A Few Things That Freaked Me Out Recently

For this week’s issue of The Tilt, I actually had a different article ready to go. It was another deep dive into my thoughts on AI. I’ve been working on a much larger thesis around this topic for a couple weeks now, sharing pieces of it with a few smart people and getting feedback.

As I was ready to hit publish, I decided to go a different direction.

I’ve been going down the rabbit hole of AI and I’m too close to it right now.

If you’ve been reading the past few issues, you’ve probably noticed a pattern. We’ve talked a lot about artificial intelligence and how it’s going to reshape content creation, marketing, discovery and, honestly, a lot of our lives.

All of that matters. I believe most of it.

But when you spend enough time with something you start to see it everywhere. So this week I wanted to step back and talk about something slightly different.

Over the past few weeks, a handful of small things have happened that have honestly freaked me out a little bit.

Nothing dramatic. Just little moments that made me pause.

Epic Face

The first one happened at Epic Universe in Orlando. We had an amazing time. The Harry Potter ride alone is worth the trip. Absolutely fantastic.

But one of the rides in the Dark Universe area caught my attention for a different reason.

Before you get on the ride, you have to store your stuff in a locker. Pretty standard for theme parks. But instead of using a key or a wristband or a pass code, the locker opens with your face.

You walk up to a camera. It scans your face. The locker opens.

When the ride is over, you walk back up to the same locker, stand in front of another camera, and it recognizes your face and opens again.

It worked perfectly. Smooth. Fast. No friction.

The whole thing wigged me out a little bit.

A YouTube Kid

The second moment happened yesterday at the airport. I was sitting two chairs away from a kid who couldn’t have been more than four years old. They had headphones on staring into an iPad.

At first I didn’t think much of it. Kids watch videos all the time.

But I looked over and realized they weren’t watching a single video. They were scrolling through YouTube recommendations. Scroll. Tap. Scroll again.

Four years old, navigating an algorithm.

Now I’m sure it was YouTube Kids or some kind of parental setting. I’m sure there were filters in place.

But the thing that hit me was this. There is an algorithm somewhere deciding what that child sees next. What entertains them. What keeps them watching. What holds their attention.

And neither of us have any real idea how that works. Hello Mom and Dad…do you know what’s happening with your kid?

I definitely had flashbacks to The Matrix.

Who am I to judge?…but it did scare me a little bit.

Checkout Please

Before the flight, I went to grab a protein drink and some hummus (don’t judge). Anyway, there was a long line at the checkout. A human was directing some people to the self-checkout and others to another human being checking people out.

As I was approaching the end of the line, the person in front of me let me go first because he wanted the self-checkout line, not the human.

Let that sink in for a bit.

No Social in Social

Another moment happened a couple weeks ago when I walked into a restaurant and realized nobody was talking. Every table had someone looking down at a phone. Couples. Families. Friends. Everyone physically together, but mentally somewhere else.

Again, nothing shocking. We’ve all seen it.

But when you notice it all at once, it feels strange.

It happens a lot during intermission when we go see musicals at the wonderful Playhouse Square Cleveland. My wife and I have been a member for over 20 years. I remember in the early days, intermission would happen and everyone would talk about what they just experienced. Lately, once the curtain comes down and the lights come up, the heads look down at their devices. It’s eerily quiet.

None of these moments are catastrophic on their own. Technology has always changed how we behave. This is just the new version of that story.

But when you stack them together, they make you pause.

Face scanners opening lockers. Four-year-olds navigating recommendation engines. Shoppers preferring the computer over the human. Rooms full of people sitting together while living somewhere else.

Sometimes the future doesn’t arrive with a bang. It shows up quietly in small moments like these.

And every once in a while, it’s worth stepping back and asking ourselves a simple question.

Are we shaping the tools…or are the tools slowly shaping us?

My advice?

Tell someone you love them. Ask someone how their day went. Call someone who you haven’t talked to in a while. Look around.