Zoom, AI dating & Rust Out
5 in 5 - Brave & Heart HeartBeat #170 ❤️
This week we’ll be breaking down Zoom’s journey off the rails, considering how AI could replace YouTubers, and wondering if AI in dating apps will be the last straw to send people back to lonely hearts ads in the paper, or a welcome addition to the dating game.
Plus, in the work world, we’ll be introducing Burn Out’s boring cousin, and new laws to protect employees against AI bias in the hiring process.
Let's get into it.
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#1 - No More Mr Nice Zoom
You may have noticed the headlines lamenting the fact that if even Zoom, the company that made remote working possible during the pandemic, want their workers back in the office, the rest of us are doomed. Because, if Zoom isn’t good enough for Zoom, then how can it be good enough for everyone else?
Well, they’ve hit the jackpot of terrible PR AGAIN this week, with a leaked voice note from Zoom’s CEO threatening to make bosses everywhere rethink the very basis of remote working. In the leaked voice note, he refers to remote work hires as “Zoomies” and laments that it’s impossible to build trust over the video platform, as opposed to in office.
This from the CEO of a company whose homepage boasts that they help teams become “more connected, more collaborative, more intelligent”.
They’ve also been in the news for appearing to have consented to let AI companies train their language models on all calls made on Zoom – including calls of a confidential nature, such as internal company calls, or even therapist-patient calls.
When we say people went wild, they went WILD. The CEO corrected himself, saying they actually won’t be using “Customer Content” to train AI but simply “service generated data”. Oh, phew, we hear you say, until you realise that neither have been clearly defined, leaving the door open just a creak.
Add that to the fact that Zoom have been in hot water in the past for quite a few privacy related “mishaps” – such as claiming to be end-to-end encrypted when it isn’t, for secretly installing software that made Zoom harder to delete from your computer, and for apparently sending data to Meta and LinkedIn. Very sneaky.
They’ve also been in the news for the rolling back of an initiative we didn’t even know they had, called “No Meeting Wednesdays”. The rule was put in place to avoid endless meetings, and to ensure that employees had time carved out for deep work. And let’s be honest, just a break in the middle of the week from meetings to breathe, and hear yourself think, sounds great.
But, now, No Meeting Wednesday’s are over. Zoom want you in the office, they want you to be having meetings every day, and they want to be doing nefarious things with your data. Maybe. At least, that’s what everyone is going to remember about them after this last week in the news.
Looks like Slack and Teams are going to be getting a lot of downloads…
#2 - AI Influencer Army
Gaming YouTuber Jordi Van Den Bussche, better known as Kwebbelkop, has announced he’s now a “retired influencer”, but wants to ensure his legacy lives on through AI, while allowing others to do the same.
Like many other YouTubers, he suffered a pretty intense burnout in 2018, at the height of his popularity. He worked 24/7 on his channel, from coming up with ideas, shooting them, distributing and marketing them, all while trying to get brand deals and doing admin work for his brand.
He ran into what’s known as the “key person problem”. He couldn’t take a vacation, or any break at all, because without him on camera everything came to a standstill. He experienced a pretty serious burnout in 2018 which changed his mind set on his business model, leading him to the conclusion that the hitch in the YouTuber economy is… humans.
He’s now decided that he wants to “retire” but keep his legacy running, and he’s going to make it happen with AI. His plan – to use AI to continue making his videos with as little input from himself as possible.
He’s doing this with two AI tools. Firstly, a tool which is trained on the likeness of a creator – what they say in videos, how they talk and present themselves – and can be used to generate new content. Another one will simplify the act of creating the videos as much as possible by creating videos from simple prompts. For example, “make a video formatted like an interview between two people from this article”.
He says he’s so confident that AI tools can recreate creativity, that he’s bet his while business on it. Let’s see…
#3 - Analog Dating… Kind Of
Recent headlines have heralded an even more digital aspect of online dating, yes, you guessed it, AI.
Tinder, for example, already using AI in their matching algorithms, has introduced new customer-facing tools. For example, there’s one that sifts through your photos and chooses the best five you should keep on your profile.
Tinder have also hinted that they might use generative AI to help users write their bios, while Match – who also own Hinge and OkCupid - have announced they’ll be launching a few new tools to “eliminate awkwardness” on their platform.
People seem to be receptive to the idea too, as Tinder’s chief product officer said a recent study found that two thirds of their users would “absolutely” use generative AI tools to help build a profile.
AI could also be in the mix without you even realising, as another study found that over 50% of single men in the UK would use chatbots to chat up their dates online. Scary.
The rebellion to the digitalisation of dating began a while ago, but is even more relevant in the new AI age, making the news last September as the popularity of “date me” Google docs grew online. Yes, Google docs. The Date Me docs are public, and shared via link. One doc picked up by Wired magazine had four chapters and fifteen subcategories, while another included testimonies from former partners.
It’s not exactly analog but it’s as analog as dating strangers can get nowadays without printing the doc out and sending it out as a mass mail, and can hold a lot more information than a lonely hearts ad.
So, are you more AI or analog?
#4 - Introducing “Rust Out”
You’ve heard of burn out, now please welcome to the stage “Rust Out”, the new contender for an unhappy workplace.
You can probably guess what it entails, as, like burn out, the phrase is very visually evocative. Imagine one of your co-workers sadly sitting in the corner, like an old boat, doing nothing day in day out until they rust over, and become unusable.
Rust out, then, is what happens to employees when they’re left unengaged and become bored over a long period of time, until they become unable to re-engage with their workplace.
Boredom isn’t just a slight inconvenience, or even a gift to an employee – hey, they’ve got nothing on, why are they complaining? – it is associated with reduced productivity and creativity, distraction and absenteeism. It’s no good for the employee, and it’s no good for the business at large.
What causes it? Employees get bored when they don’t feel inspired by their work, and it doesn’t challenge them.
This can be exacerbated by a hands-off management style, and contextual factors, such as an increased level of education or the tendency to accept jobs we’re overqualified for in times of economic stress (which, as you may or may not have noticed, we are currently experiencing) and technology meaning some aspects of work are less hands on than they once were.
Now, most importantly, how can we combat it? Apparently, the three pillars the most important to workplace wellbeing – autonomy, mastery and purpose – can help us out here.
Autonomy being the sense of control and freedom when an employee is empowered to make decisions on how they work, and what they work on, mastery being the sense of progress and growth of being challenged in day-to-day work life, and purpose being the sense of meaning and impact that employees experience when they feel that their work is contributing to something larger than themselves.
For an employee to be truly engaged, and avoid rusting over, these three pillars need to be addressed in their workplace. We don’t want rusted boats, and we don’t want rusted employees.
#5 - NYC vs. Hiring AI
We all know about the dangers of AI bias by now, hopefully, and a law was passed yesterday in New York City to ensure that the bias inherent in AI tools won’t stop you from getting a job, as more and more companies adopt AI tools to help them in their hiring practises.
Their concerns are certainly not unfounded, AI CAN exhibit racist and sexist biases, because machines, they’re just like us! AI is created and informed by humans and trained on a lot of material that we’re not 100% sure where it comes from. Elon Musk seems to think Twitter, and Reddit seem to think their threads are worth a lot on the AI market, and if they’re right, biases may abound…
The NYC law required companies to notify candidates living in NYC when AI is being used, and to allow them to request info on the data being collected, and most importantly, to conduct annual independent audits of the AI tools they use to make their employment decisions to ensure that they don’t discriminate based on sex, race or ethnicity, and publish ratios to show if they disproportionately impact specific groups.
NYC will probably be the first of many to put in place such laws, with California, New Jersey and Vermont hot on their heels.
We, for one, totally support any measures that will ensure that AI is fit for purpose so that we can ACTUALLY make use of it. Check out our latest article to find out how you can use AI for your HR needs now.
Brave & Heart over and out.
Bonus
The PSL Returns
The Pumpkin Spiced Latte, the famous PSL, is back.
Yes, it may not be Autumn yet, but Starbucks are listening to consumers and marketing the PSL earlier and earlier every year, even if that means 75% of people are drinking it iced rather than hot.
Hey, you’ve got to let your marketing follow the trends, right?
To find out more on how you can retain your top talent, or how we can help you with digital solutions to your business and marketing challenges, check out our case studies.