Woke AI, Tinder Pigeons & TikTok Outrage
5 in 5 - Brave & Heart HeartBeat #192 ❤️
This week we’ll be discovering the AI that’s too woke for it’s own good, why Tinder is treating us like pigeons, and how much outrage pays on TikTok.
Plus, what do Elon Musk and the former King of France have in common, and could your therapist be your new office mate?
Let’s get into it.
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#1 - AI Video Generation Is Finally Here
Google AI Is Too… Woke?
Google’s Gemini AI tool began offering text to image generation earlier this month, but it may have gone a bit too far in trying to “subvert” racial and gender stereotypes.
They’ve been forced to apologize for what they describe as “inaccuracies in some historical image generation depictions” which “missed the mark”.
This comes in the wake of criticism after specifically white historic figures - think the US Founding Fathers and Nazi-era German - soldiers were depicted as people of colour. The theory being that this resulted from an attempt to “overcorrect” the long-standing racial bias problems in AI.
Google spokespeople have responded pretty well, we think, noting that they’re aware of the inaccuracies in some historical image generation, which happened because the image generation purposely generates a “wide range of people”.
They underline that this is usually a good thing, considering the wide range of people that use it, but that it does need fixing in this context.
Important to note that the controversy has been promoted largely by right-wing figures, such as the ex Google employee who posted on X (the place for normal people to post completely rational opinions) that it’s “embarrassingly hard to get Google Gemini to acknowledge that white people exist”.
However, I do think we can all agree that representing Nazi soldiers as people of colour is not it.
For now, Gemini is refusing some prompts, presumably while they try and teach Gemini the visual history of the world and figure out how to please everyone at once. Good luck with that...
#2 – Tinder vs. The Pigeons
Not actual pigeons, but Tinder addicts who apparently have been lured into addiction through the same techniques used in a famous 1948 psychological experiment on, you guessed it, pigeons.
Tinder CSO Jonathan Badeen recently admitted that he based the infamous swiping mechanism on an experiment he studied at university, where American psychologist B.F Skinner conditioned hungry pigeons to believe that food delivered randomly into a tray was actually prompted by their pecking.
Bad time to admit that, as six plaintiffs have mounted a lawsuit against Match group – including dating apps Tinder, Hinge and League (for fancy people) – accusing the group of using a “predatory” business model.
The complaint accuses Match of using features to “gamify the platforms to transform users into gamblers locked in a search for psychological rewards that Match makes elusive on purpose”.
They say this is inconsistent with their slogan that the apps are “made to be deleted”.
Certainly, Badeen’s comments about the swiping design, which he doubled down on saying it made uses “excited to play the game” also go against that idea.
Match have gone in hard on the lawsuit, calling it “ridiculous” and with “zero merit”.
We can kind of see both sides here, but to sue them for it seems a bit over litigious. There are plenty of things that are bad for us that are allowed to be out there for us to indulge in, like, well, pretty much everything we like.
Should we sue Netflix for making Friends so readily available and easy to binge, or chocolate for being so tasty when both are actually bad for us? Or are we missing the point?
#3 - TikTok Outrage Pays
There is so much content on TikTok that enrages us, so much content that is so ridiculous, that we may have lost the ability to tell whether it’s real or satire.
And that has worked out well for viral TikTok “trolls” Christi and Seth Fritz, a young American couple who have been racking up millions of views. And it turns out, outrage pays.
Christi started out on TikTok doing the usual dances and makeup application videos, until she and her husband realised that the one thing that will always drive people to watch your videos and, most importantly, comment and share, is, you guessed it – anger.
Their most popular viral video, which has been viewed 57 million times, features them cutting the soles off their shoes so they can walk barefoot in shops without being kicked out.
The unfortunate reason that people didn’t realise this was a joke? Because so many people actually DO want to walk around barefoot. “Grounding” is a practice endorsed by Gwyneth Paltrow, in which people go barefoot to become one with nature, and “grounding” influencers do indeed exist.
And that’s what makes their content so effective, they hit the spot just before something becomes unbelievable by exaggerating something real, and enraging, like barefoot influencers, or family influencers who buy Chanel handbags and mini Ferraris for their kids. It’s just bad enough for it to get everyone fired up in the comments, but not so much that they write it off as a joke.
Other popular videos include one where they take their 4 year old to a Tesla branch to a buy car, and a video of Christi explaining why their kids have a $20,000 spending limit on their Christmas lists.
They don’t describe themselves as trolls however, or comedians, they describe themselves as “grifters”, and that pretty much covers it – they’ve found what works, and they’re exploiting it to get paid.
#4 - The Sun King CEO vs. Remote Work
A recently published university paper examining some of the return-to-office mandates that have been announced over the past year found that mangers are using them to “reassert control over employees and blame employees as a scapegoat for bad performance”.
The authors notes that many CEOs leading companies in difficulty felt the pressure to make “desparate” changes to prove to shareholders they’ve got things under control, and used UPS CEO Carol Tome, who announced she wanted employees back at desks last month, as an example.
They suggest that the steeper than expected revenue drop in UPS’s 2023 Q4 earnings can be seen as a direct trigger for this – noting that she has to take “radical action” to keep herself in a job – and to do that, she’s cracking down on employees.
While it may work on shareholders, experts predict that the long-term effects of this “out of touch” management tactic may be drastic, saying that we can no longer continue a management and leadership style which may have worked pre-pandemic – the goal posts have changed and they’re not moving back.
The paper’s authors refer to “Sun King CEOs” like Elon Musk, who simply aren’t used to hearing “no” and so are just pushing through with brute force, which is a bad decision.
The “Sun King” reference is a callout to the French king Louis XIV – he was the sun that his court revolved around – and some CEOs are certainly used to this kind of reverence from their employees, which is harder to get remotely.
How can your employees get bossed around and bring you coffee to your desk if their desk is miles away in their own home? With difficulty.
The research shows that hybrid works well for managers, employees, and businesses – but will CEOs accept that they’re no longer the sun that their office revolves around?
#5 - In House Therapists
Forget coffee machines and ergonomic chairs, the latest office benefits are an in-house therapist.
As part of adjusting to the working world since the pandemic, many companies have had to update their benefits offer to respond to our changing priorities, and holisitic benefits like mental-health resources are up there with paid time-off and hybrid working opportunities.
Some companies have met this need by giving employees access to digital tools like medidiation apps or online therapy portals, but some large global employers are using their resources to take the benefit a step further.
Businesses like Delta Airlines, Shaw Industries Group and Comast are now offering on-site therapy sessions in their corporate offices and sites, allowing employees to schedule a session with a licenses therapist during the workday, and often for free.
This resource is proving popular with employees, especially in the context of difficulty to access mental-health professionals and high costs that can otherwise keep them from accessing this care for themselves.
We’ve recently developed our benefits offer with a pick n mix system which allows employees to choose benefits that work for them, and while therapy sessions with a partner practician are amongst them, we also ensure that employees with other priorities – like health or insurance – can access mental health care too, offering a couple of sessions as standard for everyone on top of that.
We spend so much of our lives at work, and prioritising our mental health shouldn’t have to be in opposition with that. This new benefit might become the norm – let’s hope so.
Brave & Heart over and out.
Bonus
Mass Quitting
This week’s bonus is a juicy list of reasons that people mass quit from their jobs, and, spoiler alert, it’s pretty much always because of the boss.
From the company that laid off half their staff with no notice, including one man who was a year from retirement, and then were shocked to see the remaining 50% jump ship right after, to the restaurant boss who tried to stop her employees from leaving by blocking the door, only to see them escape out the window.
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.