Future Advertising Has Its Eye On You

The advertising billboards of the future will not simply promote a product, but analyze the audience and display items that the viewer is more likely to buy. It may sound like something out of the future, but Japanese firms have already developed the technology to deliver a more focused message. And that, they hope, will lead to better sales. Electronics giant NEC Corp. recently unveiled PanelDirector, an interactive advertising solution that is equipped with a small camera that is able to capture an image of anyone that looks at it. That individual's face is then compared to more than 10,000 patterns stored in its database and the device is able to determine the gender and approximate age of the viewer. Armed with that information, PanelDirector can then display an image appropriate to that person.

DiscoveryNews

Yes, this technology might remind you of a scene in Steven Spielberg's science fiction thriller "Minority Report" in which Tom Cruise gets confronted with personalized electronic advertisements as he makes his way through a futuristic shopping mall.



And as it seems this vision will not be as far off as some might have thought, I personally have been expecting these, well rather worrying, news. NEC Corp. is developing a new advertising billboard called "PanelDirector" which will be equipped with a small camera able to take pictures of you and recognize your gender/age through the means of facial recognition software in order to display personalized advertisements so YOU can consume more effectively. Consume, buy more, be happy.

What are your thoughts ATS?
Am I the only one who thinks that this will hurt the individual privacy and free will to decide for oneself what to buy and what not?

I think it's a cool concept. If i go to the shopping mall, i go for a reason. If the advertisements are fined tuned to me specifically, that's fine with me! Maybe it will get me a better product to fullfill my needs! I still have the choice, do i buy it, or not. And don't take it so heavy. It's still in the very first stages of development, this kind of marketing. When this sort of advertising gets more aggressive, there will be laws to battle this.

Originally posted by Clairaudience
And as it seems this vision will not be as far off as some might have thought, I personally have been expecting these, well rather worrying, news. NEC Corp. is developing a new advertising billboard called "PanelDirector" which will be equipped with a small camera able to take pictures of you and recognize your gender/age through the means of facial recognition software in order to display personalized advertisements so YOU can consume more effectively. Consume, buy more, be happy.

What are your thoughts ATS?
Am I the only one who thinks that this will hurt the individual privacy and free will to decide for oneself what to buy and what not?

If the choice is between random ads and ads for stuff that I might actually buy, I would prefer the latter. If you use gmail, your e-mail is mined for information that is used to tailor advertisements to you personally. If you're watching golf you're more likely to see ads for banks, if you're watching football you're more likely to see ads for beer, and if you're watching the UFC you're more likely to see ads for video games. Advertisers target specific demographics. Even the ads on ATS are meant for the typical ATS user. The ads that you see are already targeted at you to some extent, because they are embedded in media that someone like you uses, and it's not by accident.

I don't see the personal privacy concerns. . . the camera just looks at you. It doesn't access any information that is private; anyone can look at you and figure out the same things that the detectors can figure out. It's not sending your image over the internet, or giving to it to anyone; the process is entirely self contained. How can personal privacy be at risk when no personal or private information is involved? If a machine learns something about you but never gives the information to a human, does it matter that the machine knows it? Maybe I'm missing something but it doesn't sound to me like anyone will be personally identified, the device will just know that someone who 30 years old and male is standing in front of it, it won't know that it's John Smith in particular.

The free will question is frustrating, but I don't think that this technology is significant to the larger debate; how is it fundamentally different from advertising in general? Cultural factors influence people's decisions, that's undeniable. Media is a huge part of our cutlure, and advertisements are a huge part of our media. Is cultural infuence at odds with individual free will? I think that if cultural influence acts against free well, then you're right; ads, as a part of culture, influence you to do things that you wouldn't have done as a result of free will alone, thereby undermining the extent to which you are free. However, I don't think that this is the case. Cultural influence is not competing with free will for control over you. The discussion necessary to sort this issue out is a lengthy one, but the gist of my argument is this: clearly your experiences of the external world influence your thoughts, beliefs, desires, and actions. If it's raining outside you're less likely to go for a walk; if a car is coming you're less likely to cross the street; and if you hear someone say your name, you'll probably look their way. Unless you're in a sensory deprivation chamber or you're asleep, the outside world is influencing your thoughts and actions (even in the sensory deprivation chamber, your thoughts are probably about how wierd it is being a sensoy deprivation chamber, in which case it is still your relationship to the external world that is driving your thought process). Given that thoughts and actions are not based on some independent willful agent in your head but rather on a combination of the willful agent, current experience(input from the external world), and past memories, I don't think that free will in the strongest sense can possibly exist. I think cultural influence is just like any other external influence, and your mind is designed to include external influences in figuring out what to do next. Ads or no ads, you're not free; your actions depend on external input just as much as they do on your willful intent. I don't think that the "PanelDirector" will shift the balance of power.

reply to post by Clairaudience


I think it could be fun to mess with the ads a bit, for example: wear a gorilla costume and see if the display changes to an ad for bananas.