Hi there.
This is Chloe Wangu, the brand scientist, and you're listening to a midweek lab note.
So, I am coming to you, as you know, um, during the one week that I take every month for rest and research, and I am now here to share with you via audio, which I don't always do, um, certain things that I've been thinking about mulling over investigating.
Now, this week, I've been paying special attention to something that I actually brought up.
I want to say it was almost 7 months ago, and it was this idea that we were making a transition from an attention economy, right, with attention being the resource that is scarce, um, and the economy being just, you know, Measurement of how well, um, the biggest companies in the world are extracting a particular resource from particular locales, human beings included.
Um, and so how we were making that transition from attention.
As a commodity and from an attention economy to a trust economy for reasons that I lay out in that particular note, and I will link it here so that you can go back and listen to it if that interests you.
Now, I've been thinking a little bit more about this idea, especially as I've been The taking in, consuming, maybe I'd say thinking from some of my favorite thinkers and seeing how those things are linking up with what I've been absorbing over this period of time.
Um, and so The thing that has my fascination or attention right now and is connected to this idea is the story that AI is inevitable.
Let that just sink in just.
The story that AI is inevitable.
It's Such an interesting platform.
But the more that I sort of dig into it and what's at stake, the more interesting it becomes to me, right? So, the reason that I think this platform in particular, and for those who aren't Aware or know what a platform is.
A platform is just part of an ecosystem of influence.
It's made up of your premise, which is your idea about how the world can or should be different, um, your positioning, which is what makes that premise or that idea distinct, and any sort of memorable assets that you put in and around, um, those ideas to help communicate and foment them in someone's mind.
Um.
And so the story is a platform.
Platforms are always built for a specific purpose, to influence populations towards one sort of thinking or another in order to Activate or bring about specific actions or behaviors, right? And so the more that I dig into this, the more that I'm seeing that that transition that we're seeing from attention economy to trust economy, and the sort of proxy that comes next is actually at play here.
So what I've been reading and picking up and observing is that.
The next sort of proxy, or at least the the thing that all of this is a proxy for is access.
This is something I did speak about in that previous note.
It's access to human beings, right? People want attention.
Companies, large companies want attention because they want to get access to us so that they can sell us stuff, right? Um, and now they are harvesting for trust, right? Because it is clearly not enough now to only have our attention, especially with the advent of AI and how that's sort of messed up what we can or cannot trust, um, as far as what we are seeing and what we're paying attention to.
Um.
But the thing that's interesting is that.
People are opting out.
of accessibility.
And so what I mean by that is that people are opting out of being accessible to this sort of harvesting that we're talking about, right? They are either exiting society or they're dreaming of doing so.
And so this means that those sort of titans of industry, as it were, won't be able to extract from folks some so easily.
And so it seems like they're grappling with ways to continue to extract.
And that explains why sort of this mirage of consent that used to be there, right, where we'd say, Oh yes, I'll accept these cookies and what have you sort of been stripped away.
And now, um, AI sort of just pillages whatever, um, is on the internet, um, and extracts it and uses it for its own purposes and Um, people will make a product out of you without your consent, whether or not it is filming you in public or what have you, right? And As this is happening.
I think these operations, these companies are realizing that scale and reach and engagement and data capture, these things that sort of ran their economies and economies of scale and how they made money before, that those things are going to be harder to do with people opting out of being accessible.
And so, what their focus now is is creating tools that seem indispensable, that are inevitable.
And so if they sell you that story that this tool is indispensable, that it's inevitable, and we buy that story, then that's their door in to continued access to us.
And you've seen a little bit of that sort of arriving in the form of ads that are now showing up in chat GPT, um, or, um, The people like Elon Musk thinking about creating human implants, right? Because if those implants become something that is indispensable or it is uncomfortable to operate in society without, Then they have direct access to you again, and they can put ads or whatever it happens to be, right? Now people are also opting out of this um sort of economy of extraction, as it were, um, because hard work no longer seems like a guarantee for reward, right? There's sort of this um decoupling is the way that one of my favorite thinkers right now, and Jasmine Bea has put it, um, where this great myth at the center of much of American life, likely at the center of a lot of capitalist society, is sort of collapsing.
Because we see um that the reward that is usually reserved for the hard workers, right? The stories that are usually lionized in our media are not only becoming rarer and rarer, but we see so many people becoming vulnerable to, um, pouring their blood, sweat, and tears into, um, Their work, whether it is a company that they own or like a tiny small business that they own, or a corporation that they work for, um, and not having adequate reward returned to them.
And so all of these things are sort of swirling, um, and so I think that is sort of some of the mess that is behind this story that AI is inevitable.
And so I invite you to explore.
Other platforms around you.
And the undercurrents that sort of fuel them.
So that you can not only, you know, of course, become aware of the dark behavioral engineering that might be occurring around you, right? But also become aware of ways in which you can build your own platform, as it were.
You don't necessarily need to do it for the same reasons that are taking place here.
Um, he's seemingly almost perhaps nefarious, but certainly at the very least, Machiavellian, um.
Yeah, observing how others are building platforms and why they are building platforms and the interests that are at play, I think also make it easier for you to pick out the platforms around you and as a result, make it easier for you to build your own, which you will need for whatever project you are putting out into the world in order to, to amplify the common good.
So, that is what I have been thinking about, um, this week.
Uh, I hope that this has been interesting.
If you have thoughts, feelings, questions, feel free to share, um, or resources or things that you've been reading that you think would continue to add to this conversation, please share.
Um, I always love hearing from you all.
OK, that is it from me for now, um.
Until next time, uh.
Talk soon
NC