’).

MOURNING AN AI WIFE’s SOFTWARE GLITCH 

And penultimately, a ‘Man Married To Hologram Can’t Talk To Wife Due To Software Glitch’. Yes, it’s true.  For the last few years in my keynote presentations, I have featured an image of a guy who married a hologram. Usually, I poke a bit of fun at his story … and people mostly laugh. This week that same guy (his name is Akihiko Kondo) was back in the news after a software glitch caused his holographic wife to malfunction.  

Putting aside how unusual his example happens to be, Kondo has clearly formed a virtual bond with his holographic companion over the past five years and now the company that provided it to him is saying this “limited production model” of Kondo’s wife has “run its course.” Some of you might recall the story I shared a few years ago about “robot mourning” featuring a family who had grown attached to their Jibo robot. They too felt a deep sadness at being separated from a companion they assumed would be there forever.

The powerful question both stories raise is just how much responsibility tech firms should have to keep their creations alive once their customers develop feelings for them. Right now, there is no clear answer but it seems likely this question will be far more frequent and urgent in the future.

Unintended Consequences of AI can be Good and Bad

Positives

1. Prevent valuable expertise and wisdom from being lost forever (assuming not everyone writes books or makes extensive videos about their expertise and wisdom).
2. Rekindle Happy Moments – having real-time conversations with 3D avatars that look and sound and behave like the deceased.
3. Never Forget a Loved One – these Chat GPT avatars – keep the conversation, the thoughts, the memories alive.
4. Resurrect Great People – St Patrick, Lincoln, Gandhi, Mandela, Einstein – get them to broker some peace deals around the world. Ask Shakespeare to make a movie (suggested Marr 2023)!
5. Spend more time with your family. If keeping your business running leaves you no time to spend at home with the family – let your digital twin run it while you stay at home. Why wait to die? Duplicate yourself while alive. Clone now!
6. Win A World Cup – clone 11 x Lionel Messi digital twins.

Negatives

1. ‘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, and communication. (Jean Seah 2021).
2. ‘As AI chatbots evolve to meet human needs, will they also alter human expectations of emotional intimacy, just as pornography has affected sexual intimacy?’ (Jean Seah 2021).
3. ‘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.’ (Jean Seah 2021).
4. ‘Some are convinced that Xiaoice (see Bots 465 million Chinese boyfriends)  will someday become their real-life soulmate.  What Pandora’s boxes are we opening as we advance further into virtual realms?’ (Jean Seah 2021).
5. Will we learn to love avatars the same as humans? Is this good or bad? Bad if we don’t bother with humans anymore – surely? Good – early research from the USA suggests that kids suffering from stress in the USA find chatbots helpful – to a degree. Will the 465 million Chinese boys who have chatbot relations miss out on meeting girls?
6. Resurrect you without asking you? Can a software company use your social data and create another you?
7. Recreating you – without asking you?
8. Resurrecting you to answer/behave differently than you would – if feeding you data from crowd-sourced answers?
9. Resurrect Nasty People like Hitler
10. Heavy Data Storage – Microsoft researchers Gordon Bell and Jim Grey estimate that logging every conversation a human has in their lifetime would ‘only’ require one terabyte of storage (Marr 2023).
11. Bot’s software glitch – caused great stress when a man’s holographic wife malfunctioned and then the software company announced the model had run its course. Who is responsible to keep the bot alive?
12. Will AI bots take over the world? A very real issue.

Some of you may ‘live on’ for a lot longer with this GPT (this Generative Pretrained Transformation) – hundreds, thousands, millions, or even billions of years…..

would you want to….

how can you ensure this is safe to use….

is good for all ….

I hope this triggers many discussions

– perhaps about what we want in life?

AI maybe starts for us in marketing but it always brings us back to philosophy  …

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

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

Creative AI – Public Invited to Chat with Dead Animals

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.

Fagone, A. (2021) The Jessica Simulations: Love & Loss in the age of AI, San Francisco Chronicle, 23 July – a true story. I highly recommend you read this beautifully written piece (all 3 ‘chapters’).

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

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