DEV Community: Raissa Correia

AI Influencers and the future of social media

Raissa Correia — Thu, 21 Dec 2023 15:22:49 +0000

The rise of paywalls and exclusive content

Due to what Elon musk pointed out in the near future will be impossible to control and specially differentiate bots from actual people, illegitimate from ligitimate operations within a social media, therefore the only way to actually prevent harassement, policy violations, scamming, illegal impersonation, etc will be asking people to pay even if it’s a minor fee to tie an account with a real world information provided by a reputable instutition, a bank or a government. With that the free social media is in free fall, and will be an obscure part of the internet just like the web 1.0 and the old forums, or forums like 4chan.

It we are going to pay regardless then the business landscape changes completely, our acceptance toward explicit ads reduces the more we pay, and the best way to advertise is with AI influencers, not only that they provide the best way for companies to not relying in an actual person with an ego.

Not only that but the AI content generated from an actual influencer could be an interesting free tier or sample for that exclusive content.

But if paying for being part of the social media will already be the norm, how people will on top of that pay for exclusive content? My guess is that will not be exclusive content per se anymore, this will not drive people to the influencer, but actually being part of a community of interests in common, a closed forums, recurring meetings in person and remotely, because nowadays what people are missing the most is actually being part of something, and the influencer will become a gatherer, an organizer of such events.

So in the end we are going to live a plot twist in the history of internet that break apart the last bits of offline communities, to in the end due to so much automation and the necessity of paying will unite people again

Elon Musk's insights into the future of social media highlight a pivotal shift: the increasing difficulty in distinguishing bots from real users and illegitimate from legitimate operations. This blurring line necessitates a new approach for safeguarding against harassment, policy violations, scamming, and illegal impersonation. The solution lies in integrating a nominal fee to tie social media accounts to real-world information verified by reputable institutions, such as banks or governments. This move heralds the decline of free social media, relegating it to a lesser-known part of the internet, reminiscent of Web 1.0, traditional forums, or platforms like 4chan.

As social media evolves into a paid service, user tolerance for explicit advertisements diminishes. In this new landscape, AI influencers emerge as a strategic advertising medium, offering brands a reliable, ego-free alternative to human endorsers. These AI influencers could also serve as gateways to exclusive content, offering free samples or teasers of premium material.

However, the crux of this shift is not just in paying for social media access, but in what drives people to pay for additional - exclusive content. It's likely that the future of exclusivity won't hinge on content alone but on the sense of belonging to a community. People are increasingly seeking connection and belonging, and influencers are evolving into community organizers, facilitating both online and offline gatherings around shared interests.

In this new era, the internet's trajectory takes an ironic turn: as automation grows and payment for access becomes the norm, these very developments, once seen as dividing, begin to unite people. Communities, both virtual and physical, find new life, and influencers transform from mere content creators into architects of these vibrant, interconnected spaces. This marks a significant plot twist in the history of the internet, where the decline of offline communities, spurred by digitization and automation, eventually leads to a renaissance of communal connection in the digital age.

In an advertising-saturated digital landscape, AI and virtual influencers offer a novel solution to combat ad fatigue. These AI-driven personalities bridge the gap between traditional advertising and genuine human interaction, providing a more engaging and relatable experience for consumers. Unlike standard advertisements, which often feel intrusive and impersonal, virtual influencers can interact with audiences in a manner that mimics human behavior, creating a sense of connection and authenticity. They can personalize content, respond to trends in real-time, and even engage in conversations, making brand interactions feel less like a sales pitch and more like a dialogue with a charismatic, relatable figure. This human-like engagement, powered by sophisticated AI, not only captures the attention of consumers but also fosters a deeper connection between brands and their audiences, making marketing messages more palatable and effective in an ad-weary world.

The psychology of AI content

Changing Perceptions of AI-Generated Content

The evolution of AI-generated content is reshaping public perception in significant ways. Currently, many view AI content with skepticism, associating it with a lack of human touch and authenticity. However, as AI technology advances, these perceptions are undergoing a notable shift. Future generations, growing up in a world where AI is ubiquitous, are likely to see AI-generated content as a standard, even essential, part of their digital experience. For them, the distinction between AI and human content may become less pronounced, with AI content valued for its efficiency, scalability, and ability to tailor to individual preferences. This evolution heralds a new era where AI content is not just accepted but expected, especially in its role as a provider of free, accessible information and entertainment.

The Preference for Human-Generated Content

Despite the advancements in AI, there's a growing trend towards valuing human-generated content, especially in spaces shielded by paywalls. This preference stems from a desire for personalization, authenticity, and the human touch - qualities that AI, in its current state, struggles to replicate fully. Human content creators offer unique perspectives, emotional depth, and a sense of connection that resonates deeply with audiences. As a result, platforms are increasingly using paywalls to differentiate this premium, human-centric content from the more generic, AI-generated alternatives. These paywalls not only ensure a revenue stream for creators but also help in fostering a sense of exclusivity and community among subscribers. In this landscape, human content becomes a symbol of quality and authenticity, a valued commodity in a digital world increasingly populated by AI-generated material.

AI as a way to have privacy

Privacy and AI: Reducing the Need for Personal Exposure

In the evolving landscape of digital content creation, AI is emerging as a powerful tool for preserving privacy. The growing sentiment that exposing one's face for views is an unnecessary overexposure is leading to a paradigm shift. AI technology enables content creators to generate engaging material without the need to reveal their personal identity or physical appearance. This approach is particularly appealing in an era where privacy concerns are paramount. Creators can harness AI to craft narratives, produce videos, or even simulate interactions, all while keeping their personal identity safely obscured. This shift not only protects creators from potential privacy invasions but also allows them to focus solely on the quality and substance of their content. As a result, AI becomes a crucial ally in maintaining a balance between creating compelling content and safeguarding personal privacy in the digital domain.

AI and Anonymity: Empowering Content Creators

The potential of AI to enable anonymity in content creation marks a significant advancement in the digital world. This technology allows creators to build a following and engage with audiences without the need to disclose their real identity. AI-driven avatars or virtual influencers can serve as proxies, delivering content that resonates with audiences while keeping the creator's identity anonymous. This level of anonymity is especially valuable for creators who wish to explore sensitive topics, offer controversial opinions, or simply maintain a separation between their public and private lives. AI's ability to mimic human characteristics and behaviors means these virtual personas can be as engaging and relatable as real-life influencers. This not only opens up new avenues for creative expression but also provides a safe space for content creators to express themselves without compromising their privacy.

Ironmouse Example

Ironmouse's journey as a VTuber, culminating in winning the Best Influencer Award at the Game Awards 2023, vividly illustrates the intersection of technology, privacy, and personal expression in the realm of digital content creation. As a real woman utilizing motion capture technology to project herself as an anime character, Ironmouse has crafted a unique online identity that resonates deeply with her audience. Her background as an opera singer, combined with the challenges posed by her CVID syndrome, adds a layer of depth and inspiration to her persona. Being a VTuber allows her to maintain her privacy and independence while being confined to her bed due to her illness. This innovative use of technology to create a captivating virtual avatar enables her to continue her passion for performance and connect with her audience in a meaningful way. Ironmouse's success demonstrates how digital avatars can be used not just for anonymity, but as a powerful tool for those seeking creative expression and engagement while managing personal health challenges.

Concluding Thoughts

The future of social media, as we venture further into the digital age, is being redefined by the burgeoning influence of AI and a collective yearning for more authentic, community-driven experiences. The advent of AI influencers, the rise of paywalls, and the increasing preference for privacy are not just isolated phenomena; they are interconnected facets of a broader shift in how we interact, share, and perceive content online.

AI, once a fringe element in the realm of social media, is now at the forefront, reimagining advertising and content creation. Its ability to offer personalized, engaging experiences while addressing ad fatigue is revolutionizing brand-consumer interactions. However, as we embrace these technological advancements, ethical considerations come into play. Issues of privacy, data security, and the authenticity of AI-generated content are paramount. There's a delicate balance between leveraging AI for its immense potential and safeguarding the fundamental values of trust and transparency in the digital space.

In conclusion, as we navigate these changes, it's crucial to understand that the heart of social media remains unchanged: it's a tool for connection, expression, and community building. The technologies we adopt and the policies we implement should enhance these core values, ensuring that, even as we progress into an increasingly AI-integrated world, the essence of human connection in digital spaces is not just preserved but enriched.

This dynamic landscape of social media, marked by its embrace of AI and a renewed focus on community and privacy, paints a hopeful picture. It's a world where technology and human experience coalesce, creating spaces that are more inclusive, empathetic, and attuned to the diverse needs of their users. As we look to the future, the potential for positive transformation in how we interact, share, and grow online is immense, promising a more connected, authentic, and empathetic digital world.

Sources

Not a Bot

Pika Labs

Runway - Advancing creativity with artificial intelligence.

New labels for disclosing AI-generated content

Using Generative AI to Create TikTok Effects | Learn | TikTok Effect House

Um Guia sobre Gerenciadores de Senhas

Raissa Correia — Sat, 30 Oct 2021 17:22:43 +0000

Introdução a essa série — Segurança Digital

Atualmente temos muitas coisas valiosas em bens digitais, por exemplo: Mensalidades de serviços de streaming, e-books comprados pela Loja do Kindle, jogos comprados na Steams, cursos comprados na Udemy ou no Coursera, a mensalidade do office ligado a sua conta de Microsoft, uma imagem pessoal ou uma carreira que é sustentada pela presença no Youtube, ou no Instagram, ou uma página do Facebook.

Não faltam exemplos de bens digitais muito valiosos, mas ainda assim, a maioria das pessoas deixa tudo escancarado sem nem mesmo uma cerca, e o motivo é simples: as pessoas não sabem construir essas proteções virtuais, e esse é o primeiro de MUITOS guias. Então me siga no Medium, ou no Twitter ou no Instagram que ainda falarei de VPN, Antivirus, Privacidade, Criptografia dos seus dados, e etc…

Sobre senhas em 2021
A forma como nos defendemos evolui com o tempo, a medida que os criminosos tem novas armas de ataque. Muitos dizem que atualmente o conceito de senha está morto, que devemos nos preocupar é com autenticação de 2 fatores e dados biométricos, em parte eu concordo.
A parte que discordo, é que ainda hoje a maior parte dos sites e sistemas se baseia no esquema tradicional de senha, e como as pessoas usam sempre as mesmas senhas nos mesmos sites cada vez que um site é hackeado e tem seu banco de dados violado, esses dados são vendidos no mercado negro para golpistas tornando todas suas outros sites vulneráveis, e você também estará mais vulnerável a ataques de pishing.
Ataques de pishing são golpistas tentando se aproveitar de conhecimento dos seus dados para tentar se passar por você no telefone em outras instituições ganhando mais e mais acesso a suas coisas.

O 1º problema: Como ter tantas senhas distintas?
Muita gente não gosta de gerenciador de senha por serem “um ponto de falha único”, e eles são mesmo, mas não superem a fraqueza de não diversificar suas senhas. Os gerenciadores que vou indicar abaixo, são um aplicativo de celular, instale normalmente, e extensão de navegador, qualquer navegador aceita esses gerenciadores. No final do texto recomendo cada um deles, e suas vantagens.

Eles tem preenchimento automático, login automático, se quiser automatizar eles trocam algumas senhas de tempos em tempos para você.
Ou como eu prefiro eu monitoro as senhas que estão ficando velhas, pois na lista tem a idade delas, apesar de ter umas 90 diferentes eu só monitoro o top 10 que são de sites mais importantes e com valores movimentados.

O 2º problema: Como tornar a segurança mais prática na sua vida
Todas as outras os gerenciadores tem uma ferramenta de gerar senhas de acordo com parâmetros que você escolhe:

Separe as senhas em categorias, se você confia no gerenciador guarde os dados de cartão, endereço e afins, eles tem seções especificas pra isso, para preencher mais facilmente em e-commerce e temos uma praticidade e segurança enorme!
E para quem é desenvolvedor tem TANTA senha, de tanto site, serviço, chave SSH do github, do bitbucket…enfim tudo isso tem opção no Lastpass e o BitWarden.

O 3º problema: Como ter um backup em caso de roubo, ou desastres?
Para isso tenho que explicar como você vai criar sua senha mestra, que é a senha do seu gerenciador.
Você cria a conta e pense numa senha HIPER segura para ser a sua senha mestre, meu conselho é pegue 2 palavras: Manipule eles, e misture com números e caracteres especiais, e faça uma com 15 a 25 caracteres. Por exemplo: Banana + Melancia + 1479 + #$%&, a senha resultante seria tipo: #Bana97nA&41Melan%ciA$

Assim você pode guardar num pedaço de papel caso roubem seu celular e seu computador, e será seguro pois vc escreve separadamente como mostrei antes, e é MUITO mais fácil decorar como vc monta a partir dos pedaços do que lembrar da senha maluca e longa.

E algo maravilho desses gerenciadores, é que com seu login e senha mestra, você tem TODAS as senhas e você tem acesso a todas as suas coisas muito facilmente, eu vira e mexe mudo o navegador que uso, ou mudo o sistema operacional, vou do Linux, pro Windows, o tempo todo, e se fosse logar em tudo cada vez na mão seria MUITO cansativo e perderia várias horas a cada mudança. É prático quando você troca de notebook ou celular também.
Estou convencido, qual gerenciador você recomenda?
Hoje em 2021 temos 2 grandes gerenciadores confiáveis: LastPass e BitWarden.

O LastPass é de longe o melhor se a ideia é não pagar nada, melhor gratuito na minha visão e conheci os gerenciadores por causa dele em 2016.

O BitWarden é o melhor se você pretende pagar pelo gerenciador, especialmente porque é código aberto e conhecemos exatamente qual é o esquema de segurança dele, diferente dos 2 anteriores. Se fosse começar do zero agora, usaria esse, porque dá precisa de mudar.
E tem alguns que não gostam de armazenar na nuvem e preferem localmente, o que é compreensível, então o ideal é o KeePassXC.

Se quiser ler mais sobre cada um desses serviços ter um site maravilhoso em inglês sobre esses temas todos, que é praticamente minha fonte:
Best Password Managers & Security Tips | Restore Privacy
Esse link é o comparativo mesmo:
Best Password Managers for 2020 (Test Results & Analysis) (restoreprivacy.com)

Espero que tenha ajudado, na próxima semana volto com mais um tópico que provavelmente será autenticadores para complementar esse.

How to use PiHole and Block ALL ads in your network

Raissa Correia — Sat, 16 Oct 2021 23:06:11 +0000

I need to clarify that some ads can't be blocked for example: Youtube, Instagram and TikTok, because the ads' source is the same of the content, because this is a DNS filter.
However this is useful to take down annoying ads from free apps on mobile, because on PC it's easier and better to use an ad block extension.

I also need to tell that there are some collateral effects, the main one is:

If you're going to buy something all links in google shopping is a google ad, so they can't be loaded you have to disable piHole in the manager address "http://raspberry_pi_ip_address/admin"
Several web pages have problems to load you click the link and Network Error, reaload, DNS Probe Error, reload, loads like normal
I have a smart TV by Samsung, like I do, and if you disconnect from Wi-fi, you have to disable to connect your TV again

All disclaimers aside, let's implement to learn a bit about network!

1) First set up your raspberry pi, with a linux distro installed in the SD Card.

Discover the raspberry IP address, I used this command:
sudo nmap -sP $(ip addr | grep "inet " | awk '{ print $2}' | grep -v 127.0.0)

Keep it updated
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/raspberry-pi-update-raspbian-os/

2) Then install with a single command!
curl -sSL https://install.pi-hole.net | bash

If you had any problems you can check it out here:
https://github.com/pi-hole/pi-hole/#one-step-automated-install

After install you'll see this in your terminal, save in a txt file.

Configure your devices to use the Pi-hole as their DNS server

│ using:

│

│ IPv4: IPv4 address of your raspberry pi

│ IPv6: IPv6 address of your raspberry pi

│

│ If you have not done so already, the above IP should be set to

│ static.

│

│ The install log is in /etc/pihole.

│

│ View the web interface at http://pi.hole/admin or

│ http://ip_address/admin (for me only this works)

3) Then the most complicated part, go to your router configuration and paste these 2 ip addresses in the right place!

For me, I'm using Claro in Brazil, that uses the Arris router system.
Gateway > Connection > Local IP Network > IPv4
You'll see the option: LAN's DNS, DNS da LAN(in portuguese)
Turn it static!
Paste the raspberry IPV4 in Primary DNS Server, leave the Secondary in blank
To avoid issues I didn't used the IPv6
Disconnect the devices from your network, and that's it! It's done!

4) If you want to block your ads everywhere, you can set up your VPN DNS server as the raspberry IP, the same as you did with your router

And the sub Reddit if you have any advanced questions:
https://www.reddit.com/r/pihole/

Enjoy!

Others ways to contribute to open source

Raissa Correia — Sun, 12 Sep 2021 18:00:04 +0000

So many developers want to leave a contribution to projects they always use and know a lot, however, we always feel too inexperienced and intimidated to add any code to these projects. That's why I came up with alternative ways to contribute and start to be closer to the open-source community and your favorite projects.

Translation

This is the easiest and more accessible in my opinion. No new content to be created by you, just the effort to bring help to developers that are not fully fluent in English. There are MANY things to translate: the app itself, documentation, tutorials...

Content

There is too much content these days for some things and too little for others, especially more advanced and niche examples, and it's a great way to show as a portfolio, not only content about how to use a tool but how a tool work. Remember that content is not only tutorials, in text or video, but also documentation, guides, books, and compilations of other articles/videos

Discussions and Forums

If something looks wrong, comment about it on forums, on GitHub issues, at least will make the developers more aware of a common mistake, or a bug, or an issue with a specific environment

Donations

Of course, all these projects need funds to hire people full-time and accelerate project development, if you can it will be really appreciated.

Non-code accessibility support

This is part of the content section however I'll make this another section just to remember this neglected segment

Usability tests

Testing to make sure that user experience in several devices, for several segments of users is crucial to growth if it's destinated to non-tech consumers

Benefits of Starting a Career in a Small Company

Raissa Correia — Sun, 16 May 2021 20:15:00 +0000

In September 2019, I was in the last months of my Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering at the University of Campinas.

In Brazil, we make a final project that lasts for a whole semester supervised by a professor. At this time my supervisor offered me a job after getting my degree in December. She has a non-profit company that promotes robotics teaching and research, and they needed a new system to manage their organization that supports academic events.

The basic explanation is: Students subscribe to a competition, pay for their subscription, they're evaluated, earn certifications, are part of groups(to make their tasks), with mentors that must be part of schools or colleges, and there's the whole administration sector that is by far the hardest and most complex to implement.

In December when we talked more in-depth about the job, she told me that I would be the only developer, and that was my second job, the first that is not an internship(that was also in a small education tech company).

At first, it was pretty scary, because you need to know a lot to build a whole complex system from scratch, and I'm not talking about coding, that's the easiest.
I'm talking about the decision process of choosing the tech to be used, why, and if they add value to your final product. After that, you need to learn these technologies and make them all work together.

If that challenge wasn't enough we all know that just 3 months later the pandemic hit Brazil and I would never go back to the office again, fortunately, I was able to talk to the employees that use the previous system for a while and know our current robotic events and Olympics and got all the requisites.

I'm in favor to work from home, however in a situation like this the lack of communication was a serious issue, and being completely on my own made everything slower, but my growth as a professional was huge, and it still happening.

Starting my web developer career with a job like this, was the best opportunity possible, it was, and still is really hard, but showed to me that developing is MUCH more than coding. It's all about self-management, soft skills, dealing with clients, learn a lot about how each layer(front, back, design, DB, DevOps) contributes to the final result, communication, and how to learn by myself with efficiency.

I'll discuss in more detail everything involved in this job in my future posts, to make a long series of small texts. Thank you for reading!