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  AI Influencers take over in 2026 I mentioned this shortly in my previous entry, but AI-generated UGC’s are taking the world by storm.  Google Trends show the search volume for the term “AI UGC” in %. Date cut off was 15th of February What is a UGC video? (User Generated Content) The abbreviation simply means “User Generated Content”, but that phrasing is very broad. In a typical business / marketing context, a UGC is a form of an advertising creative, which is designed to present a “social proof” element in order to convince users to purchase a certain product.  It is a format that has developed over time, not a sincere review, but rather a carefully planned creative involving elements such as the initial 2 second Hook, visual and audio based CTAs and a fast action cut. Influencers participating in a UGC often have never tried the product and are not incentivized by their real experience as a user, but rather monetarily, typically charging between 100 and 1500 dollar fo...
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Why do EU countries ban social media only NOW?

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  Why do EU countries ban social media only NOW? Recently, there has been a surge in countries banning the use of social media. Australia enforcing a ban in December 2025, Spain announced in February 2026, France September 2025, Norway increasing the age from 13 to 15 in January 2026 and Denmark and Portugal planned implementations in 2026. Mostly deciding to ban the use of social media for teens under 15 or 16 years of age.  While it makes sense that social media poses a risk factor for teenagers, the risks have been long known. Jonathan Haidt is a leading psychologist who had explored relationships between teenage depression and social media (In his book “The Anxious Genergation”) use and found that especially girls aged 13 to 16, had reported greater levels of depression and rates of self harm, from the moment Facebook rose to popularity. The suspicions of harmful affects of social media where also once again emphasized when Frances Haugen in 2021, released confidential int...
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"The War on Normal People (2020)” revisited

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Andrew Yang in his book “The War on Normal People ”, explores the effect of technology on unemployment and what happens when AI, robotics and automation software will displace millions of jobs. These are exactly the contemporary topics that now rose to prominence in the age of AI. However, the twist is that the book was written in 2020, which was 2 years before the arrival of ChatGPT. This gives us a unique possibility to evaluate how much of the perceived dangers actually took place and gives us a framework to evaluate future risks.  Truck drivers and self-driving cars Since AI was not yet really a thing, a prime focus of Andrew Yang was on blue collar jobs . In particular, self driving vehicles were analyzed. Andrew foresaw a boom in self-driving vehicles. Musk had stated that as early as 2019, all new Teslas will be self-driving. 2020 was supposed to be the year of mass adoption, where ride sharing companies expected that half their fleets would be autonomous in 2022.  In ...
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