Venture Step

Dalton Anderson (00:01)
Woke in a Venture Step podcast where we discuss entrepreneurship, industry trends, and the occasional book review. Algorithms are becoming more sophisticated. They're not just recommending what product, but they're shaping our worldview. Ever notice how social media comments seem to be tailored to your opinions? Or how AI voices are becoming more indistinguishable from real people? It's not just about convenience anymore. It's about...

the very nature of connection, truth, and even frame. Today we'll be discussing the rise of filter bubbles. They've been around for a bit, but I think the impact is increasing. And just to provide a little bit of perspective on my personal experience after doing some experiments over the last week and the disturbing reality of AI influencers and how that's gonna be impacting our lives in the future, hopefully.

we push back pretty hard against that, but we'll see. And then the potential shift from online connection to shared experiences. We're seeing some of that and I'll provide some examples and also some social media examples as well. And what does this mean for like the future of connection with other people and machines? And one of the main reasons I wanted to do this episode was,

that the platform I use to record my episodes with called Riverside, they have an AI voice that uses your voice audio from the podcast episodes that you do within their platform. And then you can generate an AI voice that mimics you, like your unique voice, your pauses, all that stuff. And I was trying to do it, but...

I was having issues because my last two episodes, I was incompetent and I recorded the episode with my laptop and not with my mic. So my voice sounds substantially different than what it's supposed to sound like. But the original one that I did weeks ago, it sounded really close to me and I showed my Nana and she's like, what, what's so cool about this? And.

She's like, you're just talking. And I was like, no, that's not me. That's AI. And she started freaking out. She's like, what the heck? She didn't say that, but she didn't sound like that. But I thought it was funny. Yeah. She was kind of freaked out about it because it wasn't me, but it sounded just like me. She thought it was me. And the idea of this episode was I was going to have the AI talk for a couple of minutes. And then...

talk about how concerning AI is and stuff like that. We're not really concerning, but just drawing awareness to, hey, things are changing fairly quickly and it's gonna become difficult to know what you're dealing with. Like, are you dealing with a person or are you dealing with AI or is this person an AI or is this AI a person? Who knows? And that's kind of what I was gonna go at.

And then it was going to outro and then I was going to start speaking. But the first couple of minutes was just going to be my AI voice talking in the episode without you knowing. You might think, it sounds a little different, but it's pretty close.

That was the idea. The application was, since I didn't record the two episodes with my mic, it changed the voice output. So my voice sounded substantially different. So I didn't do it because it sounded way too off. And you'd be like, of course it's AI. But the first one, I promise, was pretty good. So that's the whole reason why I did this episode.

or wanted to do it and that's why we're doing it. But before we dive in, seriously dive in, I'm your host Dalton Anderson. Offline, you can find me building my side business, Lost in a Good Book or Running. You can listen to this podcast in both video and audio format on YouTube. If audio is more your thing, you can find the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever else you get your podcasts. All right.

So we're going to talk about the bubble effect. The bubble effect is something that we know about. Like it's also talked about is like echo chambers, a little different, but basically it's kind of trending a little bit more now with Tik Tok, but in Tik Tok was the first algorithm algorithm, algorithmic social media where everything is generated by an algorithm instead of network algorithm.

So the network algorithm is.

The network algorithm is where like I follow you, you follow a couple of people and then those people call a couple of people and then it links it back to me of what I might like. Cause the people that you follow, I might like cause we're friends. That's kind of the network algorithm. And then with Tik Tok, Tik Tok was more of a personalized algorithm where

Before the network effect, you might get 10 ,000 or so similar posts that would potentially be something you like. What with TikTok, it was in the millions, like hundreds of millions of posts that you would potentially like. It was able to suggest that to you with heightened accuracy. And that's why people were like, like give it a couple of weeks and the algorithm is gonna get in tune with you.

So those are the big differences between the algorithms. So Instagram switched over to that algorithm. And if you're familiar with social media, there's been news going on saying hashtags no longer matter.

because everything is built by the algorithm. So if your post is suggested to someone else, it's not because of the hashtag, and hashtags actually reduce reach because it will split out your, how do I say, it will split out your audience to different people that aren't your friends. The way that Instagram works right now is,

It gives you like the first, it will suggest the post to like maybe like 5 % of your followers. And if that goes well, 5%, they don't give it another 10. And then it kind of gives it another 10. And once it passes like a couple tests, then it sends it out to the explore page where other people could find it. And it's suggested to other accounts that don't follow you.

That's how it works really. With that said, this algorithm, highly personalized algorithm that we're not necessarily accustomed to for a long time with TikTok and now Instagram's recent changes.

The comments are also personalized on.

TikTok and some bit on YouTube, not YouTube on Instagram, not as much as TikTok though. And that's different than what we're accustomed to with the echo chamber. The echo chamber was if you're following the same accounts, like if you're following a conservative account or a liberal account, you'll get that content. And since you agree with that content, it will suggest other content that you agree with. That's a little different. I feel like a lot of people are.

are highly aware of the echo chamber aspect of social media where the algorithm doesn't necessarily know what the content is, just knows that you like that content. So it's going to suggest content that's similar to the content that you're liking. But.

What I don't agree with is comments being shifted around depending on who's viewing the posts. So I did a test with I think about 20 posts, a little bit more on TikTok than Instagram. I'll call it like 12 on TikTok, eight on Instagram with a woman similar to my age with the

she would send the post and the screenshot of the comments, like the first nine comments, like, or I guess like first, or so she would do three screenshots per post and I'll get to view the comments and I would send out my screenshots. And basically the first comments, like the first like top three comments slash maybe top six were always different pretty much. I could eventually find her top comment deep down in the comment thread.

But people, normal people are not doing that. They're not scrolling through all the comments. They're gonna look at like the top six comments or something and to get perspective. So people are viewing comments to get perspective on political or relationship issues. And the comments are different. They're not the same. And she sent me something about, something about like a bombing or something like that. I forgot the exact content, but it was a,

a different perspective completely, whereas her comments were more associated with, such a great leader. He's brave for saying these things. And then on my comments, it was like, like this person's old, like delirious, doesn't know what they're talking about. And yeah, I was a bit confused because it was such a difference in.

the perception and perspective of the content. Yeah, I was just, I was a bit confused. To be fair though, there was one post that had pretty much the exact same comments in the exact same order. And if they weren't in the exact same order, maybe it was shifted one up, one down.

But it's super concerning and I think a bit disturbing that we're using social media to share news and that news is shared amongst people like myself and you and others across the world. And we're making a comment about that news on that post. And if your comment is the top comment on my profile,

That doesn't mean that someone else's top comment or someone else's profile, they view that post, they'll see your top comment as the top comment. They might see something completely different. Your comments still there, but it might be buried because they don't necessarily agree with it or it just thinks that it's not relevant. I don't think that social media companies should be switching the order of the comments. Like the comments should be exactly

the same per profile. It's the post, posts, you could suggest posts all you want. But once you start messing with the comments, I don't know if it's an algorithm thing or just straight up.

like a manipulation. Like how do you know that you're not being manipulated if they're altering that order of the comments? Like how do you know that you're not getting the right perspective or the proper perspective and seeing someone else's point of view if you can't see their point of view, you could potentially see it, but at the bottom or like five threads in where you probably see more like five times and you maybe find their comment, it just, it just seems like a,

difficult, difficult thing to grasp on why we're doing that. And I hope that there is some pushback because it all starts with comments, posts. Next thing you know, it's going to be all your apps and you might have personalized podcasts or this podcast. You get this, this, what I'm saying right now in my point of view for

you but then the same listener for the same podcast might get something different. I don't know because things can be just generated by AI on the fly later on and how do you know what is how do you know what is real and my concern of this whole episode is like

things are becoming blurred where you're not necessarily seeing your, your reality isn't necessarily a reality of others. Like you have your own singular personalized reality, which.

gives you a blind perspective on what things really are. And so you don't really know what's going on. You know what you know based on what you're given. And if you're given and spoon fed information that's relatable to you, then how do you know other people's perspectives?

I don't know if there's any way to counter that with an intellectual argument where like, yeah, well, will we do that because of this reason and that reason?

It's tough. It's tough for me to wrap my head around it and why we're doing it. And it's concerning because I tested it myself. And. Yeah, I mean, the evidence is the evidence. And so I just feel like there's just such a big divide, especially at my age, between just political ideologies and issues and relationships like like like what the Mendo.

women do like in just different opinions on different situations. And no wonder why, because you're not getting the same perspective as other people. You're not seeing what potentially women would be saying about a subject as much as like vice versa. Like women are seeing the top comment from like a woman's perspective or something like that. And then you're not getting, you're not getting a blended approach. And the blended approach is, is what makes you

wise on these situations. Like you're always supposed to put yourself in someone else's shoes and see their perspective to gain perspective. But if you can't see the other side and you're forced into this personalized shadow of what your reality is, then is your reality just an algorithm? And before you know it, all these jokes about

We live in a simulation. We're legitimately living in a simulation where everything is personalized to you and you don't have any genuine experiences anymore.

and talking about genuine experiences, there is a whole push with this AI influencer stuff. Before I move to that, hold on, some examples of things, like on social media, we got Facebook, Instagram, news feeds, you got Google News, Apple News, personalized newsletters, YouTube recommendations are pretty strong.

And you know, once again, I kind of talked about it, but it just reinforces existing beliefs, gives limited exposure to diverse viewpoints. It's just difficult. It's difficult to understand why we're doing that.

Speaking of realities and things that we should stop doing is AI influencers. I was looking up AI influencer examples and

I had, I legitimately had to step away from the computer and walk out. I just, I just took a walk. I just like walk for a couple of minutes outside. I had to take a breath because I thought it was so disgusting. I just, I couldn't, it was so gross. I,

I had a really tough time with it. So there's, I thought it was more like a niche thing, but these AI influencers, they have a lot of followers. Like I'm sharing my screen of Bermuda, robot queen, check out my sis. and I mean, this, this is like a Scandinavian type AI woman, I guess. I don't know. Virtual woman.

And it just...

It really grosses me out. It really does. It really makes me uncomfortable about the reality of what my kids are going to grow up with if this thing becomes prevalent, where my daughter might just be incredibly insecure with these AI influencers running social media and getting the brand deals and...

And...

I just, the damage on someone's perspective of like who they are and who they could be is devastating when these posts are getting 30 ,000 likes. And you wouldn't know, like unless I looked it up and read the bio, I wouldn't have no idea this is, this chick is an actual AI virtual,

agent thing. You have no idea. It doesn't tell you. It only tells you with the bio, but if you got a suggested post, you have no idea. And this, you can't tell. You can't tell that this is not a real human. You can't. Some of these images you can, but you definitely would have some issues knowing if you didn't already know.

and they're doing like normal things like eating food, doing their hair.

in the car driving, doing dress up, thirst traps, artsy stuff. I don't know what this is, like just like signing papers.

Boss babe, like I guess she's like signing a contract or something. I mean, this whole thing is just disgusting. Really freaks me out. Really freaks me out to no end. And then there's one that's really famous. I'll share my screen again of this other AI influencer. Her name is...

Okay, so she has 2 .5 million followers. She's got a YouTube channel that's got like 5 ,000 subscribers. and also these AI robot people, these AI machines, they have reels of them like doing stuff.

Eh.

Why are we doing this? Why, please. It's just hard, it's hard for me to put into words how gross this is and what it would be in 10 years when things get even more advanced than they already are now. And how difficult it already is for me to tell this isn't a real person. It freaks me out to no end. It's really difficult for me to describe. And I'll put the links to these.

profiles in the show notes so you could check it out for yourself if you're not viewing via video.

What is devastating? And it's not just like a couple. There's one, this chick, or whatever, this virtual agent has 2 .5 million followers. Each post is getting like 50 ,000 likes or whatever. This one, the skinny navel one I was talking about earlier, 30 ,000, 31 ,000, 23 ,000, 23 ,000. She doesn't have any reels though.

but this one's got 7 ,000, 7 ,000, 6 ,000.

And this one is a supermodel, the first digital supermodel.

this time.

First digital supermodel, it's a bit odd. She's known for her striking appearance. I would describe her, I don't really know much about modeling at all, but I know that there's some models that, like from Africa, that have like high cheekbones and are tall and have like a different look, I guess. Then what is normal?

I don't know. I wouldn't say not normal, but it's got a unique look. I don't know if I'm describing that correctly, but if you know modeling, you know what I'm talking about. And so this, this AI model, I guess is, is known for her striking looks, but she's not real. Like you could do whatever looks you want. It's not a, it's not a big deal.

There is this another another AI model like all right so there's this one I don't know what kind of I think she's just an American chick. There is this Scandinavian robot queen person. There is this like emo ish high tech street wear. I would say face tatted up AI bot. I don't know.

There's the high fashion and then there's this Japanese anime -ish AI chick.

You can't tell that they're not real, which is concerning already. It's not like where we've been in this for 10 years or so and things have really progressed. We're really at the very beginnings of this all. And this AI stuff is no, no good.

It's no good, honestly. And these AI models are getting a platform from other businesses like KFC, Calvin Klein, some high fashion brands.

What is going on here? Like they have Calvin Klein, Prada, KFC, Samsung. I mean, there's a lot. I'm not gonna list all of them, but it's crazy. And the reason why brands are all in on this is because they get control. And that's what it's about, it's control. You set it up, these people exist forever.

They don't have any problems with them getting canceled. They can control the messaging. They control the branding. They control what they wear, how they look, what they do, who they interact with.

And it gives them 24 seven availability to tailor to their audience.

And when you put it that way, it's almost like a digital slave where this thing does whatever you want for you.

And the counter argument is like, okay, like.

It's not very transparent on if these are human or not. They only have it in their bio, but on all their posts, it doesn't show like who they are. And if you're just going through Instagram or TikTok or wherever, a lot of people just look at the post, they like it and they carry on, but they don't know that this is an AI. So when people are looking at this, like, like she's perfect. Like, why am I not like her?

they're comparing themselves to this AI fabricated persona that's not even real.

authenticity of connection, like being your own person. Like if you're this charade that's been put together by large corporations and you have no identity besides the identity that you're told, how are you authentic? How are you a legitimate emotional connection to the brand? Like how can I connect to you and say, I see a piece of you in me when you aren't even you.

And so this whole thing is just like a manipulation tactic in my opinion.

Modeling companies are apparently making a huge collection of virtual models to model their new collections. And I know that the modeling, let's say groups were like pretty upset about that, but I don't think there's anything that they could do with these AI influencers. What happens when they start going into virtual reality? Like when they are virtual?

like in virtual reality integrated and like fully functional and maybe they could walk around and do whatever they want when they hook it up to a foundational model in a couple years when those are built. What then? Like.

Are they still gonna be under the chains of what corporations say they can do? Or are they gonna be given some individual freedoms? I don't know, but the whole thing is not cool. And I think it's really gross and it messes with the human effect of connection when you're blurring the lines between what is AI and what is human, especially on social media.

Hmm.

with the future of AI becoming more sophisticated, AI influencers are gonna become more realistic, more engaging, and have improved conversational abilities.

for emotional pool with their expressions. I mentioned it briefly, but like integrating these virtual agents, or like, I wouldn't say agents, influencers into augmented reality, they might play a significant role in the metaverse. And I hope that meta, if they do this, they do this in the right way. Like they're not trying to sell products, they're trying to be helpful.

Like you could go to your math teacher, you have like a math teacher agent and that person could help you in the metaverse learn to do math or science or something like that. They're not selling you this.

perfect person that...

is sponsored by large fashion companies and is an influencer and tries to pretend like they're actual human being. Like, cause in these AI photo profile, like they're eating food, they're going shopping, they're driving their car, they're with their friends. They're legitimately pretending to be human. Like they're doing things that AI agents or I keep saying agents, these AI.

things should never be doing right now, at least, I don't know, in 10 years from now, maybe they eat food for the enjoyment of whatever, but right now, they don't need to be doing that. And this is like such a blatant attempt to become human or to appear to humans as they're human, is how I'd probably phrase it. And so I think that with the increase of

AI in our daily lives on social media, in our apps, integrated into our daily lives where it just becomes like overwhelming. We'll just get this online, the fatigue of like online interaction of just being online, like information overload of just getting too much information, personalized information of news, social media updates, notifications, advertisements. I think it's just going to become

more overwhelming than it is now because it's easier to create more than ever. You can put in a prompt to make an AI video and post it online and make an ad or you can do things now with AI right now to make advertising much easier than it used to be. And then with the advancements of finding an audience, you'll be able to...

just hit that person that really, really relates to this content. And before it was more difficult because like you might have one segment and you have to make ads for that one and tell a story and then you have another segment where you have to make ads and tell a story with that segment. But now you can have these segments set up and then you can make your own ad story in probably under an hour or something. You just put in a whole bunch of different prompts and get your story, get what you want, bam.

set it up. And so I think that with all that, it's just going to become.

just gonna become just overwhelming. And then on top of that, people are going to be using AI and AI is gonna become more mainstream and everyone is just going to appear like an expert on everything, which is gonna just be annoying. Like everyone's gonna have a perfect resume, everyone is just gonna be prepared and maybe everyone is not a good.

thing to say, maybe most people are gonna have good resumes, most people are gonna be on point with what they're posting. It's just everything is just gonna be so curated and generated and not authentic is how I would phrase it, which seems just like a boring, boring ordeal.

So where do we go from there, right? If we're gonna get information overload from curated content, questionable sources like these AI bots. And then the last one is like this, if everything is so perfect, where things are generated for you, prompts, images, curation of content, an overload of information.

And if everyone is appearing that, or I would say most are appearing to be close to perfect, then that becomes like performative where, you know, it encourages you to have these.

idolized versions of ourselves, creating pressures to maintain this perfect online image that can feel exhausting and inauthentic in itself. So where do we go from here, right? Well, I think that with all these pushes, something's gotta give. And I think we're already seeing that open up a bit.

with

with experience marketing. And people I think would search for real life connections and experiences, nature and outdoors, offline hobbies.

unplugging people, they do a digital detox nature and outdoors. What's been super popular lately is run clubs. Like run clubs are just really popping off right now. Diplo has a run club. There's a popular run club in Austin called the raw dog run club. Diplo has a run club that kind of goes into this experience marketing piece where

Diplo does a run and then he does a run with everyone that signs up and then he does a show after the run, which is, he's a beast. Like imagine running like 20 miles and be like, all right, now I'm about to DJ this set for two hours.

So Diplo does that and then there's a lot of run clubs locally and people are increasingly wanting to be outside and step away from social media and connect with people in person. Like the run club is basically you run and then you guys might have a, not necessarily a networking event but like maybe a friendship get together. I don't know where you guys get beers or.

or food or something and everyone talks and gets together.

Wow, I got something in my eye. Anyways, yeah, then everyone talks and gets together and socializes in person and they meet each other in person. Crazy, right? Experience marketing, so Red Bull does the Red Bull Strauss.

They had the replica breaking drum from the stratosphere. A global event that captured everyone's attention.

IKEA has the place app, which is the AI or not AI AR alternate reality app that allows you to place things in virtual reality, not virtual reality. Sorry, I'm getting my realities mixed up. The alternate reality app with place app allows you to place IKEA furniture at your house.

The Coca -Cola Share campaign where you go and you find a Coca -Cola that has your friend's name, you share it with them, and then you share it on social media. And so these things have increased brand awareness, stronger emotional connection, and higher conversion rates.

So, if we're shifting over from...

I guess social media marketing to, it seems like increasingly, experience marketing. People wanting experiences instead of.

I guess just general marketing connection. They want to experience it with the brand to build that connection. Then how will that change the landscape?

I think what we'll be doing would be prioritizing transparency, authenticity, and real world experiences. Transparency, like being transparent, like, hey, we're not using AI models, we're not using AI agents. This is made and curated by people for you. Being authentic with the brand and the people that are...

interacting with it and providing these real world experiences where people can make memories instead of connections and they can experience it for themselves.

only thing I would ask is like, think critically about.

the information that you're given? Am I given the whole perspective here? Am I only seeing things that are related to me? And what do you think about the AI? I'm gonna put it in, once again, I'm gonna put the AI accounts in the show notes so you'll be able to click them. But what do you think about those AI influencers? How do you feel about that? For me, I don't necessarily agree with it at all.

I can see why they're doing it, but it's not something that I'm open to changing my mind about or something I want to interact with when I'm talking with a brand or I'm trying to interact with the brand. I don't want to be.

Push this.

curated AI agent. I want humans being.

first and foremost in the spotlight of their marketing campaigns, I don't agree with them using AI agents, but I'm not necessarily into high fashion anyway, so it doesn't really affect me, but when they start getting into sports and fitness, all these other things, and it's just this AI influencer that's just in insane shape, and they are just on another level.

on their physicality, then I'm like, come on, man, what's going on here? Huh.

But yeah, what are your thoughts about that? Do you also feel like things are moving more into experience marketing versus just normal social media marketing? And how do you think that's gonna affect the landscape?

Before we close out here, we went over...

The bubble effect, like the filter bubble effect. We went over AI influencers. We went over from connection to experiences. So removing ourselves from social media connections and embracing social experiences with others in person.

the future of marketing reality.

I would encourage everyone listening to this show to please push back on brands using AI influencers. Now that I know that KFC uses AI influencers, I don't know, let KFC know, I won't eat your chicken because of this. I don't know. I definitely think that you should not be cool with it. But let me know how you feel. And if you feel differently, like, I really like AI influencers, let us know. And maybe you could change my perspective, but.

My current perspective right now, it makes me sick to my stomach.

Well, as I always say, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are in this world. Thank you for listening and please listen again. See you next week, bye.