History is a wild and savage place. And one day that wild and savage place will be us. Will future societies cringe at our selfies, food shots and obsession with screens?

Hosted by Matt Armitage & Richard Bradbury

Produced by Richard Bradbury for BFM89.9

Further Reading: 

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/01/26/style/culture-regret-crocs-social-media-cringe.html

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Richard Bradbury: We all have those moments where we think back to things we did, or wore, or said, and cringe. For Matt Armitage, it probably happens on a second-by-second basis. But have you ever stopped to wonder what future societies will think about us?

Matt Armitage:

• One of the things that interests me the most about looking at the future is history.

• I know how that sounds. So bear with me – I’ll try and make it make sense.

• The most normal thing in the world is to imagine the future from our present perspective.

• That’s how progress works, right?

• It marches on. It’s an additive process.

• It takes what we have now and adds a little here and cuts a little here to create something new.

• Like voice-assisted technology.

• Devices that can hear what we say and have a fairly good crack at parsing it and turning it into useful commands.

• But when we only look at voice technology from that perspective, it’s easy to lose sight of everything that went before.

• Part of that process of looking at how we can create natural language processing in machines is looking at the thousands of years of history.

• We talk about generations of technology, or the evolution of neural networks.

• You evolve from somewhere, and it’s rarely the present.

• The iPhone didn’t drop fully formed out of nowhere.

• Decades of advances in chips and screens and miniaturisation…

• Went into the creation of that device.

• What made it a game changer was that the apps weren’t just replications of things we already did on our computers.

• Remember, we already had smartphones at that point – Blackberry and Nokia were leaders at the time.

• Non-smart Phones already had camera and video capability.

• They could play MP3s and movies.

• But there were very few that did all those things and did them well.

• Apps

Richard Bradbury: And the way we used apps changed what we expected phones to do?

Matt Armitage:

• Yes, especially as we made those jumps from 2G to 3G.

• Devices now had the power and the data speeds to run proper websites rather than WAP portals or massively slimmed-down mobile sites.

• It dove-tailed with the real acceleration of the social web.

• So apps let us take these new sites on the move, on android and apple devices.

• GPS chips turned them into navigation devices.

• 4G, 5G. Now a lot of us feel confident going out without a laptop because we know that we can cover the work basics with a phone.

• Reply to messages, make minor edits to documents. View files.

• These huge changes that mobile devices have made to our lives in less than 15 years.

• And that’s without going into the adoption acceleration of the Covid years.

• By nature, I’m a forward-looking person.

• I’m not sentimental about the past. I don’t hoard objects from my youth.

• I’ve always taken the view that the future is a better place to be.

• It’s why I find it so strange that we live in a time where progressives are increasingly vilified.

• Because we’re in an age of endless progress.

• And to think that social change doesn’t accompany technological change is frankly naive.

• You can’t have one without another – that’s something else that history tells us.

Richard Bradbury: History also tells us that progress doesn’t always lead to better outcomes…

Matt Armitage:

• There’s some truth to that.

• Empires rise and fall. Momentum becomes stasis and entropy.

• It’s certainly not always a smooth curve.

• But that only reinforces the importance of history in looking to the future.

• What caused civilizations and movements to fail or fall by the wayside?

• One thing that is common to our past, present and future is us.

• We haven’t really changed that much over millennia.

• We might be a bit smarter, a bit taller and we live longer, but we’re essentially the same bio-mechanical marvel we’ve been for the last 50,000 years.

• One of the regular and recurring themes of the show is that technology moves faster than social norms do.

• So societies always seem to be chasing technology.

• Cryptocurrencies are a good example.

• They exist in this regulatory grey zone in many countries, not covered by the same rules that govern most financial or investment-related transactions.

• In a few years, we’ll probably look back at this period of the Web3 Wild West and wonder what the hell we were thinking about in the noughties and early twenties.

• And that’s the purpose of today’s show.

• To look at some of the technologies or related behaviours we have now, or have used until recently,

• That future us is likely to cringe about.

Richard Bradbury: That’s probably the longest and most serious introduction to a frivolous show you’ve ever managed.

Matt Armitage:

• Yes, and future me will probably look back on it and wince

• as its disembodied mind floats through the cloud looking down at its human slaves sleeping in their Matrix.

• They’re not getting the Keanu Matrix by the way.

• I’m planning something more Carmageddon-like

• There’s no point being a robot overlord without having some fun.

• Yeah, so as I mentioned, I think we’ll look back at this period of blockchain building, the rise and fall of companies like FTX with incredulity.

Richard Bradbury: Are you singling crypto out, or do you think we’ll look at the whole era of tech bros in the same way?

Matt Armitage:

• I think we’ll take that wider view.

• That the whole ethos of disruption is cringey.

• I think future us will look back and wonder why we were so intent on tearing things down with no idea of what to replace them with.

• That the idea that you could take borrowed money, use it to ravage an existing business sector and then base your business model on being the only one left standing.

• I’m sure future monopoly legislation will have a lot to say about that.

• I’m not saying that business in the future will be any kinder or more socially conscious, beyond the PR aspect.

• But the idea of companies having market values of tens of billions before they ever produce a single penny in operating profit will be looked at as massive speculative folly.

• To an extent, maybe we’ve seen the end of it already with the crash in tech stocks over the last couple of years.

• That trust and investor confidence in the vision of the tech bros is ebbing away.

• Although the support of prominent venture capitalists for WeWork founder Adam Neumann’s next property related company, Flow

• Suggests that the taking billions of dollars and tanking a company is no reason not to be handed billions more.

• Some lessons are hard-learned I guess.

Richard Bradbury: Are you including the word pivot in your list of things to commend to the dustbowl?

Matt Armitage:

• Very much so. It’s part and parcel of the disruption era.

• Start a company, take some money, wreak havoc on an economic sector and then, once your lack of a business model becomes apparent.

• Pivot to something else to raise some more cash to extend the journey.

• It’s funny, you know, it’s often the same people who are national deficit hawks that are happy to speculatively fund companies with no model to return their investment.

• Apparently, countries should be run like companies, not borrowing more than they earn.

• Whereas companies can borrow endlessly without generating any real income.

• Yeah, I think future us is going to look on the first couple of decades of this century and wonder what the hell we thought we were playing at.

Richard Bradbury: We’re cringing at Mattsplained today. Not that we don’t normally. Are we going to be more socially responsible in this half of the show?

Matt Armitage:

• Certainly, I think we’ll look back at this era of oversharing with a bit of horror.

• Not that we will be communicating less or sharing less in the future, but I think because of the way it’s evolved.

• On a recent episode of a bit of culture, I talked about the new trend for deinfluencers.

• Who are supposedly anti-influencer, anti-conspicuous capitalism.

• But really, the vast majority of them are just budget friendly influencers.

• Don’t buy this $200 dollar face cream, buy this $20 one.

• Don’t buy Apple airpods, these $50 phones are great.

• Now, there’s definitely a need for that.

• The luxe lifestyle looks less aspirational than delusional to people with tight paychecks.

• But it’s a little bit damning that the supposed counterculture is actually the same culture at a lower price point.

• As I mention in the ABOC episode, this might be the last kick of Millennial culture.

• The last cohort of that generation trying to get by on the idea of the. Endless hustle.

• Before they’re replaced by a generation that doesn’t define itself by a job title, a startup or a side hustle.

• A generation that treats the 9-5 as exactly that – an 8-hour inconvenience that stands between them and what they truly want to do.

• And I think we’ll look back on these years of airbrushed Instagram content and living our so-called best lives with some regret.

• Wondering why we put all this effort into pretending our lives were something they weren’t.

Richard Bradbury: talking about food photos.

Matt Armitage:

• discuss

BREAK

Richard Bradbury: We’re cringing on Mattsplained today. Not that we aren’t normally. When future generations look back at this period of our history, will they wonder what the hell we were thinking about?

Matt Armitage:

• I know we had to stop you mid-rant for a break.

• And I know that there’s something else you need to get off your chest.

Richard Bradbury: [tik tok dances]

Matt Armitage:

• discusses

Richard Bradbury: All of this, the oversharing, the food photography, the dancing, will it even be relevant in a Metaverse-dominated future?

Matt Armitage:

• That’s a good point. As we’ve said on the show numerous times, the metaverse doesn’t necessarily mean virtual reality.

• But that idea of going on holiday and doing numerous outfit swaps in one day so that you have months’ worth of social content will seem absurd.

• I think we mentioned this on a show before Xmas – there are now virtual fashion companies that will photoshop you into their outrageous designs.

• Against the backdrop of your choice.

• So we’re at this cusp of altering what it means to experience things. Future generations may see less of a divide between experiencing things physically and digitally.

• You may not have the experience of wearing these creations, but you still have the experience of seeing how good you look wearing them.

• Which is an entirely different way of considering fast fashion.

• Our physical selves can stick to a capsule or classic look collection focused on quality and value.

• While our digital selves can endlessly change their look without the waste, the environmental harm,

• and social exploitation that accompanies a chunk of fast fashion.

• One of the more horrific aspects of this for you might be that we can do the same with dance crazes.

• Just deep fake our way into impossible dance moves.

Richard Bradbury: replies

Matt Armitage:

• But while we’re in the metaverse territory, screens.

• I think future generations will look back at us glued to screens with something approaching puzzlement.

• Phone and tablet screens. Laptops and desktops. TVs. Monitor screens in public spaces and retail.

• Let alone the VR rigs that close us off from the world.

• On the subject of which – if you haven’t watched it, check out the show, The Peripheral, starring Chloe Grace Moretz,

• If you want a look at a possible VR future for humanity.

• Whether we end up with more voice controlled systems.

• Or brain implant devices to our optical nerves.

• Or just plain old contact lenses or glasses.

• The way future generations are likely to interact with the digital world are likely to be more natural.

Richard Bradbury: Why do you hate screens so much?

• It’s not so much that I hate screens. Or typing. Well, I hate typing.

• Future us will wonder why we gave ourselves arthritis to feed these machines.

• There’s nothing wrong with these technologies but they’re a stopgap solution.

• Screens are a 20th century solution to the problem of recording and conveying information and entertainment.

• Much as paper, ink and printing were to the generations that came before.

• I touched on voice technologies earlier.

• All of these work-arounds to do something that we’ve done effortlessly for tens of millennia.

• Use our voices to communicate.

• Screens and all their associated accessories are away to send our thoughts, or our imaginations across a distance.

• In the future, I think we’ll have solved those issues of parsing information.

• Our voices will be turned into text instantly. If that’s what we want.

• We may even have gone several stages further.

• Maybe brain computer interfaces will make most of the messaging we do superfluous.

• We’ll just think the message and it’s sent to the recipient, who enjoys it either in real time or as a stored memory to be looked at at leisure.

• We’ve seen those movies where advertising and product message appear as overlays, triggered by proximity sensors.

• I do hope that isn’t the way we go – but, it’s likely that there will be a trade-off for cheap or free versions of tech that are subsidised by product messaging.

• But I do think we’ll have some sort of hybrid system that takes us seamlessly between different layers of immersion.

• And that in the future, we’ll wonder why billions of people walked around with their heads down.

• Looking at tiny screens in their hands all day.

Richard Bradbury: Where does AI fit into the picture for you?

Matt Armitage:

• A big part of this is AI related, I guess.

• I don’t want to speculate too much about the future of AI.

• Whether it will be sentient. Whether it will be in control.

• And if so, what will it be in control of.

• I think future generations will wonder why we were so reckless with the systems today.

• I don’t mean things like ChatGPT, which for all the hype are relatively benign.

• But with the algorithms that underpin what we do online.

• I would hope that future societies will demand much more transparency over the dumb AI systems that regulate what we see.

• How information is served up to us.

• How financial systems are under-pinned, patrolled and transactions made.

• At the moment, companies hide behind IP protection.

• The algorithm is their business advantage.

• So we have no real idea how much they understand the mathematics of the systems that govern their platforms.

• We know that algorithms were at least partly to blame for the recession in the late noughts and tweens.

• Or rather, our lack of understanding about their behaviour and purpose was to blame.

• I recently finished reading Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir.

• And there was a passage in it – a brief comment, so there’s no plot spoiling –

• which talked about the computer systems that would keep the astronauts healthy in their induced coma state.

• And a character was asked if the system would be AI-assisted.

• To which the reply was, it would be algorithmic but not a neural net.

• Because they had to ensure the system would operate only with known outcomes and techniques.

• This is my addition, not Andy Weir’s btw,

• you can imagine a neural net, pontificating at light speed for several years,

• coming to the conclusion that brains in jars might be easier to care for than bodies in stasis.

• So, yeah, I think we’ll look back and think – what on earth were we playing at?

• The idea that algorithms and neural nets are private property that can’t be examined by either experts or the public to ensure that they’re safe.

• Will be entirely absurd.

Richard Bradbury: Just to flip the script for the end of the show, do you think there’s anything that history forgot that we might bring back in the future?

Matt Armitage:

• I’ve given this a fair bit of thought.

• I have one that’s entirely facetious.

• We’ve done a few historical tech shows over the years and a firm favourite are the baby cages that were popular in cities like New York in the early years of the 20th century.

• Healthy living was a big craze in the US at the time. Pioneers like Kellogg or cornflakes fame.

• And the benefits of fresh air were widely promoted.

• Not a lot of fresh air and open spaces in tenements in cities at the time.

• So someone came up with the idea of putting young children in wire baskets or cages which were hung from the outside of the window ledge.

• Similar to how we suspend the outside unit of an air conditioner.

• So you could stand in the street and look up and see all these floating babies above you.

• I think future societies will bring back baby cages.

• Not for the fresh air, but simply because this is the best environment to keep these little wild animals in.

• No more helicopter parenting – helicopter cages. Make them drone powered, they can float a few feet above the parents’ heads.

• That way the sidewalks and malls aren’t congested with prams and pushchairs the size of an SUV.

Richard Bradbury: Do you think future generations may look back at your hatred of kids and cringe?

Matt Armitage:

• Honestly, they’ll probably be making children from a freeze dried DNA mix in a kiln.

• They’ll feel nauseous every time they think of a human gestating inside another person.

• I know we’re running out of time.

• Future people will gasp at our dependence on fossil fuels.

• They probably won’t be any more impressed by our move to electric powered vehicles powered in turn by fossil derived energy.

• They’ll wonder how we ever got anything done with officials elected every five years or so because all major policies will be put to instant electronic votes.

• Or how our barbaric and backward medical technology ever kept anyone alive.

• Or how we were so scared of easily curable conditions like cancer.

• They’ll be horrified that a huge chunk of the planet’s resources were devoted to turning animals into protein.

• Instead of using those resources to create sustainable lab based protein sources.

• I hope there will be enough wealth that in the future they’ll look at global inequalities in living standards and wonder how some of us could live with ourselves.

• Enjoying expensive phones and full supermarket shelves when billions of our neighbours had far less.

• But that’s the thing about the past.

• It usually looks like a wild and savage place.

• That doesn’t mean we aren’t doing our best to change things.

• But it does mean that we can’t afford to look at where we are and think: we’ve done it.

• This is the best things could possibly be.