Niagara Falls. Credit: Getty Images
A Quote:
“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou
A Product for the Ages:
The big buzz after AI and Chat GPT in the last year has been around the massive gains experienced in the field of Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR/AR). For those of you who have not been hiding under a rock, the new Apple Vision Pro has taken the promise of a virtual world to a different reality. Pun intended. For those of you (like me) who know what a ‘trunk’ call is, let me introduce you to a new word the Gen Z are throwing around – Dupes! So what is it? Its short for “duplicates” and refers to the lingo on social media for knock-offs that are a fraction of the price of the original. A really good imitation basically – or as any good Indian will know – a ‘genuine’ fake (gotta love that oxymoron). You know – the Gucci knock-off bag that looks ‘better’ than the original, the white ear buds that look and sound just like the Apple Air Pods, but cost 1/5th the price. Or buying the $900 ‘H’ belt (c’mon – you know what ‘H’ stands for on a belt don’t you?) at the Dollar Store.
Dupes galore in fashion and cosmetics. Image Credit: Business of Fashion
Today Apple is selling you reality at a knock down price – go visit Niagara Falls on a Vision Pro without ever leaving your living room. How easy and cheap is that relative to actually going all the way to Buffalo, New York.
Everything can now be ‘duped’.
Watching an Icelandic Glacier (or the Niagara falls) on an Apple Vision Pro. Image Credit: The Future Is a Dupe – Rex Woodbudy
Or can it?
PS – for those of you Millennials still struggling – a ‘trunk’ call was the phrase for a long-distance phone call that needed an operator to connect you 😊 – yup, there was a time like that.
What a phone looked like when we used to make ‘trunk’ calls. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
Do you know which sector came roaring back as a business in the entertainment industry in the post covid world in 2020 and thereafter? Yes – people wanted to go back to restaurants and holiday on a beach. But it was live events – concerts – that people really attended with a vengeance. And sure – getting out into the open was a part of it. But don’t we all know that at a concert you can barely see the star performer and the audio is not a patch on the clarity of hearing Taylor Swift on your headphones. So why is Ms. Swift selling out audiences faster than a rat up a drainpipe?
I propose it’s got to do with the ‘feeling’ of having the energy of other humans around you.
You see – you can trick the eyes with a pair of VR glasses, and you can trick the ears with surround sound – but how do you trick the heart of what it knows to be a ‘Dupe’? For all the talk in the media around how VR or AR will replace the need to travel, or for all of Elon Musk’s claims that we are living in a video game/simulated reality – the soul cannot be tricked. We long to go to the concert – and spend all that time, energy and obscene money (Taylor Swift tickets sell for approximately USD 1200) because in that moment – we ‘know’ that our protagonist is on that stage, 150 meters away – belting out our favorite tunes – and is ‘breathing, singing, dancing’ in the same arena as us simpler mortals. And for that ‘feeling’ – there is no substitute.
A Thought:
Did you know that there are people in Japan who are paid money just to hug you? Not sleep with you – just hug you. But Im pretty damn sure the client knows in his/her heart – that its not the real deal. The ‘Feeling’ just cant be the same as the embrace of a friend who is holding you, for YOU. Not for a fistful of Yen.
A paid hug versus a real hug. I can feel the difference right through the screen, forget actually being there. Image credit: SBS on Demand; Fiercekindness.com
As long as we continue to be emotional, sentient beings – we will always crave the feeling that in our soul we know is authentic. You can dupe the senses but you cant dupe the soul. And if they tell you that the machines are going to take over our jobs – don’t worry. Machines have been doing that for quite a while. And we humans are still around.
What the zeitgeist is missing is that even once all the intellectual jobs are taken over by Alexa or Gemini (machines took over the physical ones long ago), we will still need someone to take care of our emotional needs. And I beg to differ with those who say that these new AI bots can talk to you like a friend. There just aint no substitute to have someone look you in the eye, hold your hand, and tell you - that you matter. That they have your back when you are sinking in the mud. That even as your courage takes a beating by the blows of reality, they will stand by you, behind you and around you.
The feeling no machine can ever give you. I got you! Image credit: Anna Demjanko/ Shutterstock
Those of you looking to build your careers in the decades ahead, or those like me who have kids coming of age – guide them to look for careers where emotional intelligence will be key. Our biceps were overtaken by the steam engine 200 years ago, our brains are being leap frogged by OpenAI and its buddies, but our hearts are still our own.
So come on – unplug your headphones, close the lid on that laptop, and switch off your phones. And go hug that friend, go look your child in their eyes and smile, and go hold the hand of your mother and feel her love.
For your heart needs to feel loved by another heart, and your soul needs to be held by another soul. And no Apple, Orange or Banana will ever be able to change that.
Thanks for reading.
Anuj
Excellent article and it’s so so relevant … because I am just back from a networking event in Vietnam.. where I was judged as another person from India… but once we ate, drank, spoke and danced together for 4 days .. I can say that the perception about me as well my company has changed … I can say that touch, feel, sight in the last week has helped me make more friends and business associates!! Excellent article
Love this Didu and I couldn’t agree more . In old school terms forgeries of famous art that are so good that only experts can distinguish them from the originals sell for 5 percent of what the originals sell for.