Are you afraid of Facebook?

I recently had a friend explain that she had been with another person in a public place, when they spotted someone they thought they knew. They weren’t sure, but they said, “I think his name is Bill.” Within an hour, Facebook posted on her timeline, “people you may know,” and Bill’s profile was displayed! Needless to say, she got a little freaked out.

I made a joke to her that if both her and Bill had their cell phones with them and had the Facebook app installed, well, duh! Of course Facebook knew they were at the same place, just like Facebook tracks you when you enter a business and that business is advertising of Facebook. Of course, this is not a joke if your priviacy rights are being violated.

Facebook doesn’t deny that it is listening to your conversations, but claims it is not being used for advertising, just for helping you get the kind of content you want. Yikes! You can turn this feature off, as described in this article: http://bgr.com/2016/06/01/facebook-listening-iphone-android/

Facebook of course is constantly working on new applications to “make your life easier.” One of those is artificial intelligence (AI). Recently Facebook had to unplug two AI’s that decided englishwas an ineffcient and illogical way of communicating and developed their own language. You can view that article here: https://www.techspot.com/news/70359-facebook-shuts-down-ai-system-after-invents-own.html

Amazon and Google have long been reading our searches and helpfully suggesting products we might like to buy. This type of advertising was made famous in the 2002 movie, Minority Report, and today we are starting to see this in advertising, including Facebook ads and retargeting ads.

Does this make you nervous about the future or excited for just what technology can do for you? Are you a business owner that employs digital ads?

Check out what happens on the Tonight Show as Jimmy Fallon meets Sophia, the robot:

And here is Jeff Bezos, from Amazon, on AI:

I’d love to hear your thoughts on AI and how it applies to your ecommerce business.