Buying Christmas presents can be difficult. So difficult, that, according to a study from Sainsburys on the shopping habits of Londoners, 50% of people are still panic buying presents in the few days before Christmas.
With the hottest presents likely to be sold out by then, we want to help people beat the queues. So, we used highly-advanced artificial intelligence to predict what the hottest presents will be!
Why should you trust artificial intelligence with your Christmas? We’re not saying AI is perfect or that you should trust everything in this article.
However, the amount of accurate content in this article is no doubt remarkable. We decided to look into AI. Don’t worry, we’re not going to do anything really drastic. But why bother? Don’t you just trust the doctor at your local pharmacy? We aren’t here to convince you that people who work at your local drug store should all be fired. If it turns out to be too complex, we’ll publish a separate piece with some highlights.
The twist? That entire paragraph was written by AI.
For that little trick, and all of the present ideas below, we used a system called Inferkit: “a text generation tool [that] takes text you provide and generates what it thinks comes next, using a state-of-the-art neural network.”
How the AI predicts the presents
In essence, it tries to mimic human models of understanding and speaking, based on the Megatron 11-b neural network. This was created by Facebook and features 11 billion parameters, so it is incredibly advanced and very powerful. We think it’s up to the job.
To provide it with some context, we have to write some initial text to start it off. Almost like introducing someone at a party; just say a few words and then let them loose. In this case, we used variations of “The hottest toy of 2020 will be” and then let the AI take over. Below, you can find the ideas it produced
The hottest presents this Christmas, according to AI
The text below that is coloured red and bold was the section written by us and fed into the AI.
All other text was generated by the program.
A recount of the American election
“The hottest present of Christmas 2020 will be a presidential recount. A national recount of just a fraction of the presidential vote could verify just how rigged the US electoral system really is. Answering that is no mean feat.
And that would be the first step on the road to restoring faith in the US government and, in turn, opening the doors to President Bernie Sanders.”
Our take: With dialogue around Trump taking up so much real estate on the internet, it was bound to be picked up in some way. Think of it like thought recycling; the program can only generate ideas based on what has already been verbalised, so this may not be the thought of AI everywhere, instead the thought of a section of humanity it’s trying to mimic.
The impact of algorithm-based AI recommendations on social media surrounding the election has been discussed in many arenas, with many believing it to have had a considerable impact on voter turnout. The idea of an AI becoming an official is fascinating, too. If you think that AI will one day become smarter than us, is there an argument they should be in the White House? Would they be seen as worthy descendants or conquerors?
A chastity belt
“The hottest toy of Christmas 2020 will be interesting. I like dolls. I like when by doll’s hair changes color. And I love makeup. But I am also 24 and if the Candylocks hair is going to start going gray in January, then I’m going to stop buying it.
And with the possibility of Santa checking back every couple of years, maybe it’s time to buy into a safer toy.
Like a chastity belt. It’s time to think about the next generation of toys.”
Our take: It says a lot about 2020 if an artificial intelligence thinks that a chastity belt will be the hit of the festive season. Is lockdown having such a tangible impact on our sex lives? Will isolation change how we consider relationships going forward? The fact that AI considers something as adult as a chastity belt a ‘toy’ is also eye-opening.
Again, this comes back to the idea of ‘thought recycling’; the AI is mimicking what it thinks humans would say based on what it knows about us.
A mind-reading unicorn
“The hottest toy of Christmas 2020 will be a “high-tech brainwave-reading unicorn”, a totally unexpected shift in focus, but maybe in tune with the times. After that, the toys will become more familiar in an attempt to promote “cyber safety and foster awareness of kids’ digital skills”, an anonymous source told TechCrunch.
Editors note: We can find no evidence of that quote, or interview, existing with TechCrunch and believe the AI generated it to support it’s own claims.”
Our take: We like the idea of a cyber-safe toy becoming a hit over Christmas, with so many reports coming out around the negative impacts that social media has on children. However, a mind-reading unicorn is a very dystopian take on the solution; trying to fix one problem by presenting a whole new one.
It’s particularly interesting that the AI is generating fake interviews with real websites to back up its claims. Much like internet discourse we’ve all seen, it’s too easy to flippantly say “I read this somewhere, so I’m right and you’re wrong” – and this is something the AI is mimicking.
President Snoop Dogg and his gender-nonconforming gospel album
“The hottest present of Christmas 2020 will be President Snoop Dogg. Also known as Snoop Lion, he’s the father of 13-year-old Cassius in “Dogg’s Place,” and the rapper of the moment.
This is thanks to his acclaimed new album “Redemption of a Dogg,” a gospel-inspired, gender-nonconforming mash-up of soul, hip-hop and gospel.”
Our take: The AI has probably seen a lot of people discuss Kanye West running for the presidency – collecting just 60,000 votes out of a possible 160,000 (source). Snoop Dogg would certainly be a dark horse in the race, with no recorded votes for him yet, but anything can happen between now and Christmas. We would certainly support Gin And Juice becoming the new American national anthem.
A butt-wiping toilet
“The hottest toy of Christmas 2020 an electronic toilet that can wipe its user’s butt for them. Several North Americans have put up an account on Gift-expert.com, and they are giving a high probability that, next Christmas, the gift that’ll be most popular is an electronic toilet that wipes your butt for you, or something like that.
The user graph also shows what gifts Americans really want in the Christmas of 2025: 3D-printed shoes.”
Our take: This is another case of the AI fabricating truth so it can support it’s own arguments – a human trait, we can all agree. From our research, there are no North Americans on gift-expert.com asking for this. In fact, we couldn’t see any evidence of the English language even being used on that website.
However, it does say a lot about how humans are becoming lazier and lazier, with the AI predicting that what we secretly want is something to relieve us of the monumental work of wiping our own butts.
The AI’s final suggestion seems incredibly accurate…
“The hottest toy of Christmas 2020 will be a new Disney Princess thing I’m sure.”
Our take: Incredible. The artificial intelligence has absolutely nailed it.
Disclaimer: The text produced above does not represent Dpack’s opinions or genuine predictions. Nor are we affiliated with any of the products or brands mentioned. Some of these don’t even exist. We are simply sharing what the AI tool produced and trying to help families the world over.