- 09/03/2018
- Category: Commentaries
“The pig of Hufflepuff pulsed like a large bullfrog. Dumbledore smiled at it, and placed his hand on its head: ‘You are Hagrid now.’”
The quotes above are an excerpt from “Harry Potter and The Portrait of What Looked Like A Large Pile of Ash” — a spin-off story based on the Harry Potter series.[i] A predictive text keyboard managed to create the story after learning the contents of all seven Harry Potter novels.[ii] Amongst all the breakthroughs enabled through AI, its potential to revolutionize fan culture remain unnoticed.
An underexplored field of digital disruption
A fan is someone who has a profound interest in a specific cultural product.[iii] Different types of fans exist, from sport to anime fans. Due to its vastness, it is impossible to pinpoint the exact number of fans and fandoms at any given time. This, along with the fans’ dedication towards their idols, highlights the prospects of AI disruption.
Fans are the primary source of income for idols and producers, for whom it is imperative to understand their needs, demands, and interests. The gaming industry, for example, is in dire need of fan-related information.[iv] Fans of books and TV series which are currently on hiatus, such as “Game of Thrones”, are constantly demanding new content.[v] Sports fans are turning to swarm intelligence to make their bets,[vi] while music streaming services such as Spotify rely heavily on machine learning to create personalized music playlists.[vii] The list goes on and on.
How AI revolutionizes fans and fandoms
Overall, there are three ways in which AI impacts fan cultures. First, it alters the relationship between fans and idols or producers; second, it enriches fan experience; and third, it evokes a sense of gratification among fans. See the illustration below.
Figure 1: Levels of AI disruption on fan cultures
First of all, AI transforms the relations between fans and idols or producers. Chatbots allow idols or producers to engage and interact directly with their fans, as demonstrated by IconicBot.[viii] Machine learning enables devices to quickly identify frequently asked questions, therefore improving response rate and time. These services simplify the information exchange process between fan and idols or producers; fans are able to actively seek and send information, whereas idols or producers can share information easily through a multitude of platforms and devices.
Furthermore, AI greatly enriches fan experience. Several sports tournaments such as Wimbledon incorporates AI through crowd intelligence in their venues to help fans navigate the arena and reduce waiting time.[ix] The 2017 San Diego Comic-Con utilized immersive technologies through mixed-reality for “Legion” fans to experience.[x] Spotify tailors their playlists while bearing the listeners’ preferences in mind.[xi] Not only are fans provided with on-the-spot services, but AI also offers fans a wide range of options to choose from.
Finally, fans are able to do and understand things that were impossible to achieve prior to digital disruption. AI’s predictive capabilities can “manipulate” the future: it has accurately predicted the 2017 Super Bowl winner,[xii] written future book chapters in the style of the original authors,[xiii] and managed to collaborate with humans in writing horror stories.[xiv] These predictive capabilities and machine learning algorithms are so sophisticated that in 2016, a story that was written by a Japanese AI nearly won a literary award.[xv]
Figure 2: Notable examples of AIs aimed to enhance fan experience
What to anticipate
It is clear that AI possesses the potential to transform fan culture. However, when compared with other sectors (e.g. journalism, healthcare, businesses), the current AI technology invested in enhancing fan culture may not be as sophisticated. Several key challenges could be identified, such as ensuring the clarity of writings produced by predictive text algorithms, verifying the accuracy of crowd intelligence, and improving the quality of image recognition in understanding comic strips.[xvi] Despite its progressive development, the use of AI in enhancing fan culture still requires a lot of work and improvement.
Editors: Diah Ratna Pratiwi, M.Dev & Nabeel Khawarizmy Muna, S.IP
Picture: Unsplash
[i] botnik.org. (2018). Harry Potter. [online] Available at: http://botnik.org/content/harry-potter.html. [Accessed 5 Mar. 2018].
[ii] theguardian.com. (2018). ‘He began to eat Hermione’s family’: bot tries to write Harry Potter book — and fails in magic ways. [online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2017/dec/13/harry-potter-botnik-jk-rowling. [Accessed 5 Mar. 2018].
[iii] Gray, J., Sandvoss, C. and Harrington, C. (2007). Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World. New York: NYU Press, p.22.
[iv] Shieber, J. (2018). Esports teams need more data about their fans, and FanAI wants to give it to them. [online] TechCrunch. Available at: https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/22/esports-teams-need-more-data-about-their-fans-and-fanai-wants-to-give-it-to-them/. [Accessed 5 Mar. 2018].
[v] World Economic Forum. (2017). Artificial intelligence is trying to write the next Game of Thrones book. [online] Available at: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/09/artificial-intelligence-is-trying-to-write-the-next-game-of-thrones-book. [Accessed 5 Mar. 2018].
[vi] Digital Trends. (2018). A.I. perfectly predicted last year’s Super Bowl score. What happens to betting?. [online] Available at: https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/ai-swarm-intelligence-and-the-future-of-sports-betting/. [Accessed 5 Mar. 2018].
[vii]Forbes.com. (2018). Forbes Welcome. [online] Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2017/10/30/the-amazing-ways-spotify-uses-big-data-ai-and-machine-learning-to-drive-business-success/2/#5894b5d061cf. [Accessed 5 Mar. 2018].
[viii] Ltd, V. (2018). IconicBot | Connecting Icons with Fans. [online] IconicBot | Connecting Icons with Fans. Available at: https://iconic.wtf/index.php. [Accessed 5 Mar. 2018].
[ix] Eccleshare, C. (2017). How Wimbledon is using Artificial Intelligence to enrich the fan experience. [online] The Telegraph. Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tennis/2017/06/27/wimbledon-using-artificial-intelligence-enrich-fan-experience/. [Accessed 5 Mar. 2018].
[x] The Hollywood Reporter. (2017). FX’s ‘Legion’ Mixed Reality Experience Is the Strangest Activation at Comic-Con. [online] Available at: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/legion-sessions-mixed-reality-experience-comic-con-2017-1022913. [Accessed 5 Mar. 2018].
[xi]Forbes.com. (2017). Forbes Welcome. [online] Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomward/2017/07/31/how-do-songs-end-up-on-spotify-playlists-anyway/#6d5379e4bbb7. [Accessed 5 Mar. 2018].
[xii] Ibid, World Economic Forum.
[xiii] Ibid, The Guardian.
[xiv] Shelley.ai. (n.d.). Shelley by MIT Media Lab. [online] Available at: http://shelley.ai/. [Accessed 5 Mar. 2018].
[xv] Shoemaker, N. (2017). Japanese AI Writes a Novel, Nearly Wins Literary Award. [online] Big Think. Available at: http://bigthink.com/natalie-shoemaker/a-japanese-ai-wrote-a-novel-almost-wins-literary-award. [Accessed 5 Mar. 2018].
[xvi] Digital Trends. (2016). Like parents from the 1950s, AI still can’t understand comics. Here’s why. [online] Available at: https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/comic-book-ai/. [Accessed 5 Mar. 2018].
