This week we were asked to create two speculative futures on media, education, text, and technology in the next 30 years.
The first future that I’ve created is based on a Virtual Emotions Assistant (VEA, vey-ah) who helps to guide your social-emotional well-being and to allow you to see what consequences your actions or non-actions have. It takes the, “think before you speak” to another level.
Speculative Future #1: What if we could stop bullying but understanding how it feels?
racetrack.ai
Ethan: Ugh. Liam is so annoying. He always wants to join in on our conversations but has nothing important to say. What a pest. I’m definitely going to tell everyone what a loser he is.
VEA: I wouldn’t do that if I were you Ethan. Think about the consequences, both short and long term, if you go head with that type of bullying…
Ethan: Bullying? VEA you’re joking right? There’s no way a guy like Liam is gonna care if I say anything. Everyone else calls him out all the time. Even in front of the teacher.
VEA: Not joking. Remember. You don’t know what kind of day, week, or year people are having and how your words could affect them.
Ethan: Fine. Show me.
**Ethan is suddenly overwhelmed with a flood of emotions: sadness, anger, hurt, and embarrassment. The thing is, they’re not his emotions. They’re Liams.
Ethan: That’s what he’ll feel if I do that? I wouldn’t even really mean it. It’d just be a joke.
VEA: True for you maybe. But that’s not how he’ll feel. Remember, you have the power to make someone happy – so choose that.
Ethan: Thanks VEA. I had no idea.
The second future that I created is based on another virtual AI assistant, except this one uses your social media habits, thoughts, daily conversations, and experiences to auto-tag your posts in the new TwitterGram in order to connect communities of people with similar stories to tell.
Speculative Future #2: What if the hashtag is the narrative?
values.com.au
Iyla sits on her couch and pulls up TwitterGram to scroll through the feed. She had a long day working with international contacts on the movement #mymindmyfuture as AI continues to use algorithms to screen female student’s future abilities for educational pathways. When she first came up with this idea, she had no idea the narrative that it was going to create. It’s become the biggest social media movement since #metoo and has increased the number of women going into STEM careers after graduation by over 60% in the last 10 years. If it wasn’t for the VHA, the actual hashtag of #mymindmyfuture would never have happened.
Since the introduction of the Virtual Hashtag Assistant (VHA), this movement has created a shift in power dynamics since the days of 2020. It’s now more common to see females of all races and ethnicities holding top positions and creating new and exciting technologies. The movement of #mymindmyfuture was created by the VHA based on Iyla’s creation of the Screening AI and her ideas surrounding it.
Take a look below at how the VHA works:
The VHA and its algorithm track people’s thoughts, habits, daily conversations, etc. Then, when they post on Twittergram it automatically adds the correct hashtag, (sometimes it’s one that has already been created, and sometimes it’s brand new, like in Iyla’s case), thus allowing the hashtag to grow the narrative. The hashtag is no longer seen as a useless extra 10 characters that you do “just cause.” i.e. #fun #eating #tired. Rather, the hashtag is now used as a way to connect groups of people together in order to share experiences and create a history of thoughts and meanings. No more are the days of typing in or thinking about all the hashtags you need to add to your posts, the VHA does it for you.