Rohit Bhargava's Blog, page 6

How “Dumbification” May Be the Next Hot Technology Trend

What happens when all the good TVs that you can buy in the market are automatically programed as “smart” TVs, ready to connect to the Internet to stream shows from all platforms? For some people, it’s leading them to figure out how to turn that smart TV into a dumb one by removing all connectivity. This desire to go more basic when it comes to the technology we use isn’t new and it’s on the rise.

For anyone who has driven a rental car with overactive steering correction or endured constant un...

Of Course, the Cracker Barrel Logo “Backlash” Was Planned … And It Worked Perfectly

Cracker Barrel announced they were ditching their old logo for a forgettable generic new one. The news got people to pay attention. Lots of them condemned the switch. Then predictably a few weeks later, they backtracked and brought back the old logo. I suspect that was always the plan. Here’s the one headline that should tell you everything you need to know about the ideal outcome of this strategy.

The Washington Post ran an article with this headline: “Cracker Barrel is trying to modernize. ...

The “Anna Karenina Principle” That Explains How Optimists Differ from Pessimists

The first line of Leo Tolstoy’s famous novel Anna Karenina offers this observation:

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Based on a recent research study, there may be some science that actually proves his point. Neuroscientists studying key brain patterns among people who imagined positive events with a feeling of optimism versus those who did so with pessimism found that the optimists brain patterns were largely similar. For pessimists, those sam...

The Rise and Fall of Drive-In Theaters

The year 1933 brought the world’s first drive-in theater. Since that moment, it’s become one of those iconic American-style exports of entertainment. Today it’s a nostalgic experience, still done at several hundred spots around the country and perhaps others around the world but much less than at its peak. The story of the rise and fall of the drive-in theater is a fascinating one.

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The fall, in particular, is blamed on the rising price of oil and a lack of green space due to rapidly deve...

The Book on How NOT To Use AI Is Being Written Right Now

European payment network Klarna was one of the first fintech companies to go all in on AI. They were even featured as a case study by OpenAI. Then after a flood of customer complaints, they tried to quietly backtrack and hire back many human assistants. Recently an author was called out after readers discovered that the text of AI prompts was published in her final book.

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A lawyer was caught using fake citations hallucinated by AI and failed to notice them. A tech company’s AI coding tool...

The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: Defy by Dr. Sunita Sah

I ask for my coffee extra hot. Sometimes, I do that, and it comes cold anyway. There would be times when that happened and I would drink it anyway. Most people don’t like to cause a scene and sometimes that means we don’t speak up. It’s a small moment, but also a symbol of larger opportunities for defiance in our lives that we often let pass by.

According to Dr. Sunita Sah, the ability to embrace your defiant side is critical in learning to speak up for yourself. When I spoke to her for this ...

The Perfect Sandwich Making Guide (and Why People Ignore Press Releases)

This is a press release I just read which got me thinking: Kroger Crafts the Perfect Sandwich Making Guide

The release included a powerful reminder from one of their Vice Presidents of something that “every meal is an opportunity for creativity and enjoyment.” I like sandwiches, so I was immediately hooked. Especially after they promised that there would be “endless possibilities in every bite.” After all, who doesn’t want that sort of optimism in a sandwich?

So, I dived into their perfect...

The Future Will Include AI For Dynamic Pricing … Here’s What Could Happen Next

Here are two stories from this week that don’t seem to be related to one another. The first is about Delta ​testing AI for dynamic pricing​ in specific situations. The other is about Amazon ​acquiring a company that makes a wearable listening device​ that always captures your conversation. When you put them together, you can start to get a good sense of where dynamic pricing controlled by algorithms is likely to go. Here’s a scenario:

You are having a conversation about a trip you need to tak...

The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: Up the Organization by Robert Townsend

Up the Organization was published in the mid-seventies, which technically makes it just about as old as I am. The lessons, though, are actually timeless and the book stands apart for an idea that was well ahead of its time … and feels relevant for now too. In case you don’t know Robert Townsend, he was the visionary CEO that helped Avis pioneer their iconic “We’re Number Two. We Try Harder.” advertising campaign that is widely recognized as one of the most successful marketing campaigns of all t...

How AI Is Exposing the Idiocy of Influencer Marketing

Recently, an AI generated influencer went viral at Wimbledon. She wasn’t the first, but there was a ​firestorm of stories about how she is the latest symbol of the believability crisis we find ourselves in​. As one executive from Getty Images explained:

“People are used to seeing curated, almost perfect images from human influencers, achieved through extensive editing, filters and professional photography. Zelu, being entirely AI-generated, naturally embodies this idealised flawless skin, per...