Advertisers know you better than yourself

Juliana Colant 

jc079419@ohio.edu

Advertisers know what you need before you even knew you needed it. 

Nowadays, the ways of advertising have evolved thanks to advances in technology, especially artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence blurs the lines of ethical advertising. Ads are specifically targeted towards consumers based on their information. 

"Consumers express their needs and wants, attitudes, and values in various forms (through search, comments, blogs, Tweets, “likes,” videos, and conversations) and across many channels (web, mobile, and face to face,)" according to an academic journal on artificial intelligence. "Many marketers are turning to artificial intelligence (AI) to transform this big data flow into valuable consumer insight." 

A consumer's demographic, motivations, vulnerabilities and transactional data are all collected by artificial intelligence. Ads then reflect this data. The downside to this is its a lack of privacy. 

"AI threats include loss of privacy and control," according to an article from Journal of Advertising. "However, as companies continue to generate exponential amounts of data each year, AI is becoming less an option and more a necessity to be on the cutting edge." 

This raises the question, where does the boundary lie? At what point does the information gathered reach an invasion of privacy?

How this boundary is perceived varies between generations in my opinion. My generation, Generation Z, is not particularly concerned with artificial intelligence being used for advertising. I think Generation Z is so accustomed to technology that it is not shocking that advertisers have access to its personal information. 

For a period of time, it was a popular joke on social media in late 2017 to early 2018 among Generation Z people that government workers watched users through their device's camera lens. People made jokes comfortable with the idea someone was always watching them. It was joked that an FBI worker was assigned to every phone and they watched over everything you do. Below is an example of a tweet making light of the data capacity of artificial intelligence. 

Photo courtesy of Buzzfeed.com

Whenever my friends and I talk about how public our personal preferences really are they shrug. They have made remarks like, "I have nothing to hide," and "I like that they know what I search because the ads fit with things I want." 

The last is a really interesting point to me. Some members of Generation Z may actually prefer artificial intelligence to continue to collect their data because it produces ads of interest and thus prompts them to make a purchase. It's no wonder our society is overrun by consumerism, it's built into everything we see. Ads that are catered to us constantly surround us online, almost screaming, "Buy me! Buy me!" 

Older generations, however, are less welcoming of artificial intelligence in my opinion, especially the Baby Boomer Generation and on. My grandma refuses to let us install video streaming apps like Netflix and Hulu on her TV. This is because she believes through the apps  artificial intelligence bots can watch her through her TV and collect information. I'm serious. To me, that is ridiculous, but is it because I am so accustomed to artificial intelligence and its ways? 

The generational gap of approval of artificial intelligence will only grow. The use of artificial intelligence in advertising is not going away anytime soon. In fact, Generation Z's overall relaxed concern about it I believe will only fuel its use further. Generation Z is very comfortable with being public, or rather shall I say with lacking privacy.