The internet, A.I and You

What about A.I though?

I used to think technology was great and the fast pace of an online world was the place to be. That was probably back in the 2000’s though, now I am not sure I fit anymore. The technology space may very well be the place for you, it is me not you though.

In the earlier days of signing up for a hotmail free email account and then the whole my space thingy, do you remember those days in the nineties? What have you done with or taken from our online presence hysteria?

I suppose the truth of the internet for me has been that I learned to use it as a tool to make money, ah do not be fooled, I did not just sit back and have some click bait ads that saw cash flow and flow like a river into my bank account or anything like that. I have used the internet as an advertising space to reach potential customers and then after the initial contact was made by using the web, then the work began and the money flowed. The money flowing still required work, just to clarify. Perhaps you are like me in how the internet always represents the platform to advertise and reach new people and potential customers? Perhaps you live somewhat vicariously through the internet and see no use for it as a money making platform and spend your time connected to have an online extension to your own personal real life? I have no way of knowing of how you see the world wide inter web and perhaps you have mastered the art of rarely using it, I say rarely because in these times in 2024 I really do doubt anybody remains internet free.

I continue to use the internet as a place to seek out new people, even in this post here I am writing to bring some thoughts to your mind that encourage as always the concept of thinking for yourself. My ultimate goal I suppose is to bring about a thought for somebody today and then because of that thought I will gain favour in your mind and you will be intrigued to know more and ultimately click around my website and download a kindle read of one of my books. To me that is a fair piece of work put in on my part, not only here in a blog post as many writers will happily tell you, the work of writing the books in the first place deserves its own recognition of workload too.

I always thought things like this when it came to the internet, “Oh, I better not put all of my information on the internet – you never know who is gathering my information and who is looking” and “Best to remain private as an individual and not share everything”. Laughable aren’t they, those thoughts of mine from back in the day. I just back in the day and yet here I sit as a guy who has written a couple of memoirs and put a lot “business” out in the streets, so to speak. I guess it then becomes a question of what do we feel is our private life anymore and with the internet and all social media sites being very much part of our lives, what actually is private? The conspiracies about who is listening are endless and some of my friends will tell me how they never spoke any words about a subject and they only ever thought about it and then all of a sudden a pop up ad came along advertising to them the very thing they had only thought about. That would of course mean that there is argument to say that the internet can read our minds. Although, I am not a believer in that kind of thing anymore. I do believe the devices are listening and marketing profiles are being built about and around us all of the time. And to what harm?

Would you be upset or angry if the internet is working hard to make your life simpler and making suggestions to you what you might do next?

Perhaps you are old enough to remember the birth of the cell phones and when they came out with this great thing called predictive text? I can remember getting frustrated with my cell phone many times because the predictive thing was screwing up my texts and I did not know how to turn the thing off. The predictive nature of things around cell phones and the internet have definitely taking some major leaps and bounds since, would you agree? There are robots around the internet that will scan this very post here and scan for keywords and usage of words and then send me emails with all kinds of website marketing strategies. This is no big deal anymore and just part of the way it is I guess. Though I do often wonder what my profile looks like. I like to think I am a hard sell, yet I do participate and do indeed use the internet for all kinds of every day usage. I love the posts the go around the internet saying this – “Once upon a time we forgave people for not knowing any better. In today’s world all the information possible is available in a hand held device in your pocket. So what is your excuse now?” Quite true when I think about it and I have researched and watched videos on a wide range of subjects for many different projects. I am never all the way in though, fully immersed. Are you?

If the internet is listening all of the time to you and you or me or both of us are being targeted for the purpose of advertising, then what do our profiles look like? Can A.I (artificial intelligence) show me the profile that exists about me?

I am not deep in A.I at all though and I barely know what the different versions of things are anymore. Like I said in the beginning, it is not the internet, it is me. I fell off so to speak. I have lost the appetite to know what is coming next and what is a buzz on wall street, what are the trends and what are the public buying, where is the money at? And what brought this about? Is it better to be in the know and on the cutting edge of technology? It certainly does appear to be that there is money to be made by having match sticks keeping your eyes open 24/7 and keeping up so to be at the front of everything and technology investing has paid massive dividends to those of you who have been all the way in. There are those of you who have the internet on autopilot with a drop ship skin or an “etsy” boutique and are reaping great rewards by employing all the A.I tools to automate a business and enjoy making the money monthly. The success stories do seem to be in the minority though. Funny thought just there, for those of you who got lost and do not know what I meant when I said “drop ship skin” raise your hands now. Email me immediately so I can explain to you and for those of who do know what that means, go ahead and buy a kindle of one of my books today, you will thank me later.

That last line there was a call to action piece, did you get that? I was not being all that serious and so there was no link and no fancy picture for you to click so I may have lost the sale. That is how I see the internet as working, I always though of how once upon a time there was the cliché of the door to door fire extinguisher salesman, remember this kind of concept? Door to door sales! Where a person went to a neighbourhood and knocked on every door. Sometimes they would put their foot slightly in the doorway once the person opened the door and then give their sales pitch. This is where you got the saying of getting your “foot in the door” for example. You had an in to deliver your pitch and once you gave that pitch several times over and over in the law of statistics, you would make a sale. Then came along the internet, gone are the days that you need to knock on every door. You have a foot in the door already. You can now pitch away to the entire world everyday if you wish. Make a blog post like mine and encourage people to buy a book every now and then. The A.I software will wish to improve my pitch and offer you click bait and places to purchase immediately and then I am winning in the game of life, right? Hence the call to action throughout the post, I am aware of the pitch game and have chosen not to bombard you with click links because I feel stronger about encouraging thought than making the sale. Imagine I have been willing to sacrifice the sale over encouraging you to think for yourself. I do not wish to influence you in one way or another and I simply present to you some of my own thoughts and hope you begin to form your own based of something that I may spark up inside of you. Like the rock dropped into the pond. The ripples go on and on and eventually reach the shore. A.I works hard on planting seeds and the pop up ads are the branches of the seeds already planted smacking you in the face saying “make the purchase, make the purchase”.

After all, it was once discovered that we are consumers and the best way to be in business is to supply the consumers with what the ultimately want. Perhaps the reason you are reading this post today is because the A.I inside of me knows that you want to buy one of my books and all has been aligned to bring you to here right now for that simple purpose? It is possible right that I have figured this out about you already, isn’t it?

The truth from me to you is that I have no clue why you are even here. I am glad that you stopped by and when you leave if you do not snoop around my website and leave with a book purchased then so be it. I will not lose any sleep over it and nor should you, or should you? Maybe you have been losing sleep already and that is what brought you here in the first place? Maybe you are just plain old nosy and that is all it took to get you reading this far. Have I wasted your time bringing thought to your mind about the internet and how you sue it and what they know about you? Perhaps you never wanted to be called a consumer and to be marketed to by A.I. All I can say to that is get used to it because it is all her to stay and we are consumers.

After all of that being said, what am I here to sell you today? I wish for you to gain insight in to your own life. I wish for you to reach a place where life tastes better all the way round. And how do tell do I propose to do that? I offer to you my hard work of writing in the form of two of my books that I have written for you. Two sons TOO many is a memoir where I disclose my life experiences to you and you will read this boo and have many thoughts and emotions occur for you all while simply reading a book. Most of my experiences in life have been wonderful and mind blowing at the same time. I offer to you the read to bring about some thoughts and emotions of your own where you can find a higher understanding. A pick me up so to speak of how good life really is for you right now. You may not believe such a pick me up is possible from reading a book. The only way to know that is to give it a whirl. How long do you think I would make it in this world if I were to lie to you about that? Then there is Layman’s Handbook, this is a book about tools and tricks I learned to prevent myself from going completely insane really, well I suppose that is fair to say. Perhaps it is the book that has confirmed for me the complete insanity of me and I wish the not yet convince insane to begin to recognise how insane is a really nice place to be. Funny when I say it like that isn’t it? Watch the sales sky rocket on that little snippet/note right there.

To sum it all up. The internet is watching and listening and there is very little we can do about it. Though it is not a big deal and it is simply the way it is. If you want to be more successful in your own business get to using the world wide interweb and do the research, all the information you need is available at the touch of a few buttons. If you want a good laugh and a good cry then buy TWO sons TOO many. If you want to turn your ship around and make life a calmer more beautiful place then grab yourself a copy of Layman’s Handbook. And do not worry about being a consumer with a marketable profile in the world. Enjoy life first then worry about nothing.