Ged Carroll

Search results for: “William Gibson”

  • Foreign workers + more stuff

    Foreign workers

    Foreign workers in Singapore parlance are people who come from around Southeast Asia and South Asia to do blue collar and pink collar jobs in the city state.

    In a number of Asian countries including Hong Kong and Singapore; Filipino and Indonesian workers came to care for old people at home, look after children and conduct household tasks.

    This group of foreign workers freed up middle class married women in Singapore and other countries to participate more to their economy, capitalising on their education and ability to earn more in fast-growing economies. They had higher levels of workforce participation than their female counterparts in Japan and South Korea.

    foreign worker philipppines

    The Philippines relies almost five-fold more on remittances for its GDP than similar countries like Indonesia.

    What’s less reflected upon is the social upheaval and challenges that these foreign workers face in their new homes. They are in a different culture, away from friends and family as a support network. They have tremendous pressure to remit as much money as possible home.

    They only have each other to rely upon. This skate team is just one of the activities that foreign workers do. From informal gatherings with friends to sophisticated beauty pageants, volleyball and basketball leagues. More Singapore related content can be found here.

    Beauty

    China’s beauty market is a sight for sore eyes | FT – The brand keeps prices of its products, from face powders to creams, closer to those of premium international brands, in line with L’Oréal’s Lancôme and Shiseido’s Nars. The rise of a domestic premium brand points to a significant shift in mainland shoppers’ buying habits as well as highlighting improvements in the quality of domestic products

    Business

    Business execs just said the quiet part out loud on RTO mandates — A quarter admit forcing staff back into the office was meant to make them quit | ITPro

    China

    Impatient for tech breakthroughs, the Communist Party is pushing aside private initiatives | Merics – the government is trying to pick winners and backfill the funding gap left in the VC industry which has declined over 40%.

    China’s long view on quantum tech has the US and EU playing catch-up | Merics – China sees quantum technology as pivotal in global science and technology (S&T) competition and has stepped up government spending on scientific and industrial development to about USD 15 billion.

    Consumer behaviour

    Paper People | Yun Sheng | Granta – virtual dating simulators and virtual love. Japan leads where the aging world is likely to follow

    2024 Year in Review – Pornhub Insights – young people (gen-Z) make the highest traffic.

    Gen Alpha report: Teens see Starbucks as the new Venmo – Fast Company – equivalent to rounds in a bar.

    From like to love: understanding why consumers fall in love with some products | Kearney

    Culture

    Y3K: Futuristic fashion trend sweeps China | Jing Daily – Inspired by AI, VR, and the metaverse, and propelled by K-pop idols and Korean brands, Y3K is rapidly gaining popularity among Gen Z. – very William Gibson ‘Burning Chrome’ era

    Economics

    Diverging demographic destinies: Cars and the middle class | WARC – According to Pew, the American middle class has shrunk significantly in the last few decades. The top 20% of earners now take more than 50% of aggregate income because theirs has grown faster. 88% of Americans have less than $2000 in their checking account and 50% have less than $500 in savings. The average cost of a new car in 1984 was $6000 and the average household income was $27k. Today average household income is $80k [Fed] but averages conceal the widened gap between maxima and minima: the median income per person is around $35k [Census]. The average price of a new car is almost $50k, which is surprising enough that CNN wrote an article about it. They explain that “much of the reason Americans are paying nearly $50k for a car is that automakers decided to go all-in on expensive cars. The more they charge for a car, the more money they make off it.” 

    Whereas forty years ago an average new car cost about a fifth of an average annual salary, a new car is now prohibitively expensive for most. That’s why Americans have a record $1.6 trillion of outstanding car debt and delinquencies are rising.

    What the Bubble Got Right | Paul Graham

    2025 AI & Semiconductor Outlook | Fabricated Knowledge – early indications for an economic downturn?

    Energy

    Is China’s “peak coal” just spouting emissions? | Too Simple, Sometimes Naive

    Hong Kong

    Asia’s Walled City: The Erosion of Transparency in Hong Kong | International Republican Institute – interesting report, particularly some of the knock-on effects for sectors such as public affairs professionals, financial analysts and being able to do due diligence on businesses.

    Japan

    FirstFT: Nissan and Honda hold talks about a merger


    Biden’s Move to Block US Steel Deal Is No Way to Treat Japan – Bloomberg     – In the executive order preventing the deal on spurious national security grounds, staffers for President Joe Biden appeared to accidentally copy-and-paste the title of a previous presidential order — one ordering a Chinese crypto mining company to vacate property near an Air Force base. The left the Nippon Steel directive entitled: “Regarding the acquisition of certain real property of Cheyenne leads by MineOne Cloud Computing Investment.”

    Luxury

    Interesting research from two sources that don’t quite square with each other. Walpole’s The State of London Luxury 2024 report came out and painted a rosy picture about the ultra high end aspect of the London property market. Meanwhile over at the FT, Why London’s property market is stagnating points at the same end of the market as being moribund in nature.

    United States Luxury Fine Jewelry Market Expected to Reach USD 24,374.3 Million by 2034, Driven by Sustainability and Personalization Trends | Future Market Insights. – The luxury fine jewelry market in the United States is poised for steady growth, with the market size expected to reach USD 17,353.6 million in 2024. The market is projected to continue expanding at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.5%, reaching USD 24,374.3 million by 2034

    Marketing

    Ipsos In Talks To Acquire Kantar Media | Media Post Agency Daily

    Full article: Infusing Affective Computing Models into Advertising Research on Emotions | Journal of Advertising Volume 53, 2024 – Issue 5: Computational Advertising Research Methodology – academic study to look at the kind of research techniques that the likes of System 1, iPSOS and Kantar use in assessing advertising

    Ageism in advertising: AI and layoffs exacerbate the issue | Ad Age – baked in (but largely incorrect) perceptions about ‘not being able to use AI’ and reducing headcount is crippling the existing DEI dumpster fire in the advertising industry.

    Media

    Jellyfish Launches Share of Model™ Platform, First-to-Market Solution to Track How LLMs Perceive Brands, Products & Services – Marketing Communication News – Share of Model™ Platform – a first-of-its-kind solution that enables companies to analyze how different Large Language Models (LLMs) perceive their brands, products and services. Critically, the new platform can identify whether or not brands are optimizing their digital presence enough to prompt coveted recommendations from Gen AI models such as ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Meta’s Llama, when people tap into them for guidance.

    The Media Mix Navigator tool

    Retailing

    Foot Locker hit by slower spending and NIKE ‘softness’ | WARC | The Feed

    How WhatsApp for business changed the world – Rest of World

    Security

    Romania blames Russia for election meddling | FT

    How Chinese Hackers Graduated From Clumsy Corporate Thieves to Military Weapons – WSJ

    How macOS has become more private – The Eclectic Light Company

    Afgantsy Redux: How Russian military intelligence used the Taliban to bleed U.S. forces at the end of America’s longest war

    Technology

    Intel on the Brink of Death – SemiAnalysis & The Death of Intel: When Boards Fail – by Doug O’Laughlin. This interview with former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, back when he was the project manager for the Intel 386 processor. In retrospect, Gelsinger’s return as CEO could be seen as an Intel C-suite cargo cult hoping for 386-like success again.

    Telecoms

    U.S. officials urge Americans to use encrypted apps amid cyberattack | NBC News

    Web-of-no-web

    Top secret lab develops atomic clock using quantum technology – GOV.UK

  • AI state of the union H1 2024

    The AI state of the union H1 2024 post came about as we had a number of trends starting to come into view. To paraphrase Charles Dickens the AI state of the union H1 2024 represented both the best of times and the worst of times in generative AI.

    Astro Boy
    Astro Boy | George Oates

    Is the current state of AI analogous to the dot com boom?

    In this respect, discussions around a dot com type boom around generative AI are less helpful. The dot com boom didn’t have the same naysayers at the time, aside from what would be now called edge lords worried about money. Like with all economic cycles they would eventually be proved right, but not until we had broadband and shopped at Amazon.

    Culturally, we are in a very different, darker place and aren’t riding an economic boom. I have tried to lay out some of the nuances in the themes currently driving AI discussions.

    I have broken this down into three themes and a focus on Japan.

    • Vendor knife fight
    • Trough of disillusionment
    • Synthetic data
    • Japan focus

    Right let’s get into The AI state of the union H1 2024.

    Vendor knife fight

    The AI state of the union H1 2024 sees generative AI being added to products and business plans, in a similar way to being web-enabled in the late 1990s. Spring Apps estimated that there almost 58,000 AI companies.

    Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Meta increased their investment in generative AI to $106 billion during the first six months of the year. In addition, Meta is looking to leverage the open source model of software development to drive progress in its Llama model. This echoes, how the open source model and software like Linux, MySQL and PHP were used during the dot com boom and the move to web 2.0 to provide greater efficiencies and possibilities.

    Some applications such as Adobe Creative Suite has become much more powerful thanks to adding generative AI. Alphabet has finally had generative AI companies parked on its front lawn. Open AI joined Perplexity in providing a search product.

    Apple came up with Apple Intelligence that provides a platform and front end for a mix of generative AI models. Microsoft has Co-Pilot that it has been selling to enterprises.

    Financial institutions have led the charge to try and get productivity gains such as JPMorgan’s IndexGPT and the continued automation of back office processes.

    Meanwhile in China, Baidu’s ERNIE has attracted almost a million developers looking to use the generative AI platform in their projects.

    Trough of disillusionment

    The enthusiasm for generative AI hasn’t managed to drown out dissonant voices. The number of objections are diverse.

    Business issues

    Morgan Stanley in a research report quoted a large pharmaceutical company CTO who abandoned the use of Microsoft Copilot in their organisation. The crux of the argument was that they weren’t seeing the value. Presentation creation was described as middle school level. Pharma companies tend to use PowerPoint as a publishing platform rather than a ‘presentation tool’ with data rich busy slides, so I can understand why Copilot became unstuck.

    It isn’t only ‘high-end’ knowledge work conducted by large corporates that is underwhelming. McDonald’s is withdrawing generative AI systems deployed at its drive-thru restaurants due it not working as planned. A Gartner survey of IT leaders indicated that McDonald’s wouldn’t be alone with nearly one in three generative AI projects to be scrapped in 2024.

    That might not be such a bad thing as businesses are currently in a process of experimentation, so long as the lessons learned are captured and internalised.

    Goldman Sachs have pivoted over a matter of months from being bullish about generative AI, to being concerned that the return on investment for generative AI may take far too long.

    Societal impact

    • What if speed isn’t the goal? The process of reading isn’t only about the ability to parse information quickly but also affects other aspects of human thinking and behaviour. There are clear benefits for certain groups of people including neurodivergent and second-language learners. But it also poses a risk to close reading skills which impacts developing or improving existing skills. Secondly, the generative AI can miss key facts from a document, given up as speed is prioritised over nuance and accuracy.
    • Knowledge collapse – By mediating access through AI tools moving forwards, due to the model’s focus on the centre of of the distribution of its data set. Restricting access to the edges is likely to cause harm to future innovation, human understanding and cultural development outlined in Peterson’s paper AI and the Problem of Knowledge Collapse.

    Technology-specific issues

    • Environmental impact – like web 3.0 and the crypto economy, generative AI requires a lot of energy to run high performance data centres. This means that Open AI is losing money hand-over-fist paying for computing capacity from Microsoft at a significant discount.
    • Model collapse – the relative lack of human-made data and the rise of synthetic data used in training generative AI systems is likely to lead to a rapid degradation in those models, indicating a ceiling on amount of progress that generative AI based on LLMs is likely to make.

    Synthetic data

    Synthetic data is probably one of the most difficult subjects to write for AI state of the union H1 2024. On one hand, you have Mark Ritson’s endorsement of synthetic data based on what we saw from B2B marketing generative AI startup Expenza AI. Ipsos have also got some credible interesting offerings that seem to be based on the provision of synthetic data.

    Is it any good? A lot depends on how the LLM is trained and the way it’s being used in terms of what you want to achieve. As with any tool, it can be useful for the right jobs. The MRS Delphi Group gave a range of feedback on the way it should be used, some of which seemed to contradict each other. We don’t know how accurate a picture the LLM is creating, what is being called algorithmic fidelity.

    Until concerns about algorithmic fidelity is addressed sufficiently well; marketers would be wise to exercise a degree of caution.

    Japan focus

    Ghost in the Shell Motoko

    I have included Japan in my AI state of the union H1 2024 post for a few reasons.

    • Prior to the current exuberance about generative AI; Japan was doing really interesting things using different parts of AI including fuzzy logic and software agents. The Panasonic rice cooker that cooks rice that’s perfect for your preference. Error correction for video and audio playback, from CDs to Blu-Rays. Complex camera programme algorithms including image stabilisation. Sophisticated non-playable character behaviour in computer games. There has even been synthetic singers like Hatsune Miku and virtual influencers.
    • If Star Trek influenced the flip phone, the smartphone ( think the tri-corder, especially when used with the likes of Oxford Nanopore‘s products) and tablets (on Star Trek’s next generation), then cyberpunk and Japanese anime have influenced AI in a similar manner. Elon Musk and Sam Altman would fit right in as villains in the Ghost In The Shell series.
    • Finally, even though Japan influenced cyberpunk based on William Gibson’s experience meeting Japanese students, it has a paradoxical relationship with technology. For instance, the Japanese government recently stopped using 3.5″ floppy disks. Ancient crafts are still highly prized and Japanese brands like The Real McCoy’s and Grand Seiko who provide premium manufactured goods to artisanal standards.

    Matt Alt has put together a good overview of the policy and cultural context for generative AI in Japan. It’s less of a clear cut issue than the Japanese body politic seems to believe. The Japanese government believes that its population is likely to view AI positively because of anime plot lines. While Atom Boy is a positive example there are lots of negative examples in the Ghost In The Shell franchise alone. There is also a tension between government aspirations for international exports of increased amounts of media content.

    There are also concerns about existing AI relationships in Japan exasperating existing societal problems, like virtual girlfriends or boyfriends.

    Here’s more of my AI-related posts.

    More information

    Big Tech groups say their $100bn AI spending spree is just beginning | FT

    Open Source AI Is the Path Forward | Meta

    JPMorgan Unveils IndexGPT in Next Wall Street Bid to Tap AI Boom | Bloomberg

    Mistral NeMo | Mistral AI | Frontier AI in your hands

    Meta won’t bring future multimodal AI models to EU | Axios

    Defense AI startup Helsing raises $487M Series C, plans Baltic expansion to combat Russian threat | TechCrunch

    Baidu – World No. 1? – Radio Free Mobile

    Welcome to Canva, Leonardo!

    Move Slow and Make Sure Everything Works | Spyglass

    How Apple Intelligence’s Privacy Stacks Up Against Android’s ‘Hybrid AI’ | WIRED

    Goldman Sachs on AI: GEN AI: TOO MUCH SPEND, TOO LITTLE BENEFIT? Tech

    AI has a climate problem – but so does all of tech – Decoder with Nilay Patel

    Remarks at the SASE Panel On The Moral Economy of Tech

    AI and the problem of Knowledge Collapse – Andrew J Peterson

    McDonalds removes AI drive-throughs after order errors – BBC News

    Nearly one in three genAI projects will be scrapped | Computerworld

    The problem of ‘model collapse’: how a lack of human data limits AI progress | FT & Axios | 1 big thing: AI’s brain on AI

    Benedict Evans | The AI summer

    Synthetic data is suddenly making very real ripples | Marketing Week

    Synthetic data is as good as real – next comes synthetic strategy | Marketing Week

    Launch of Ipsos PersonaBot, a groundbreaking AI-powered solution to enhance segmentation research | Ipsos

    Using synthetic participants for market research | MRS Delphi Group

    The role of Synthetic Respondents in ‘Human-centred’ Research — Some Random Nerd

    Synthetic survey respondents: A revolution in research methods or the worst idea ever? | Glasseye

    Japan declares victory in effort to end government use of floppy disks | Reuters

    Postmodern orientalism : William Gibson, cyberpunk and Japan : a thesis presented in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand by Leonard P Sanders

    Japan, the “most AI friendly country in the world” | Matt Alt’s Pure Invention

    Japan goes light on AI regulation to court investment | Nikkei Asia

    Arts Workers Japan Survey: 94% of Japanese Creators Concerned About AI | Anime News Network

    AI Girlfriends: Why Concerns Grow In Japan | The Japan Reporter

  • February 2024 newsletter – No.7

    February 2024 newsletter introduction

    Welcome to my February 2024 newsletter which marks my 7th issue. I hope that your year of the dragon is off to a great start.

    Strategic outcomes

    The number 7 is a bit of a mixed bag, depending on how you look at it. In the old testament, the 7th heaven is where God’s throne is, alongside the angels. It had been considered a place of happiness, hence Gwen Guthrie’s Seventh Heaven. In Mandarin, the number is considered generally a positive thing, the number is a homophone for ‘arise’ and ‘life essence’. But that’s only half the story.

    Chinese Ghost Story

    Indications of 7’s unlucky nature include the seventh month in the lunar calendar being a ‘ghost month’. In Cantonese, it is a homophone for a vulgar way of saying penis. I hope your February wasn’t a dick of a month. 

    For film buffs it’s almost 28 1/2 years since the transgressive crime thriller Seven was released. It was a break out hit and became the seventh highest grossing film of 1995, behind Die Hard with a Vengeance, Toy Story and Apollo 13. It beat out other films like Braveheart in box office earnings, but Braveheart ran away with the Oscars. 

    Let’s hope that feng shui master Michael Chiang is correct in terms of the positive energies from the year of the dragon.

    New reader?

    If this is the first newsletter, welcome! You can find my regular writings here and more about me here. 

    Things I’ve written.

    • FOOH – and the ethical and marketing challenges it presents with a thought experiment harking back to the golden age of pornography.
    • Technonationalism – how current technological developments mirror the cold war and the 20th century Asian economic miracle.  
    • Innovation signalling – how innovation is used by brands for show, rather than for genuine progress.
    • Pipes by Yahoo – a remarkable web service that also causes us to reflect on the post modern web of today.
    • Hong Kong measurements – how something as simple as measurement units are a melding of culture, history, modernity and politics in a time of change.
    • Y2K was always more than a fashion phase, but it seems to have faded from the zeitgeist which means the fashion takes have no context. Here’s a bit of context for you.

    Books that I have read.

    • What the Taliban Told Me by Ian Fritz. Fritz writes really, really well, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have been able to complete his personal memoir about his upbringing, service in Afghanistan onboard an AC-130 gunship and depression. In some ways it reminded me of Jarhead – Anthony Swofford’s memoirs of his life up to the time of being in the US Marines during the first Gulf War. Swofford’s book came out a decade and a half after his service. Fritz’ book feels much more immediate and without the flashes of humour and beauty that was in Swofford’s book.
    • Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China by Leta Hong Fincher. This was originally written in 2016, but has been updated to incorporate changes over subsequent years. It shows how government policy, ethnographic-nationalism, law enforcement, the legal system, collective punishment and community pressure is applied on modern women. I still find the content covering domestic violence shocking. This isn’t the China of Mao where in theory women hold up half the sky, instead it seems to be on a trajectory that would eventually see it closer to Mao’s view of China’s population, or Ceaușescu’s Decree 770 and other associated pro-natalist laws. This is a world away from the equally oppressive one-child policy, which had been brought in to deal with population related problems from the Mao-era.
    • The Big Book of Cyberpunk edited by Jared Shurin. I am huge fan of cyberpunks better known authors: William Gibson, Neal Stephenson and Bruce Sterling. This collection of 100+ stories written by authors from 25 countries is a mixed bag, but that’s no bad thing.

    Things I have been inspired by.

    J Walter Thompson Wunderman Thompson VML Intelligence launched their annual Future 100 report. It’s a great read and its continuity over the years makes it stand apart from the plethora of trends reports that get published every year. Their trends which intersect luxury and health are particularly interesting:

    • Althluxe
    • Bioharmonizing spas
    • Longevity resorts
    • Idyllic idleness

    Author Cory Doctorow’s essay for Locus magazine plays devil’s advocate in considering the future of the crypto-based ecosystem and artificial intelligence is well worth a read. Doctorow speculates on what kind of bubble artificial intelligence is likely to become and the effect that its deflation may have. He draws on the outcomes of tech bubbles in the past including the dot com bubble and the telecoms bubble that accompanied it.

    Just Conecting published a report on what seems to work on LinkedIn. It’s an interesting snapshot of what works at the moment, I am sure things will change over time as the algorithm evolves. Much of the focus seems to be orientated towards personal branding over business brands.

    Over at Japan House, I marvelled at the exhibition Ainu Stories: Contemporary Lives by the Sara River. The Ainu are native to Japan’s northern islands and have survived for millenia in the extreme cold. Historically they were discriminated against, but now there is an appreciation of their culture. The art pieces on display are unique in their design, but share the attention to detail one sees in other Japanese work.

    The Science Museum has an amazing exhibition on: Zimingzhong 凝时聚珍: Clockwork Treasures from China’s Forbidden City. Prior to the opium wars, UK craftsmen created fantastic clockwork-powered creations that were given as gifts to the emperor of China. The exhibition finishes on June 2, 2024. I went during Chinese new year. I came away with a refreshed appreciation of modern watchmaking complications, in particular devices like ‘minute repeaters’.

    NS Lyons magnus opus The China Convergence is read by Regina Doman. Lyons’ premise is that western systems have converged with China’s approach to governance due to the rise of the technocrat. In this respect his perspective is similar to that shared by documentary maker Adam Curtis. Like Curtis, Lyons’ The China Convergence asks uncomfortable questions of us. Are we basically a less extreme version of the same system to the presses of mass and scale?

    While we’re talking China, I can recommend the China Update YouTube account that provides a concise summary of Chinese business news and economic analysis garnered from a wide range of Chinese and western business publications.

    Finally, IPSOS ongoing collection of reports this time reflects on the power of nostalgia. This time focusing on youth culture from cottage-core, Barbie mania, vinyl to vintage technical clothing and streetwear and the underlying drivers behind it. Why Nostalgia Is So ‘Fetch’ Right Now by Samira Brophy is well worth a read.

    2023 Global Trends Report by ACROSS Health is a great census of healthcare professional media preferences and insight into omnichannel communications trends for pharmaceutical marketing. It is good reading and indicates that pharma clients who have an excessive efficiency bias and want to go to digital-only customer journeys will be left behind by peers taking a mixed approach.

    Things I have watched. 

    Agent Hamilton – Carl Gustaf Hamilton is a Swedish answer to James Bond or Jack Ryan. Hamilton was the main character in a series of books written by a former investigative journalist, Jan Guillou, who served time in Sweden for exposing illegal intelligence operations. Guillou wrote the first Hamilton book in 1986 and the last one in 2012.

    Blake and Mortimer – if you’re a fan of TinTin, you’ll like Blake and Mortimer as both come from the French -Belgian comic tradition. This cartoon series is based on the adventures of an eminent Scottish scientist and a British military intelligence officer in mid-century Europe. It’s nice light entertainment and I can recommend the graphic novels as well of which there are now 30+ stories including the Before Blake and Mortimer off-shoots. The authors have also wrote other excellent series like XIII.

    Useful tools.

    Audio Hijack 4.3

    Rogue Amoeba’s Audio Hijack has been a mainstay on my Mac for far more years than I care to mention. It was great for everything from recording conference talks to putting together quick and dirty talk tracks that concepting films can be cut too. Version 4.3 features OpenAI’s Whisper transcription software that can cater to transcribing dozens of languages. I have found it better than tools like Otter.ai for me.

    Krisp

    Krisp.ai is a freemium service providing intelligent noise cancellation, call transcripts and meeting notes all in one. It works with Teams, Google Meetup, Slack and Zoom.

    Obsidian

    Just like Evernote back in the day, Obsidian has become a bit of a cult app for those that find it really useful. At its heart, it is a note taking and writing application. It will sync between desktop and mobile devices, but that costs $8/month – which is expensive. I haven’t been using it beyond a quick trial, as I have a well-defined set of tools that I use and Obsidian didn’t really slot in well. But I can appreciate the value of it to others. One thing I would be leery of, if you are moving to Obsidian is the cottage industry in snake oils salespeople hawking the ‘ultimate’ online course for Obsidian. Instead check out Obsidian’s own community pages of courses.

    Todoist

    Todoist is a shareable to do list that places it somewhere between quick and dirty project management and personal productivity. I am giving it a try following a recommendation from a friend. It’s not about whether products like this are good or not, but usually if it fits into your style of working, so your mileage may vary.

    Personal Update.

    the adforum phnx 2024 jury badge

    More details on the awards here.

    The sales pitch.

    Now taking bookings for strategic engagements (from the end of April onwards) or discussions on permanent roles. Contact me here.

    More on what I have done to date here.

    bit.ly_gedstrategy

    The End.

    Ok this is the end of my February 2024 newsletter, I hope to see you all back here again in a month. Be excellent to each other.

    Don’t forget to share and subscribe!

    Let me know if you have any recommendations to be featured in forthcoming issues. 

  • Digital abortion clinics

    It says something about the time that we live in that digital abortion clinics is a normal phrase and that publications like Wired have to have rank the clinics on patient data security. Disclaimer: I lean pro-choice in my beliefs as I don’t have to make the kind of choices that many women have to. Secondly, the second order consequences of high risk procedures done the black market create new moral and ethical dilemmas.

    Dystopian vibes

    Ghost in the shell: Stand Alone Complex
    Matt M – Ghost In The Shell Stand Alone Complex

    Five years ago, if you had said digital abortion clinics to me it would have brought to mind the darker recesses of the cyberpunk realms created in novels by William Gibson or Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, or the Ghost In The Shell series of manga and anime created by Shirow Masamune.

    The reality is more banal and horrifying all at the same time.

    How we got here

    Legal and regulatory environment

    Family planning clinics that provide terminations have been under regulatory attack since the US Supreme Court ruling on Roe vs. Wade gave American women access to abortion in 1973. Roe vs Wade was challenged repeatedly in court and upheld in rulings given afterwards. Some of these rulings narrowed the definition of what procedures could be conducted and when they could be conducted. In June 2022, the US Supreme Court overturned Roe vs Wade with its finding on Dobbs vs Jackson Women’s Health Organisation. Abortion was no longer considered a constitutional right, which then meant pregnancy terminations became governed by a myriad of state laws both for, and against abortions.

    Some states went as far as to provide a legal shelter for their medical staff against legal measures out of state.

    Pharmaceuticals

    Historically, medicinal herbs and drugs used to induce an abortion risked causing kidney and liver damage. But we now have drugs available that can provide a much safer alternative. It’s these drugs that the digital abortion clinics rely on. The two most common are:

    • Misoprostol was developed in 1973. It’s used to induce abortions, but also has other uses including the prevention and treatment of both stomach ulcers and some forms of postpartum bleeding. It can also be used to induce labour during pregnancy.
    • Mifepristone developed in 1980, is typically used to induce abortions in conjunction with Misoprostol. It is also used on its own to treat high blood sugar levels in patients who also have hypercortisolism.

    Femtech

    Femtech as a term has only been around since 2016, but investment in the area of women’s health related technology has been growing over a decade. A few things were driving this. The personal nature of smartphones as a device. The explosion in software tools that allowed you to write apps and the availability of wireless technology stacks that hardware easier to connect. Finally, countries like the US started working on data privacy standards in the health space which were very important.

    2016 saw Nurx get funding for it to provide in-app ordering for birth control pills. So prescribing abortion inducing medications is a logical next step, in order to give women full control of their reproductive capabilities.

    femtech

    Telehealth

    COVID-19 accelerated the normalisation of digitally mediated health services including telehealth consultations and digital abortion services are now exception. If a woman chooses to have an abortion, it’s a big decision and the popular apps covered by Wired seemed to have a wide variance of user experience / provision of care.

    These clinics operate in different ways—some provide live video visits with doctors and nurse practitioners, while others offer asynchronous counseling—but many have experienced a record number of patient orders (and increased VC funding) over the past year.

    Poli K. (August 21, 2023) The Most Popular Digital Abortion Clinics, Ranked by Data Privacy. United States: Wired magazine

    Security issues

    Those software tools that allowed apps to be written easily often included API calls that enable privacy infringing tracking. For instance, a byproduct of the software tools used to make LGBTQI dating app Grindr’s locative nature risked exposing precise location data of gay men. Which is of concern in more socially conservative environments. Women using some digital abortion clinics face similar challenges.

    In US states, where the politicians thought that Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale was a how-to guide, rather than a societal warning; prosecutions in abortion related cases are using mobile data and search history.

    Wired worked with the University of Texas privacy lab to grade the post popular digital abortion clinics on the degree of risk they posed to their patients.

    The results were concerning and these problems can’t be mitigated through the use of a VPN or in-app settings.

    2023 app comparisons from a data security PoV

    Third-party data app sharing and data collection were used by the likes of Palantir to aid targeting people of interest in the global war on terror (G-WAT in security circles), and could be used in a similar way against women, if the state government were so inclined.

    The Wired article that inspired this post here. More health-related content here.

  • August 2023 newsletter – the pioneer edition

    August 2023 newsletter

    The August 2023 newsletter was inspired by LinkedIn’s in-built newsletter function. It’s almost the bank holiday so I thought I would spend some time to try out the newsletter function in LinkedIn.

    Strategic outcomes

    If you’re reading this, you’re a pioneer! If this goes well I will put one out each month. You can find my regular writings here and more about me here. 

    Things I’ve written.

    Books that I have read.

    • Chip War by Chris Miller. You can read my full review here. 

    Things I have been inspired by.

    Design render
    • How left wing politics inspired Prada’s clothing designs. 
    • Encouraging empathy for people with dementia in Japan with the restaurant of mistaken orders (scoll to the end here to find out more).

    Things I have watched. 

    • Three Body Problem. Chinese adaption by Tencent Video and made available for FREE on their YouTube channel. Don’t worry it has English subtitles. This is based on the blockbuster novel The Three Body Problem by Chinese science fiction author du jour Cixin Liu. The three books in the series are all fantastic and there is soon to be a Netflix adaption as well. 
    • The Peripheral on Amazon Prime Video. An ambitious adaption of William Gibson’s novel of the same name. Amazon Studios recently cancelled the next season of this drama, which is a real shame as its one of the stand out series amongst the content on Prime Video. 
    • Un Flic and Le Samourai – the magical formula of French new wave director Jean-Pierre Melville and actor Alain Delon created some iconic crime films that inspired directors in Hollywood, Hong Kong and Japan.  

    The sales pitch.

    Available for strategic engagements in the autumn. Contact me here.

    The End.

    Congratulations, you’re reached the end of the August 2023 newsletter. Until next month: be excellent to each other. Let me know what you think or if you have any recommendations to be featured in forthcoming issues. 

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