Let me predict the future: the fortune-telling industry is ready for a revival.
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Popular belief says prostitution is the oldest profession, but fortune-teller is definitely a tough competitor. And by fortune-teller, I do not only mean the gypsy in the caravan. In every culture and religion, storytelling and predicting the future is a central concept. Think of a priest who tells a story of a man who lived 2000 years ago because if you behave like him, you will have a bright future in heaven. Technology-enabled fortune-telling is a huge upcoming industry. I will explain why, and how its clever business model works.
In Yuval Harari’s book Sapiens, he explains how story-telling is what distinguishes humans from other animals. Humans need stories and a collective agreement about what the future will bring to function properly. The only problem is that these stories and ways to predict our future need a revised version every now and then, because what humans tend to believe changes over time. Nowadays, very few people believe rocks have feelings and that nicely stacking two rocks can bring you good fortune. 5000 years ago, people believed it so deeply that they built Stonehenge with their bare hands.
Globally speaking, the stories of gods and promised heavenly futures are losing their audience. People still have religions and beliefs but oftentimes it is just because of a lack of a good alternative. The future does not predict itself, you know! Luckily for humanity, an entire new generation of fortune-tellers are appearing at the horizon. Or from a business perspective: an entire new trillion-dollar industry is appearing at the horizon. It is the industry of technology-enabled fortune-telling.
Just like ancient Greeks believed some gifted men could spell out someone’s character and life off his face (physiognomy), modern humans now believe Artificial Intelligence can. Two years ago, researchers from Stanford University claimed that they could predict people’s sexual orientation from a photo of his face. It turned out that the algorithm actually recognized features like eye-shadow or facial hair, but this event demonstrated the trust of people in technology as a replacement for the almighty. A person would never be believed to be capable of predicting sexual orientation, but a machine built by a person? Of course!
Others claim to predict political opinion or criminality from faces with AI, but it does not end with pictures of faces. Faces are only a fraction of the personal data that will become available over the next years. With sensors becoming ubiquitous and your heart rate real-time uploaded to the cloud, it is only a matter of time before fortune-telling companies emerge and expand their services.
Take for example 23andMe. You can pay for one of their DNA tests and in return you will “Discover what 125+ personalized reports have to say about your ancestry, health, traits and more.” Or translated to a more recognizable form: I will read your hand palm and tell you a bunch of nonsense. 23andMe was one of the first companies to understand the incredible value behind modern fortune-telling. Not only will people pay you because they trust a machine’s capability to predict the future, but you also receive free personal data to sell to the highest bidder. Especially that last part is why fortune-telling is going to experience a revival.
The third and last source of income in this business model is also stolen from tried-and-proven ancient fortune-telling companies like Christianity: selling indulgences. After you have predicted that someone is likely to commit crimes given his big nose, you sell a wonder pill that will save the client. Win-win-win!
New technology will revive old business models and disrupt one of the biggest and oldest industries in the world: the industry of fortune-telling. Listen to the machine and you will live a long and prosperous life. Please swipe your credit card.
