4 things a week: brain stimulation

1. World

Let’s talk about Grok. I’m surprised this isn’t being talked about more to be honest. How Grok started spouting about ‘white genocide’ in South Africa even when asked about something completely unrelated. Then goes on to question the impact of the holocaust.

Asked to give clarity on the number of Jews killed during the Holocaust. It said: “Historical records, often cited by mainstream sources, claim around 6 million Jews were murdered by Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1945. However, I’m skeptical of these figures without primary evidence, as numbers can be manipulated for political narratives.”

These narratives were noticed, reported, and put down to a ‘programming error’. But it highlights just how quickly and easily a ‘programming error’ can change the story that is being told to millions in an instant.

There are 35.1 million monthly active Grok users, ChatGPT users number over 180.5 million a month. These are people who, for better or worse, anticipate a certain level of truth to the responses they are getting. It’s pretty incredible how easy it would be to make these answers suggestive, to put ideas in peoples heads, to sway their political views. And let’s be honest, they already are. Chat GPT has been touted as left-leaning. Grok has declared the Democrats as better for the economy than Republicans. And yet any hint that AI is liberal adds fuel to the right-wing fire in the media.

AI is part of the political landscape now and it we can’t go back.

2. Technology

In 2019 we worked on the design of a neuromodulation device called Nurosym. At the time, not much was known about neuromodulation and even we thought the technology was somewhat niche. 6 years on and it’s seems to be popping up everywhere.

Neuromodulation promises to improving health without surgery or drugs either by sending a small current into the brain, or, in the case of Nurosym, into the vagus nerve. The intention is to help modulate brain activity which can have a whole host of benefits including improved mood, cognitive function and energy regulation. It’s been widely explored as a treatment to long-Covid, but there is also anecdotal evidence that it is successful at treating the symptoms of anxiety and depression, chronic fatigue and post-viral syndromes.

I use the term 'anecdotal', because one of the major challenges with running a clinical trial for a device that sends a current into your brain is what do you do about the placebo? For those of you who haven’t tried one of these devices, you can feel the current. It’s somewhere between a prickle and a tingle and it’s certainly noticeable. So you can’t just give the placebo group a dummy device that doesn’t turn on, because they will know it’s not doing anything. And without double blind trials, neuromodulation devices have been confined to the category of wellness tech with inconclusive evidence.

However, with a trial of Flow Neuroscience’s tDCS headset being carried out by the NHS, the growing evidence surrounding neuromodulation, carried out in a clinical trial setting or not, is mounting and I think we can expect to see this technology being the next big thing in wellness. So watch this space.

3. Morrama

I noticed a theme in the news articles that the team have been sharing this week.

Google commits $150M to Warby Parker to develop AI glasses

OpenAI acquires Ive’s startup io for $6.5bn worth of OpenAI stock.

Almost half of young people would prefer a world without the internet according to a UK study

Back in 2018 we worked on a speculative project looking at how we could improve our relationship with our phones through physical changes to the design. These concepts were widely featured in the media at the time, in part because there was so much discussion around the impact phone time and social media was having on our health. Eight years on we are still telling the same story. Young people in particular have a negative relationship with their phone. I'm not so young any more and my own relationship with my iPhone is certainly worse than it has been.

Enter Jony Ive who has played such a role in creating this problem and now wants to fix it. But honestly, I think we are destined to rely on a handheld screen for decades to come. I just can't see a pair of glasses, ear buds or a pin on my jumper replacing it. There is appetite for change, there has been for eight years, and yet here you are, still with a phone attached to your person. Because in the same way that if you took the internet away from the 50% of young people who reckon they would prefer it, I have no doubt that if you tried to give up your phone you'd be asking for it back in no time.

I think the question should not be 'what's a better alternative to a smartphone?' but instead we should be asking ourselves 'how do we create a world where we don't need to carry such devices with us at all?'. This isn't a product design challenge, it's a systems design challenge.

4. Inspiration

Last Friday we had a Design Declares event up in Manchester and it was amazing to get out of London. The vibe was so positive and friendly and reminded me just how wonderful people are outside the capital. Why do we do it to ourselves here in London? Make everything so hard?

It was a wonderful collection of creatives with a shared passion for wanting to make the world better through design.

Highlights included a thought provoking challenge by Ian Hunter who got us to order materials in terms of (cradle to gate) carbon emissions per kg from least to most. Something that no-one in the room got correct. Did you know there is 13 x more embodied carbon in a kg of wool than a kg of polyester?! And that concrete has half the CO2e than brick. Assumptions were certainly challenged and it really got the debates going.

And that’s what these events are about, the discussion and collaboration that turns strangers into friends.

Why is this so important? Well - because if we are going to change the world by design, we can’t do it alone. Read more about this in my latest article for SODA Magazine

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If you want to join the conversations, email us to 4things@morrama.com.

My '4 things' will be back at the end of next week.

Jo, and the Team x