This week we are going to do a deep dive into the Absher App, what it is, how its used and the way it’s changing our understanding of what it means to have free will and free agency as human beings.

According to Wikipedia “Absher is a smartphone application which allows citizens of and residents in Saudi Arabia to use a variety of governmental services. Amongst several other services with the Absher app, it can be applied for jobs and Hajj permits, passport info can be updated and electronic crimes can be reported.[2] The application provides 160 services for residents of Saudi Arabia including making appointments, renewing passports, residents' cards, IDs, driver's licenses and others,[3] and, controversially, enables Saudi men to track the whereabouts of women they control as part of the country's male guardianship system.[4]

One of my favorite movies of all time is Gattaca – a sci-fi Drama thriller staring Ethan Hawke made in 1997. The plot of the movie as written on IMDB is as follows:

“In the not-too-distant future, a less-than-perfect man wants to travel to the stars. Society has categorized Vincent Freeman as less than suitable given his genetic make-up and he has become one of the underclasses of humans that are only useful for menial jobs. To move ahead, he assumes the identity of Jerome Morrow, a perfect genetic specimen…

This week, we are going to dive into voice editing software. Some of the big players in the industry are Voco, lyrebird, Wavenet & Baidu all of which are making it possible for individuals to capture speech samples and use those samples to mimic and create speeches or statements that individuals never said.

Voice editing software has been around for quite some time, we use it to while making movies, podcasts, radio ads as well as a whole bunch of other creative projects.  

Software such as Audacity, or Adobe Audition have made it incredibly easy for individuals to produce quality audio content basically forever. The one problem that creatives run into while editing is that sometimes they recording ends up being unusable for various reasons.

This week we are doing a deep dive into the creation and use of internet and telephone bots! I’m super excited for this episode mainly because of the interesting situations that internet bots have put us in over the last decade or so. From politics to unwanted phone calls, to everyday social interactions, bots have surely changed the way we behave and the way that we perceive reality.

Let’s jump right into it.

To keep this episode focused; I’m just going to cover the use of internet bots online. I will cover artificial intelligence in terms of autonomous vehicles and physical robots in a future episode since there’s so much to cover & discuss!

This Week we are going to do a deep dive into the world of predictive analytics and how companies are using the data they collect to influence our behaviors and directly target only the individuals they know will be receptive to their products.

Predictive analytics is based on mathematical equations that assist in narrowing down the data collected *to allow companies to essentially see or anticipate how individuals will respond or behave when given certain options or opportunities.

Most of us can’t picture a world where we can’t unlock our phone and google that ridiculous question that’s been popping in and out of our mind all day and then getting an answer immediately.