TikTok, Burn Book & Flexible Working
5 in 5 - Brave & Heart HeartBeat #195 ❤️
This week we’re discussing the huge news that Americans may be losing their access to TikTok, Kara Swisher’s new Burn Book on the giants of Tech, and asking what exactly is AI modelling?
Plus, we talk about the idea of “high touch” vs “high tech” and the new Flexible Working bill.
Let’s get into it.
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#1 - Americans vs. TikTok
The US have finally made their national security decision on TikTok – Bytedance have got six months to find a US company to buy TikTok, or they have to shut down their operations in the US.
A congressional committee voted unanimously to advance the bill, which aims to “protect the national security of the United States from the threat posed by foreign adversary controlled applications”.
Some people are obviously pretty upset about TikTok being stolen from them just because the US are mad about China. Not a shock, considering it’s the most used app in the history of ever (we have no statistics to back that up right now, but let’s be honest, we all know it’s true so let’s just accept it).
Now, we know that the US are doing this for political reasons and not because they’re concerned about the influence TikTok has on young people, or how addictive it is. But, picture this, you’re addicted to TikTok, and from one day to the next, it disappears.
Young (and not so young) people are struggling with constant scrolling, shortening attention spans and consumer obsession, could this be a drastic solution? Much like banning smoking in public places, people are annoyed about it, but in the long run, might it be better for you…?
Or, are we too far into it? The reality is, there are probably companies that have already created an exact replica TikTok replacement and are just waiting to be the quickest to get it out.
As Trump said, “If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business”. We have no notes… Especially since Instagram has just overtaken TikTok as the most downloaded app ever – are they already looking for a replacement?
#2 – Kara Swisher Takes On Big Tech
Kara Swisher is the author of a new book looking back on her life among the giants of Big Tech as journalist specialising in studying the biggest names in Silicon Valley, and she does NOT hold back.
The book is called Burn Book, which yes, is a reference to the burn book in the film Mean Girls in which the main characters write character assassinations of their high school colleagues, and with good reason.
Swisher described the book as being about “love gone wrong” because she though that tech could have been the “saviour of humanity”. She still maintains that “the problem isn’t tech. It’s people”.
And more specifically, those people are Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the founders of Google – all of whom get dressed down in the book.
The turning point, for her, was when all the big tech boys “snuck in” to get extra money during the Trump presidency rather than standing up for, well, anything at all.
She describes Musk as a complete egomaniac, despite thinking of him as one of the actual geniuses of the tech world, who needs to be loved and adored – noting that him surrounding himself by yes men has been his downfall. She describes his general behaviour as “going off the rails every day of the week and twice on Sunday”, and sees no reason why he would give up X, his own personal soapbox, as long as he can keep funding it.
As for Mark Zuckerberg, she remains convinced that he is “completely out of his depth” and has little to no understanding of his direct role in the damage done by Facebook to this generations teens, and the unleashing of hate he’s been part of enabling across the globe.
If you want to know what we’ll be doing for the next week, it’s reading this book.
#3 - Is AI Modelling The Easy Way?
You’ve heard of AI models, fake (or virtual) beautiful women made from scratch and used to model fake (or virtual) beautiful clothes. So far so weird, but did you know some real-life models are making AI versions of themselves to try and get ahead of the curve?
A lady called Alexsandrah, who is an actual physical model in the actual physical world, has agreed to have an AI version of herself created with the hopes that it will secure her future in modelling.
Her AI model avatar is signed to the AI and 3D modelling agency The Diigitals, ran by CEO and controversial figure Cameron Wilson. He’s the guy behind the “first digital supermodel” Shudu, launched in 2017, who has fronted campaigns for Balenciaga, Lexus and Balmain, but faced a lot of backlash – not least because she’s a woman of colour created and operated by a white man for profit.
So Wilson is branching out, and allowing actual people to sign over their likenesses to be used in virtual modelling. Alexsandrah argues the benefits of the system – saying she can model while just getting on with her life, she doesn’t have to get up at the crack of dawn, travel to the other side of the world or stand outside in the cold modelling summer clothes in winter.
But what’s to stop Wilson just making a similar looking model to her, with a slight difference, and using that one for jobs looking for a profile like hers instead, pocketing the profits for himself?
Well, the answer is nothing, and sorry to break it to you, but that’s probably what he’s doing…
#4 - High Tech vs. High Touch
The woman behind Dermalogica, one of the most well-known names in the skincare market, has a pretty interesting opinion on the future of employment in a world where we’re all worried that AI is coming for our job.
Singing the praises of trade skills, and more specifically in her case, beauty therapy skills, Jane Wurwand describes how when moving to the US in the 80s at a time of over 10% unemployment, she was able to get a job in any salon across California, while her then-boyfriend was unable to find work with his marketing degree.
Furthermore, she describes the deep feeling of relief that she could earn a living whenever she travelled and would spot a salon, as she inevitably did, in cities and towns across the world.
When asked if she thinks the advent of AI will change this, she noted that while AI will likely change the beauty therapy game in some ways, she’s yet to meet anyone who wants to get a bikini wax from a robot.
Touche… literally, as Wurwand posits that the equal and opposite reaction to our high-tech worlds is a need for “high touch” retail.
The beauty therapy sector is experiencing over 40% job growth right now. Not bad, while some of us are worrying that ChatGPT already knows more than we do about our degree subjects.
In her words, in today’s high tech society people still crave human interaction and “high-touch” experiences, which is why our high streets are becoming so service focused in comparison to the world of online shopping – think salons, eating out and experiences.
#5 - Flexible Working Or Bust
On the 6th of April, the Flexible Working Act will become part of UK law, giving employees the right to ask for flexible working, and making it a little bit more difficult for their employer to say no.
The key part of this act is that employees will now have the right to request flexible working from their very first day of employment – there is no longer any caveat around how long you need to work somewhere before you can ask.
The bill has been criticised by some for not going far enough, and the woman behind the Flex Appeal campaign and the online personality Mother Pukkka, Anna Whitehouse, says this shouldn’t be the end of the fight.
Her campaign began when she asked her boss if she could change her working hours by a measly fifteen minutes. She wanted to start fifteen minutes earlier, so she could leave fifteen minutes earlier, and be able to pick up her daughter from nursery. Her request was denied, for the cowardly reason that if accepted, it might “open the floodgates” for other people to request flexible working patterns.
Her mission, when she started, was that no one else should ever have to quit their job because they needed some flexibility, and now, six years later, the Flexible Working Act has made it through parliament.
It wont ensure that flexible working will be available to everyone, but it will make it more accessible to some, and that’s still a big step forward. What it absolutely will do, is ensure that no boss can give the same lazy excuse that Whitehouse’s did – although some lawyers have argued that as they may be able to bend the reasons to fit most situations, this part of the act won’t have much real effect.
Employers will now need to provide concrete evidence that the flexible working request must be denied due to a list of permitted reasons that have been drawn up by parliament. They will also need to respond to the request within two months, and the employee has the right to two requests per year.
We’re getting there, slowly but surely, and although there are clear limiations to the bill, we hope it will at least help change employer’s mindsets around flexible working, and show them that not only is it possible, it may well be necessary.
Brave & Heart over and out.
Bonus
Photoshop vs. The Royal Family
We’ve all heard about this, Kate Middleton’s mother’s day photoshop-gate, in which an image released by the royal family was rejected by various news outlets because it had been so obviously doctored.
The cherry on the cake was Kate’s tweet (not saying X) in which she apologised for being bad at photoshop, because as an amateur photographer she “just likes to play around”.
We have some photoshop experts on our team, and we can guarantee, that, unless she has some graphic design training up her sleeve, Kate does not know how to use it. It’s not Microsoft paint. Dear royal family, get your story straight.
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