In a troubling juxtaposition, social media seems to bring us closer to those who live far from us, and further away from those who live just streets away. Prior to AI becoming a tool for the everyday social media user, there stood the ever-present struggle to achieve an unnatural level of perfection. Humanity has become tightly gripped by dominant platforms that have flooded feeds with tainted promises of enhanced connectivity. AI is no longer a crew member behind the scenes, in 2023, it took the stage and provided a higher level of accessibility and innovation. Social media is smoke and mirrors, but the apprehension around usage of AI is beginning to clear away the smoke, and replace the mirrors with windows that allow users to gaze into the reality they were born into. For some, visible AI integrations across networking platforms have allowed people to witness the extent of their digital addiction.
- The Next Step In Generative Tech: Music, Audio and Marketing
In 2023 we saw the emergence of generative AI involved in image creation. Brands and creators amped up their engagement efforts with images and content that played tricks on the mind and were avidly arresting. AI image technology has given brands a boundless canvas through which to market their product – as people, places and objects can now be superimposed into different scenarios, and the concept of a comprehensive stylised shoot is becoming less and less necessary. This yea, new iterations of platforms like DALL-E and Adobe Firefly startled consumer audiences with their photorealistic creations. With the ability to seamlessly create brand imagery, instagram feeds, and ‘new’ artwork through generative tools, marketing is more rapidly driven by data, more rapidly adaptable, and as such is creating a more determined chokehold on consumer buying habits.
GLITCH predicts that in 2024 we will most definitely see the effect of generative AI image creation infiltrating the media we consume day-to-day. The next step on from imagery would seemingly be AI generated videos, and AI generated audio – only expanding the breadth of medium AI can work with. Whilst consumers will presumably learn to be less gullible and trusting of all the content that appears before them, it will be very interesting to see how brands use the technology in a way that doesn’t position them as inconspicuous or deviant, but enhances their engagement strategies.
2. AI Wearables: 2024 Will See A Boom In Accessories Development
In 2023 we began to see the emergence of AI wearables, with the AI pin by Humane being perhaps one of the most eagerly awaited. Launching mid November, the Open-Ai powered gadget rallied lots of speculation, but wasn’t met with as much applause as anticipated. Tarnished by some factual mistakes in its launch video, viewers were skeptical, and then began to pull apart the pin altogether – questioning the practicality of a wearable clunky device, its usefulness versus its obsoleteness, and whether the utilization could plausibly be as seamless as promised.
Other AI wearables on the market currently include, The Rewind Pendant, The Rayban Meta Smart Glasses, the Oura Smart Ring and soon a speculated AI backpack that is supposed to have been patented by Microsoft.
GLITCH predicts that 2024 will see the continued development of wearable tech, and that across the year we will see more original and unorthodox attempts to agreeably and fluidly integrate fashion and technology.
3. Buying AI Friends and Being Influenced by AI Influencers
The initial human fear of AI was rooted in the image of sci-fi robots and creatures with eyes, and voices – the suspicion that AI devices might appear eerily similar to ourselves and blend covertly into society. As of yet, this in fact hasn’t been the main usage and experimentation with AI, but it seems now developers have invested interest in creating AI machines that artfully mimic humans, primarily in an emotional capacity.
Against the backdrop of a consumer base who are perhaps more isolated than previous generations, and are educated enough to understand the negative social impact of this, many analytics point to an elevated interest in AI companionship.
Interfaces such as Character.Ai and Soul Machines, let’s users create AI characters and personalities that can be interacted with in a variety of ways, whether it be to help them with taks, to provide a service, or simply to chat to.
Earlier this year, we also saw the creation of Billie, a Meta managed AI replica of Kendall Jenner, and thus was born the concept of the AI influencer and the arresting power of AI generated personas. In 2024, GLITCH is intrigued to see how this concept of leisurely AI interaction will shape consumer habits, consumer understanding, and consumer’s social skills. Could we be developing into a society that reaps more advice and interaction from AI’s than we do real humans?
4. Democratised AI: Everyone Will Be Playing With AI In One Way Or Another
Another key trend is the idea that AI creation and development will become drastically more accessible and comprehensible to your average person. There are already a wealth of platforms that facilitate ordinary users in building their own AI enhanced expressions, as AI developers need to find avenues of making the infrastructure they have founded profitable, and consequently there is a need for it to resonate with a diverse consumer base.
Gemini and Chat GPT are the two prime user-facing platforms, created by Google and Open AI, that concentrate on giving the general public access to AI tools, and their popularity and usage has surged greatly over 2023 as the public have begun to incorporate them into their day to day.
GLITCH predicts that whilst the tech-elite amongst us will continue knock away at the existing ceiling and keep the wheel of change in spin, there will definitely be a motivation to make the existing technology ever-present throughout society, and ensure the feneral public are equipped with tactical user-facing tools in 2024.
5. AI Propaganda
Amongst all the flashy and titillating developments we predict for AI in 2024, unfortunately, there are some real and raw fears as to how we may also begin to see AI utilized deceitfully. In particular, there is growing concern that AI will have a fraudulent role within political debates, elections, and global news. With the ability to disseminate, fake news, tampered imagery, misleading propaganda, and bogus data, 2024 will definitely see lots of pivotal and substantive discussion into how AI may be leading consumers and thinkers astray. GLITCH speculates that whilst 2024 will be an important year for AI development, it will also be a historical year for AI legislation.
Written by Hebe Street from GLITCH Magazine
