SB2 - Product, Range & Distribution - Initial Thoughts

• Social, political and ethical change/issues 
• How can the way this is produced be appropriate to the concept

The first thing I need to do is identify a theme or topic that I would find engaging and exciting to research in depth. It doesn’t have to be a big political or social issue, it could be something smaller and more menial but which I still personally engage with. - “What really pisses you off?”.

I think it would be really interesting to research and develop a body of work in response to a social issue with technology as its obviously a very relevant topic, and is only becoming more relevant. Here are a few ideas:

Surveillance and Data Capture: - This is a massive topic right now, the idea that our personal information can be obtained without our consent is a big issue. One topic of debate recently has been voice controlled technology and AI such as Siri and amazon’s ‘alexa’ and whether they are constantly listening, and possibly, constantly recording us.

Holograms of Musicians - A little lesser known as a topic of controversy but still considered a bit of an issue is the fact that due to technology now, musicians who are dead can once more perform on stage in ‘hologram’ form. While a lot of people are excited about the possibility of being able to see there favourite musicians perform once more, it really does bring up a lot of social questions about the morality of it; Would these musicians have actually consented to this? Shouldn’t we be focusing on new music and musicians as opposed to resurrecting dead ones? Are these holograms a truly accurate representation? Who gains from these performances; the musicians themselves clearly can’t, maybe their families or their estate, but already the rights to a few dead celebrity ghosts are being bought by companies - whats to stop them from churning out cash buy making these performances very regular?

The Singularity - Stephen Hawking once said “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race” - ‘The Singularity’ refers to the point in time in which an AI is created which can think beyond human capacities, and potentially mean the end of our race. The idea seems so much like a science fiction story and so farfetched that not many people realise its a very real possibility. Among Stephen Hawking are scientists and people at the top of the technology industry such as Elon Musk who have also stated that this must be addressed and clear set laws and regulations must be put in place in the development and production of artificial intelligence.