A 5-7 minute video that explores a particular digital geography, such as: a concept or idea; a particular case study; or an argument. You are being marked for your argument and ideas, not for how good you are at making videos.
This project was tough. It involved learning a whole new video editing software; in addition to some complex theory and argumentation.
I wanted to centre my project on Chatbots. With ChatGPT taking over TikTok, Instagram and Youtube, it seemed like a worthwhile and current topic to discuss. The theory behind chatbots is based in social robotics, something which we don’t have massive exposure to at the moment. There are examples, but they are more few and far between rather than sustained interaction. Following this thought, I decided to link in digital futures.
Digital futures alongside chatbots (and AI generally) are highly binary. The technological determinism from sci-fi to reality is very evident in chatbots: with HAL 9000 and LCARS acting as prime examples. Other embodied robots from C3-PO to Terminator are also called into question here. Some see them as friends, others enemies. But what is true at the moment, is (perhaps due to a lack of physical embodiment)… no one cares.
Chatbots can do some cool tricks. They may get you a third on your uni essay, or save you some time writing code. In reality, we are too far away from these bots making meaningful difference to our everyday existence.
Where they have made significant impacts, is in the economy. We are a little while off human replacement, but many roles are being streamlined and even autonomized. I saw one article talking about how ChatGPT is being used to make coding bots which independently trade. This kind of thing would take a human hours to do, while GPT can do it quickly and for free.
So there was one point: economy + digital future of economy. The ‘social’ had to combat this. By this I mean interactions with humans, not for economic benefit. On paper, it does make sense: more realistic chatbots will evoke more human-centric emotions when conversing with them. Nodding to the Turing test, there is no difference between Gavin falling in love with Stacy over the phone; even if Stacy is an AI Chatbot.
There were arguments against this (Hubert Dreyfus for one), but the point remains. People are becoming more compassionate and emotional towards machines (40% of all requests). This also linked to some prior geographic/social robotic theory I read on affect and emotion.
This led me to get stuck into non-representational theory. The book by Nigel Thrift is very complex. Traditionally, I read some reviews before tackling it head-on. Affect is pre-cognitive, and thus non-representational; and is spoken about thoroughly in the book. I can’t say I understood all of it… but I got an okay idea. When writing this blog, I realised that I didn’t actually reference Nigel… oops.
As affect is pre-cognitive, it can be manipulated. This links into wider affect theory within emotional geographies, something I knew little about. It makes sense then, that the personification and anthropomorphism around chatbots would trick the human affect into producing emotions akin to human-human speech.
Complex theory, not sure if I pulled it off. It is (kind of) founded in research. We will wait and see. The hardest part, however, was learning a whole new video editing software.
From watching lots (& lots) of YouTube, I knew what I wanted it to look like. Actually producing this was much more difficult. I transitioned from iMovie (for obvious reasons) over to Filmora Wondershare. Easier to use software, but had some tricks up its sleeves. It didn’t behave too well for the most part, kept deleting and moving things when I told it not too. Also a few non-saved attempts… unlike my usual self.
I also used some of my own music for the intro. It was only a little snippet, but allowed me to customise the fadeout with reverb and delay. Added a nice little touch. I’ll upload a full copy of the song here; although the drop is awful, the intro sounds good.
Regardless, it was good fun. Hopefully the feedback is good, will only have to wait and see. Onto gender and dissertation!
The thumbnail for this post mirrors the thumbnail used on YouTube. Made me laugh how KSI is used within the video, whilst making a fair point.
I’ll copy the YouTube link over once I receive feedback, unsure of how TurnItIn will cope as its rubbish at the best of times.
Tommy Nagle 
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