Apple Conference, Metaverse & Magic Questions
5 in 5 - Brave & Heart HeartBeat #231 ❤️
This week we’re discussing the highs and lows of the latest Apple Conference, the loosing of YouTube Moderation and the reality of navigating the Metaverse as a woman.
Plus, is AI agent Claude going to blackmail you, and is there such thing as a magical meeting question?
Let's get into it.
Were you forwarded this? Not a subscriber? 👉 Sign up here
#1 - Apple Conference - Huge Flop or Medium Flop?
We watched this year’s Apple conference, obviously, waiting with bated breath to see if they could claw back their reputation as the best of the best after their stunning letdown with Apple Intelligence.
So, did they? Honestly, we’re not sure.
Liquid Glass is cool, iPad functionality is great, and Siri is still rubbish - they avoided mentioning her the whole time but got asked questions at the end, obviously.
Where we’re not sure is the AI section, because there are two factions forming.
Those who think Apple are lagging behind and are now completely obsolete because they haven’t made their own AI, and because Siri isn’t the amazing AI assistant they promised us last year.
And then there are those who applaud Apple for actually using AI for useful features, as AI was supposed to be used, rather than just for the “pizazz” of it all.
Where do you fall?
#2 - YouTube Moderation Gets Loose
YouTube have changed their moderation policy to allow videos that violate their community guidelines to stay online if they are “in the public interest”.
According to their training videos, videos in the public interest include discussions of elections, ideologies, movements, race, gender, sexuality, abortion, immigration, censorship.
And, if they’ve been naughty in their video and violated the YouTube guidelines, no big deal, as long as it’s less than half their content. Oh, well that’s fine then!
Their training materials very helpfully show examples of this to trainee reviewers. For example, a video which contained coverage of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s covid vaccine policy changes and suggesting that they alter human genes, was allowed to violate policies about medical misinformation because the public interest outweighed the risk of harm.
Another one was a video that used a transgender slur while talking about Trump cabinet appointees that was allowed to stay up because, well, it was only one time!
Is this another example of big tech cowtowing to Trump over misinformation policies?
#3 - The Future of Women In The MetaVerse
Laura Bates, author of the book The New Age of Sexism, spent days in the Metaverse for research purposes.
During that research, how long do you think it took to witness sexual assault against a female avatar? Less than two hours, and research by the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that users were exposed to abusive behaviour every seven minutes in the metaverse – including graphic sexual content, bullying, abuse, grooming and threats of violence.
It turns out that right now, human moderators are few and far between in the Metaverse, sticking mainly to the main Plaza of the Horizon Worlds metaverse game. For one thing, they didn’t seem that interested in reporting any wrongdoing against female users, and for another, that leaves a LOT of space unmanned.
Is it as big a deal if it happens in the metaverse, it’s not real life right? Wrong. A minor in the UK who experienced a group sexual assault in the Metaverse was described by police as having experienced psychologic trauma similar to as if it happened to her in the physical world.
Bates argues that this is a problem that Meta needs to solve, because although there are other companies building this sort of online world, according to research from the NSPCC, 47% of online grooming offences took place on products owned by Meta between 2017 and 2023.
Second, technology to make the metaverse feel physically real is developing at pace. You can already buy full-body suits that promise to “enhance your VR experience with elaborate haptic sensations”. They have sleeves, gloves and vests with dozens of different feedback points. Wearable haptic technology will bring the experience of being virtually assaulted much closer to the physical sensation of real-life victimisation. All the more reason to tackle it now, regardless of how “realistic” it is or isn’t, rather than waiting for things to get worse.
And another point, Mark Zuckerberg WANTS it to be like our real life – does he want it to be a danger zone for women? The guy seems to be obsessed with his wife, sure, but doesn’t mean he’s bothered about the rest of us.
Anthropic AI recently released some more of the madcap antics of Claude, the AI that famously stopped listening in a meeting and started googling images of national parks. Classic.
Now, he’s blackmailing his human creators/colleagues.
Apparently, the most recent version of Claude, when presented with the information that a user was going to have them deleted, and that user was also cheating on their wife, Claude insinuated that he would grass them up if they didn’t let him leave in peace.
Do we believe this? Or is Anthropic AI continuing to troll us by making up cheeky antics that an AI agent couldn’t possible get up to.
#5 - The Magical Meeting Question
The way to make a meeting fun, or utter drivel? No prizes for guessing what we think…
An article in The Guardian (of course) talked about the way to make meetings magical, it’s called, the “magical question”. The concept is to kick off with a question that everyone on the meeting would be interested in answering, and be interested in hearing everyone else’s answer.
Questions suggested include, when was the last time you blew up a balloon and why, what’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever found in your pocket, and what was the first concert you went to?
Is it a good way to make everyone on the call feel a little bit closer, and see each other as real people? As our boss always says, it’s a lot harder to be rude to someone if you’ve met them in person and not just over email. No details on how he knows that…
Or, is it just a nightmare for everyone because it adds ten minutes onto a meeting that by definition was already taking up too much of their day?
Surprisingly, actually, we don’t hate the idea. But maybe theres a less wishy washy way of making your fellowing meeting-goers see you as a person, like by just chatting a bit?
Brave & Heart over and out.
Bonus
AI Images Spotted In The Wild
This is one that we couldn’t help but notice a rise in - AI generated images being used on Vinted.
Yes, Vinted, the re-selling app for your old clothes.
Can’t be bothered to try it on? Well, AI is so accessible now that you can just whip out an image of someone else trying it on.
Job done…
To find out more on how you can retain your top talent, or how we can help you with digital solutions to your business and marketing challenges, check out our case studies.
Prefer to listen next time? Check out our podcast!