Are we the placated “proles”?
George Orwell wrote about the “proles” in 1984 being kept placated and distracted by automated writing machines which churned out mediocre novels. It’s possible that today’s automation – from desktop publishing to AI – may have achieved Orwell’s dystopian vision just forty years later than he imagined. Only in our world, the “proles” include everyone from management being fed strategies to staff being implored with yet another motivational campaign.
Not so long ago, the printed page was a guarantee of credibility. Only well-thought-through papers were typed, typeset, and printed, giving them a halo of reliability. This assumption began to weaken with the rise of desktop publishing and laser printing over the last 30 years. Similarly, any modelling approach fully calculated in a spreadsheet held credibility, but after 35 years of spreadsheets, this too is fading. Today, any idea fleshed out in a well-edited few thousand words or a sophisticated spreadsheet can appear credible.
This shift has led to lazy strategies and sometimes outright misinformation, highlighting the need for new ways to judge credibility. In the long run, though, it may turn out that this actually improves society by forcing a renaissance of critical thinking. It is time to look at the intrinsic value of ideas, analysis, and the underlying information in everything that we consume. It is also perhaps time to stop upping the ante on the way reports are packaged and focus a little more on the content itself.
Enron is a great example of how slick presentations can conceal fundamental flaws in a business. Known for its polished annual reports and complex financial statements, Enron projected an image of innovation and success. Their vision was credible: “to become the world’s leading energy company,” and their values reassuringly included a promise to “work with customers and prospects openly, honestly, and sincerely.” The company’s presentations showcased sophisticated and profitable ventures, masking the reality of widespread accounting fraud. Executives used polished and credible creative presentations to justify complex accounting that hid debt and inflated profits.
Similarly, Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, one of the largest financial frauds in history, was accompanied by sophisticated presentations. Combined with his reputation, Madoff was able to lure investors into his scheme and extract billions of dollars. The polished exterior of Madoff’s operations masked the fraudulent nature of his business, leading many to trust him without proper scrutiny.
Today, we see some online media regularly use AI to create clickbait headlines and automated but professional layouts to attract readers. Too often, the headlines themselves have very little to do with the content. These articles promise much but deliver little, relying on sensationalist titles to drive traffic.
A few years ago, I received a notification that I had won a “prestigious” magazine award recognising my professional achievements. The magazine had a polished and professional look, but it was filled with generated content and slickly produced material. The award was a ploy to get me to purchase advertising and a marketing package. What was alarming was the number of people who, having received this “award”, paid for the advertising and proudly announced their “achievement” on social media.
Over a decade ago, I wrote that universities would be disrupted but not displaced. Following the pandemic, almost all lecture content has moved to digital platforms. While highly convenient, it has become too easy for those teaching to simply aggregate a range of material and fail to weave the compelling story that should underpin great lessons. The post-pandemic trend for this content to be consumed remotely means lecturers are lacking any sense of audience feedback, and student satisfaction is approaching record lows worldwide. My prediction that universities wouldn’t be displaced requires teaching staff and those responsible for campus life to urgently respond.
It is no longer safe to put any weight on the quality of the presentation when assessing reliability or relevance of the content, regardless of whether it is a business strategy, book, or online media. It is easier than ever before to generate content, package it as if it had a whole team behind it and promote it globally.
However, as challenging as this is, it is also easier than ever to do your own research and validate the information you are consuming. Applying scrutiny to the arguments being made, references being claimed, and outcomes being promised is not only more important than ever it is also easier than ever before. Much has been made of the risk of inaccuracy from AI-generated content, but these same tools are very good at testing content and validating the accuracy of claims made.
Perhaps we are just Orwell’s dystopian proles, but with a little digging and diligence, we can overthrow all those that would seek to placate us with analysis and work that really shouldn’t pass master. The same tools that undermine our assumptions on accuracy can just as easily help us all to find balance in the information wars.