#33: Communication in the Digital Age

Ian Bowie
Hello and welcome to AI Unfiltered with me Ian Bowie and our resident expert Michael Stormbom, where we will be talking about everything to do with AI in our modern digital society and what the future holds for all of us.

Michael Stormbom
Our topic today is communication in the digital age and more specifically human communication in a digital age.

Ian Bowie
Especially here in Finland. I suspect that the digital age has given Finns an even greater excuse to reduce at least face to face human contact.

Michael Stormbom
I would say so wouldn’t you? Yeah. And if you ever use those food delivery services, like Wolt, for example.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, I used them in at the height of the pandemic. Yeah.

Michael Stormbom
Before the pandemic so what they did is that you know, they they ring on your door and you open the door and then you interact with the food delivery person, but of course during corona they introduced this contactless thing where they just leave it outside your door and knock in and run away quickly before…

Ian Bowie
The sort of thing we used to do when I was a kid. Yeah.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah. Well, so even less human interaction.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. Well, I mean, I’ve noticed it because of course, you know.

Michael Stormbom
Or just in the supermarket you used to self service checkout machines instead of the

Ian Bowie
Yeah, that’s interesting, because I don’t think that’s quite as popular as I would have thought it would be. I mean, I’m pretty sociable. I like the self service checkout. But that’s because then it means you don’t have to queue. Generally speaking, there’s always 1 point is free, because even though I’m English, I just don’t like queueing. But no, I what I’m thinking about is I wonder if the telephone companies have gotten the statistics with regard to talking time versus texting for every mobile connection that they have.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, I mean, I speak so rarely on the phone these days.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, most Finnish people do.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah. I mean, if someone calls is like, okay, now something horrible has happened. Yeah, no, it’s an emergency. Yeah. Otherwise…

Ian Bowie
Otherwise you text? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don’t know how, you know, those kinds of statistics are in other countries. But certainly here in Finland, I know people would rather text.

Michael Stormbom
Well, yeah the number of text messages outnumber the amount of phone calls for sure.

Ian Bowie
I mean, actually, to be honest with you. I have actually seen people texting each other in the same room. Yes, really. No, I kid you not. Horrendous. So, yeah. Human communication in the digital era is at least direct human communication, face to face, seems to be diminishing.

Michael Stormbom
Well, for sure, and especially during the corona times, when you really couldn’t meet people necessarily face to face either. I think that is exacerbated

Ian Bowie
Well you could at a distance outside.

Michael Stormbom
At a distance outside yes.

Ian Bowie
No, even though he actually the propensity to text. You can even send an email and get a reply by text. It’s really weird. Things just seem to be glued to their mobile phones and they love to text. I think they’d rather text above all else.

Michael Stormbom
Above all other forms of humans communication.

Ian Bowie
I wonder how many couples engage in text message sex in this country. That will be one for the pollsters wouldn’t it.

Michael Stormbom
We have to save it for the AI Unfiltered After Dark episoide.

Ian Bowie
It’s supposed to be unfiltered, isn’t it? Yeah.

Michael Stormbom
But still sufficiently filtered that we don’t get thrown of the platforms.

Ian Bowie
All the emojis that are available today? Yes, it could get quite hot and steamy. Actually. My phone has gone into meltdown. Yes. Yeah. I mean, of course, digitalization or digital forms of communication are actually also helping people and I actually wonder I don’t even know it might even exist if you think about using AI with the sort of eye recognition and that you could actually type using your eyes.

Michael Stormbom
While that’s how Stephen Hawking’s device worked.

Ian Bowie
What a fantastic invention.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, absolutely and better other people who have mobility impairments. Yes. You can use your eye movement to..

Ian Bowie
What an absolutely wonderful innovation. I mean, the whole digital thing. I mean, you know, if you think that I can sit here in Finland, and I can have a video conversation with my grandson in the UK in real time. Yeah. I mean, that is pretty cool.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, I mean, I do remember in the 90s as being just amazed by the fact that you can send an email across to the other end of the world. Yeah. And it’s practically immediate. Yeah, so I mean, that has certainly changed.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. When it came along for Skype back in the day. United families again, didn’t it or reunited families.

Michael Stormbom
And I mean, even the, the early like, chat things, you know, IRC, Finnish invention, by the way, it’s one of these Internet Relay Chat. I remember sitting in the mind just like talking to people about heavy metal, I think was the topic with just people all over the world.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, of course. I mean, recently, if you think about Teams, Zoom, and there’s probably countless other similar programs. You know, I mean, a lot of businesses wouldn’t have been able to function without one of those.

Michael Stormbom
No, and even by and large, it moved to a remote world went over many companies quite, quite okay, because it was

Ian Bowie
It was really pretty seamless. Actually, wasn’t it, I think it surprised a lot of them. The most surprising thing is that they have now discovered how easily remote working works.

Michael Stormbom
And no one wants to come back.

Ian Bowie
Well the work is done, but the companies want them back. I mean, that’s the thing that has kind of surprised me a little bit.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, well, I mean, I can definitely see it both ways. I mean, especially if it’s you have a long commute. I mean those are just a giant waste of time sitting hours on the road and then going back it’s just about… Okay, fine. If you want to be on the road and listen to our podcast, for example, then by all means, but but if you don’t have to live that way, then then why would you give us

Ian Bowie
some people just like yeah, especially in Finland. No, no, no, I don’t need to come and meet my colleagues. Oh, wonderful.

Michael Stormbom
That’s what I mean. If you want to commute to by all means commute. I’m not saying that but of course, if you can work from home, then certainly that’s more practical than sitting on the road for hours on end.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, but still, you know, managers are starting to almost insist.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, but on the other hand, I think because you do lose something if you’re not, if you don’t have the physical presence. I don’t mean in the sense of, I need to see what this person is doing at all times. But rather justthat, you know, having a chat by the by the coffee maker, that sort of, that sort of thing. And those are types of interaction which don’t really happen very organically if you sit at home.

Ian Bowie
Well no, no, they won’t. But although…

Michael Stormbom
I just I mean, all the nonverbal communication that we really can’t have over Teams, for example.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. Well, I mean, that is true, but I don’t think it needs to happen five days a week.

Michael Stormbom
No, definitely not. I think on occasion it would be good. Yes.

Ian Bowie
I mean, that’s what some companies are insisting on. You know, it’s all over. We want you back in the office. Why? Yeah. Yeah, no, no, you know, what, once a week, once a fortnight even.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, I think that would be very perfectly sufficient, really?

Ian Bowie
Yeah, yeah. It’s always struck me as a bit odd. This insistence of being in the…

Michael Stormbom
We have to go back to exactly the way things were prior to corona. But what why?

Ian Bowie
Indeed, I don’t think anybody’s really thought it through have they.

Michael Stormbom
No it’s just we had to return as quickly as possible to the status quo ante.

Ian Bowie
Yes, it’s a safety thing.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah. Yeah, I don’t, fear of change or something.

Ian Bowie
But I mean, you know, going back to digital communication, the latest I don’t know, is it a useful innovation or is it just a fad, but you can now use your mobile phone as a satellite phone. It has this possibility now to use satellites. So if you’re in a dead zone, and you’re in trouble, you can actually contact somebody via whatever satellite happens to be passing overhead at the time. And request emergency service.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, although satphones don’t strike me as particularly new.

Ian Bowie
They’re not but the fact that you can actually do it from your your standard mobile phone and that’s what’s new, right. So I think Samsung have been offering it for a while. Apple on the latest iPhone 14 offer that service as well at least on the Pro models.

Michael Stormbom
Maybe this is our way of getting some listeners in Antarctica because that’s the only continent we don’t have listeners from

Ian Bowie
No, but I’ve got no idea how much you can get charged for making a phone call life. But yeah, if you’re an adventurer and you go off into the dead zone, you are still contactable.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah. So your boss can reach you still and like, hey, where are those reports?

Ian Bowie
I’ve got a feeling that if you’re one of those kinds of people, you don’t actually have a boss. Sponsors, possibly. Possibly. Yes. Yeah. Maybe not. That kind of boss anyway.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, no. Or then you’re running away from the boss.

Ian Bowie
Or the police?

Michael Stormbom
We’re not advocating running from the police. Well, that’s the thing. You have to be careful about this era ofd digital communication that irony and satire doesn’t always…

Ian Bowie
Always doesn’t, doesn’t come across very well, necessarily.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, one just needs to be careful with digital media in this age of fake news and so forth, so you can only trust pen and paper. So what we should do we should handwrite the transcripts of these episodes.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. So my handwriting is so awful these days. I don’t think anybody be able to read that.

Michael Stormbom
My handwriting is terrible. It’s always been… so thank God for computers. Otherwise nobody would be able to read…

Ian Bowie
Well I wouldn’t be able to write the sort of copious amounts that I have written by hand. I mean, you know, I take my hat off to people like Shakespeare and, and all of these pre-typewriter-pre computers writers because, you know, he think about how much they wrote and what they were using to write, my god, you know, I mean, think about these guys.

Michael Stormbom
They would hand-write the entire Bible. Yeah, Okay. Yeah, we need a new copy of the Bible. Start writing.

Ian Bowie
Illuminated scripts. Look at the artwork involved in those. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely incredible. Mind you having said that, it did take many years.

Michael Stormbom
Well, that’s the thing. Now we’re living in a society of instant gratification. So yeah. You don’t even have to learn to draw anymore. You can just…

Ian Bowie
You can still have illuminated scripts because you can just farm it out to Dall-E now.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, absolutely. I just read a very interesting, I’m actually reading a book at the moment, called the Semiotics of Emoticons. And there’s a little story in that book. And it was about a guy who was convicted of robbing a bank in Philadelphia and America. And it was based on… what actually happened was during the bank robbery, he became a victim. He was actually shot, and he ended up in a coma, when he woke up, they had his phone and the last message that he had sent from his phone was a series of three emoticons. One was of a gun, another was of an explosion, and another was of a man running with a bag of cash. And so the prosecution proved that this emoticon message was enough to prove intent to rob the bank and they got him. So of course, going on from that what it means now is that emoticons can be introduced into courts of law to prove intent or to prove the emotional, mental state of the person at the time. Yeah, quite interesting.

Michael Stormbom
It is but perfectly logical as well. I mean, if you were to write I am going to go rob a bank I mean, in that message, with those emoticons, they communicate exactly the same thing, don’t they?

Ian Bowie
Well, they do. Yeah, but of course, it’s not words. You know, if you say I am going to rob a bank, that is a very, you know, definite statement of intent. But if you just show three funny pictures of a gun and explosion and a man running with a bag of cash, I suppose…

Michael Stormbom
Well, if you don’t put it in the context…

Ian Bowie
Of course. I mean, I suppose you have a little bit more wiggle room to argue that well, you know, there’s a bit of fun.

Michael Stormbom
But not if you then subsequently go and rob a bank? I think that it’s a pretty clear demonstration of intent.

Ian Bowie
The emoticons made me do it, you know. I was manipulated. Yeah. No, I suppose that’s true. Well, I mean, because of course you know what the thing with these emoticons is, for example, a lot of people now are starting a text message with a smiley face rather than saying hello or hi. They start with a smiley face to try and set the scene, even if, for example, the message itself might have a negative connotation. They still want to keep it friendly.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, sort of soften the blow in a way.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And it’s the same with ending messages. People are often ending messages with emoticons, positive emoticons.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, I found it ending… you know, punctuation. So and if you’re writing like a text message and you put a period after it Yeah, it sounds like you’re very, very serious about this. It looks more serious, more severe.

Ian Bowie
I just, I just read, it was in a book I was reading that, and it was something to do with I suppose the rules of… the etiquette, it was the etiquette of texting. And a full stop was seen as negative. Yeah, that you were kind of like stamping your foot, boom. Obviously things like exclamation marks, uppercase, shouting, angry. And quite a few other things. I can’t remember now but yeah, there is certainly an etiquette around texting these days. Yeah. And you’ve got to be very, very careful because it is a bit of a minefield. You know, you can actually inadvertently send out the wrong signal to somebody just by using a full stop in the wrong place.

Michael Stormbom
No indeed. Yeah. And especially if he was a person who normally doesn’t use full stops and all of a sudden there’s a full stop and that’s..

Ian Bowie
Well, that was the other thing as well. Yes.

Michael Stormbom
Like, okay, no, now stuff is serious? Yes. Yeah.

Ian Bowie
Even though it was just an accident. Yeah. Yeah. It’s quite interesting. And then actually this book that I’m reading, they did a study and the people who were the control group, they were aged between 18 and 22. And they all said, I think it was a professor who was conducting this study, and he was in his maybe 40s. And he’d asked them, you know, what would you think if I sent you an emoticon message? And they all said it would be very strange. And he’d asked, well, why? And they said, well, because you’re old. And I sort of think you want, bloody hell. You know, I’m sitting here. I’m 57 years old. I use emoticons all the time in my text messages. Yeah, I think they’re fun. Yeah, no, it was a bit ageist isn’t it?

Michael Stormbom
Very much so. Yeah. Those little brats.

Ian Bowie
Yes, absolutely. I can’t even remember the term for them now. We’ve got all kinds of you know labels for these people. Now you had the millennials, but they’re too they’re too young to be millennial

Michael Stormbom
I’m a millennial. Yeah. Yeah. And Gen Z, I think it’s the…

Ian Bowie
Gen Zee, there’s Generation Zed as well.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, that’s Zee, Generation Zed, yes.

Ian Bowie
Is it?

Michael Stormbom
Yeah.

Ian Bowie
Actually, I mean, that’s the other thing with automation and writing. Is writing slowly becoming less relevant as we become more visually oriented. You know, if you think about the most popular kind of sites now that go around, I mean, even even us here now, you know, we deliberately kept this down to 20 minutes because we know that people’s attention spans are not that long.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, for sure.

Ian Bowie
So you know, Instagram, Tik Tok. I mean, I’m sure that you know, the vast majority of very successful videos on YouTube are quite short. And Pinterest.

Michael Stormbom
I don’t know how popular Pinterest is these days. I know it’s still around. But yeah.

Ian Bowie
But the fact is that, you know, a lot of the very successful websites… alright, Twitter, bing, bong, sort of stuff as well, isn’t it, you know? So,

Michael Stormbom
Twitter has a fraction of the user base of Instagram and on tick tock

Ian Bowie
Absolutely. Yeah. So you know, I wonder how relevant in 50 years writing’s even going to be because I…

Michael Stormbom
Maybe we’ll just have like a direct connection to the brain and just output so you don’t need to…

Ian Bowie
Yeah, I did an experiment with with some students a little while ago. Can you create a meaningful sentence purely using emojis? And yes, you can. Yeah, yeah. So I just wonder if we are slowly slowly moving into a more visually oriented way of communication. But even even the university has said that they’re having to rewrite courses to accommodate, you know, the latest generation’s lack of interest in reading long texts.

Michael Stormbom
Oh, that’s interesting, actually. I mean I can imagine the university books weren’t… and I mean, nothing against university textbooks except…

Ian Bowie
But I mean, I’ve always thought it’s a lot about how the subject matter is presented. You can take anything and make it boring or you can take even you know, maybe the most mundane topics and make them in some way interesting. You know, it’s very much… teaching English you know, you it can be it can be as boring as hell, or you can make it interesting.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, for sure. I mean, not to criticize my, the teaching of the Finnish language in for us Swedish speakers. But yeah, it could have been a little bit more interesting and engaging, geared towards the actual interactive, practical use of… so I mean, I can name every grammatical or every noun case. Yeah, but can I use them? No not so much.

Ian Bowie
There you go.

Michael Stormbom
If you can make yourself understood, isn’t that the thing?

Ian Bowie
Yeah.

Ian Bowie
You’ve been listening to me, Ian Bowie, and my colleague, Michael Stormbom, on AI Unfiltered and for more episodes. Please go to aiunfiltered.com Thank you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai