GENIUS INTERVIEW Stuart Almond
we can embrace cloud a lot more? Does that mean 5G can turn the corner and do a lot more? We’re not constrained by physical hardware, or certainly we’re not going to be as much going forward in the future. FEED: So, what technology do you really wish someone would invent? STUART ALMOND: It’s a far-fetched scenario. But I’m a family guy at the end of the day, and we want the value of time together, but the content choices are very sporadic and different. This is not a new challenge for families or groups of friends, but how do we engage with the same content in the same room? Could a future technology exist where we could have a kind of shared experience from a single point of delivery? Imagine a TV that we can all watch and engage in, but actually, as we’re watching it, we’re all experiencing different angles of what we’re seeing or can choose them according to our own personal taste. Imagine that. That would be quite impressive. Or, if I sit and watch the same content with my wife and I prefer close- up shots, as opposed to the wide angle and she is presented with the wide angle. Can we actually watch the same content, but get to see different preferences? That would be the one for my wish list. FEED: And then you would have the opportunity to compare experiences. STEVEN ALMOND: Absolutely. It becomes a talking point. “Did you watch Game of Thrones last night?” “Yeah! I was on the back of the horse while I was riding past. I saw you.” It’s almost like you’ve been to a football match on a Saturday, but you were sitting in different chairs, yet had the same overall end experience. But what a different world that would be if we could experience everything like a live event – even if it wasn’t. FEED: That also brings up already existing content personalisation. Content recommendation algorithms may mean people are getting highly biased and differing views of the world. How should we approach that? STUART ALMOND: Maybe it’s because I’ve got a journalistic news background, but I’m passionate about this problem of only subscribing to specific news channels, and then only being told information you want to hear. It’s almost like it’s voluntary
propaganda. And how do we avoid that? I strongly value organisations who believe in the freedom of press and non-bias. We’re very lucky in the UK, where we have things like the BBC. Other countries have them as well, but some countries do not. I think it’s potentially a future that holds a lot of risk, unless we carefully manage what we are producing and how we want to consume it. We can’t become too reliant on artificial intelligence prescribing what we think we should be watching, and we should always stay human about what we do, and have free choice about what we want to watch and what we consume. That includes not hiding ourselves from things that we don’t think we want to see. Because sometimes harsh truth and reality do happen, and it’s the smarter society that gets to see that. Is technology going to make us more isolated or insulated in the future? The actual answer is: no. I think in the future, technology is going to be what allows us to be more human. The more we can use the commodity parts of our world to allow machines to do what machines do best, WHEN YOU STRIP AWAY THE TECHNOLOGY, IT’S THE BRILLIANT MINDS AND PEOPLEWHOMAKE THE DIFFERENCE
the more we can therefore keep humans focused on what they do best, which is decision-making, creativity and a view of the wider world. That’s definitely where we need to go. Technology should always be used to enable us to be more human, as opposed to take away our ultimately human qualities, like the power of choice, or the fact that we can actually make up our own minds on what we’re watching.
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