Institute For The Future

We Know What You Want

 

As someone who spends most of his waking hours listening to Pandora, I haven't just accepted the idea that algorithms can get me what I want, but pretty much depend on them. Still, I'm only coming to terms with the idea that these sorts of algorithms will increasingly find their way into mundane physical spaces, like supermarkets, to shape our decisions in real-time. What if, ten years from now, walking into a supermarket meant getting a series of customized alerts and pitches designed to tempt you with your favorite comfort food? How would that change what we eat--and how healthy we are?

 

It's actually not that far fetched a scenario. For example, a prototype service called the Automatic DJ got a fair amount of attention for being able to play a song tailored to your musical tastes simply by scanning your face. The mechanics are a bit techy--but, in effect, the system compares the picture it just took of your face to your Facebook profile, as well as to the service Hunch, and generates a recommendation about what you should listen to.

 

 

 

It's a pretty cool concept--and well beyond what we're seeing among in-store food retailers--though it's not for lack of effort in the food world. Kraft, for example, recently unveiled a kiosk that makes recommendations about potential food purchases by scanning faces for age, gender and other demographic data.

 

 

 

So, when he or she passes by the kiosk, the digital signage, equipped with a freaky sort of Anonymous Video Analytics technology, zooms in on his or her face and instantly determines gender and age group to guess what products might exert some allure (hopefully it won't scan your second chin and suggest half a South Beach Living Fiber Fit Bar ... nothing else). For somebody who looks like she might be a mom of school-age kids, it would presumably recommend Oscar Mayer wieners with a side of Mac 'n' Cheese. A twenty-something guy with bloodshot eyes might be directed to the Tombstone Pizza aisle.

 

 

 

 

Looking beyond the specifics of the Kraft kiosk, though, the challenge is that we often make poor food choices precisely because they're available. This is the concept of triggers that my colleagues highlighted in last year's future of persuasion research--basically, it's the idea that little reminders and alerts turn latent desires into actions.

 

In food, unfortunately, many of our latent desires are junk food--and at least part of the problem of obesity has to do with mindlessly following those desires. My guess is that any analysis of what most of us want to eat would show a preference for chocolate cookies and salty cheese puffs and so on--and very few voracious broccoli lovers. And so, it follows that we should expect to walk into supermarkets in a few years and be bombarded with offers for our unhealthy foods, customized to tempt us as much as humanly possible. This will be great for our moment-to-moment enjoyment of food--even if it makes us all fat and unhealthy in the long run.