How television can develop a memory and change the face of news
What if television had a memory? What if television sets in 2030 had a memory? I was asked by an agency about my views on creativity and communications. Simple really, the reason why either politicians can spin a story, or that the viewer, even journalist may forget something of importance is because of the shelf life of our working memory. It depreciates swiftly over time compared to long term memory.
Yes there were European refugees during WWI and it was the West who had a thirst for wars e.g the 100 year war. But these can easily be forgiven, ignored or to a generation may be viewed as having little relevance for contemporary issues.
What if an advanced form of television did the remembering for you? Last year I presented this to a group of 14-year-olds considering AI as a career.
What’s more on screen data could provide real-time feedback on sentiment from viewers, analysis on accuracy based on previous data, and social connections of the journalist to the story and how many people are watching.
How politicians manipulate stories is based on the notion that the human mind is malleable and resistance is broken down by a number of actions.
It starts with trying to find something tangible in a story to suit the politician. That thing is then disfigured absurdly, so you’re being persuaded a spade is really a fork. Then the politician gets bellicose, ignoring your question and repeating their answer again and again.
The politician is then aided by agents, other media. Those that aren’t are sidelined. You will have seen this in Russia. That’s no surprise (please read Prof. Timothy Snyder) But alarmingly it’s played out in the UK and US.
When I first spoke about an aspect about how this could work my views were featured in The Economist.
Now having AI does not solve the issue. As is often said, “All AI have parents”. It’s the programmers who using machine language can skew data, but as an additional layer and good intentions off the block, it could help in the war of information. It would need policing, but it’s doable.
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