This message comes from NPR sponsor Stripe. Tap to pay on iPhone and Stripe can help you grow your businesses revenue and reach through accepting more in-person contactless payments right from an iPhone.
To learn how visit Stripe.com slash tap iPhone.
This is the Ted Radio Hour.
Each week, groundbreaking Ted Talks.
Our job now is to dream big.
Deliver it at Ted Conferences.
Around the world.
From those talks, we bring you speakers and ideas that will surprise you.
You just don't know what you're going to find.
Challenge you.
We treat our acts ourselves like why is it noteworthy?
And even change you.
I literally feel like I'm a different person.
Yes.
Do you feel that way?
Ideas worth spreading.
From Ted and NPR.
I'm Anusha Zamorodi.
And today on the show, nothing is as it seems.
We called it hiding in plain sight.
Being able to transform.
I always found it to be a very powerful thing.
The fact that you were there and nobody knew it, but you.
This is John Amendes, the CIA's former chief of disguise.
Her undercover career spanned 27 years from 1966 to 1993,
taking her to some of the most difficult operating areas of the Cold War.
From Moscow to Havana to Beijing.
She is and was a true master of disguise.
Oh yeah.
Everything we touched we disguised.
In 1987, John was working as a disguise and photo operations officer,
somewhere in Southern Asia.
I have to be a little vague.
Because if you told me you'd have to kill me.
Well, the CIA would really get kicked off at me.
John was sent on what she thought was a routine field visit in a neighboring country
when an urgent mission came up.
She quickly needed to disguise several officers.
But she hadn't brought her usual kit.
So here I was in a foreign country and I have nothing.
I have no disguise materials, nothing.
So she had to get creative.
So I went into the office.
I asked all of the case officers to go to the wives.
And I wanted all of the makeup that all of the wives had.
Everybody, send me your stuff.
And they just jumped all over this.
So I got like four or five bags of makeup.
And someone sent in a can of Dr. Sholes for the powder.
And I liked that a lot.
John needed to disguise a local agent as a guard.
I've showed him the can of Dr. Sholes powder.
And I said, this is for your hair.
You're going to love this.
And I turned him into an old man.
Yet gray hair.
The more Dr. Sholes I put on, the wider it got.
We used a little bit of aluminum foil to give him a silver tooth.
It was just, you know, it was improvising.
Disguised as an old man in a security guard uniform,
this agent was going to help his colleagues sneak into the Soviet Embassy
to steal a piece of crucial communications equipment.
But first, he needed to get rid of the real security guard.
The night of the operation, we went into this compound.
Our local guy, the man I had disguised, went over and spoke to the gate guard.
Handed that man enough money for him to take his extended family
and retire in the mountains for the rest of his life.
Never to be seen again.
And then our local guy became the guard that stood behind the gate.
He opened the gates.
We drove in.
Three guys in the van.
Me and the driver were all in disguise.
We backed up to the main building.
The three guys ran into the building.
They had on special shoes that were quiet and soft and with only footprints.
And they went up two flights of stairs.
And then here came that machine that we were stealing.
They lowered it down on ropes.
They put it in the crate, sealed the crate, put the crate in the van,
and we drove it out.
This turned out to be one of the most amazing operations because that machine was such a critical piece of equipment.
It's like so nerve-wracking and exciting.
But you later learned that this operation was actually a cover for another mission?
Yes.
About a month later, I was in Washington at a conference and my boss came over.
And he said, let me tell you something about your operation.
The reason you were stealing that machine is not the reason you thought you were stealing that machine.
On the other side of the world, there is a Russian who works with that machine.
And he's an agent of the CIA.
And it's getting a little dicey for him.
People are starting to look at him like, hmm.
Oh, so there's a Russian double agent who the KGB is starting to suspect is working with the Americans.
Yes. And so the CIA wanted that machine stolen.
Just to make it look like we were interested in understanding it,
it'll take all the heat off the guy on the other side of the world, giving us all the information.
And that's what they call the wilderness of mirrors, part of.
That's being us.
Spies live in a world of disguises, deception and lies.
Where nothing is as it seems and no one can be trusted.
But these days, with technology, it's becoming easier for all of us to transform our identities,
to choose how we want to present ourselves to the world,
or to hide our true selves, maybe even become invisible.
Do we ever really know who we're dealing with?
Well, today on the show, Incognito.
Ideas about the benefits, psychological impact and ethics around posturing as someone you're not,
from artificial intelligence to virtual reality.
Listen carefully. Don't be fooled by what you hear.
But before we explore the current state of disguise,
let's go back to the CIA's John Amendes.
John knows better than anyone, that even the people we're closest to,
might be hiding something from us.
I met my first husband in Europe,
and dated him for a year and a half.
And it wasn't until shortly before we got married.
I mean, days before we got married, that my first husband advised me that
it was actually the CIA that he worked for.
So I was not recruited into the CIA.
I came in a side door. I was a wife.
And I ended up back in Washington, D.C.,
working for the director of our office.
And I was bored. I told my boss that I thought I would leave
and go find a real job.
And my boss said, well, why don't you take some of our advanced photo courses?
So I ended up back in Europe, a photo operations officer.
Yeah, what is a photo operations officer?
Because it's actually far more sexy than it sounds.
That meant that I could leave the confines of our office,
go out and meet with foreign agents,
train them how to use some of our proprietary camera equipment,
some of our unique films.
I also taught them how to do things like microdots.
I taught them how to retrieve them.
Wait, what is a microdot?
The microdot was a photograph of an 8.5 by 11 piece of paper
reduced 400 times so that it ends up a black speck.
So we would send them say a copy of maybe a time magazine.
And they would know that on page 47,
in the 11th paragraph, the third sentence,
the period at the end of that sentence,
had a microdot stuck on top of it.
And the foreign agent we were sending the dot to
would have a lens.
And he knew that he could take like a piece of card stock
and he could just poke a hole in the card stock
and put his lens in that hole.
Pick up that dot, put it on the lens,
hold the card stock up to the sun,
and he could read an 8.5 by 11 page text.
It was a very cumbersome but very secure way
to communicate with an agent.
And what would it say, like meet me here at this time?
It could say anything.
It could say, here are the intelligence questions
we are trying to answer.
It was a one way system.
It was from us to him.
But there would be a way for him to respond to us,
not only by doing a dead drop,
by putting his information in some sort of fake rock
or fake tree branch or fake anything.
We used fake dead rats.
Oh, really?
Well, they weren't fake.
They were dead rats.
But we had people that would clean them up
and put Velcro in their tummies.
We could put a lot in a dead rat.
And then we could leave it somewhere knowing
that no one was going to pick up that rat,
except our person who was looking for it.
Or maybe a dog or an oiled animal.
So we dipped them in Tabasco.
So if an animal picked it up, he would drop it.
Oh, got it.
And probably run off howling.
So it wasn't just people you were disguising.
It was punctuation in articles.
It was rats.
But if you had to say, you know,
the rules around disguise,
what makes a disguise believable,
what makes it blend in?
And I mean, go unnoticed.
Because that's actually, you know, that's the goal, right?
Well, there are many reasons to wear a disguise.
When you're working with terrorists or counter-narcotics,
counter-terrorism becomes body armor.
It's deadly serious.
It's a very serious issue if they think that you're an American
in a lot of scenarios.
But the backing off from that,
it's not just the facial oval.
This guy is all of you.
And we always said that we could take the most mundane,
small pieces of equipment and give them to you.
And if you had the inner confidence to wear it,
your confidence would carry the day.
There's a certain acting skill that goes with it.
You need to become that character.
You need to believe that you are another person.
And then it works.
Did you have like a favorite, I don't know,
a trick or something like, how do you make it so that
makeup doesn't come off on a hand with someone else
touched your face like, actually do all that?
You know, you sit down with the officer
and get very specific, where are you going to use this?
How are you going to use this?
Whereas eating, we'd make sure that, you know,
the adhesive was fabulous.
And we'd style it if you were,
if you were going to be wearing it for a week
and sometimes they were, we'd make sure
that it didn't really get in your way.
We were always working on, you know,
refining our products and making it all work better.
And, you know, we're able now to talk about some of it
because it's old.
They don't send us notes saying,
now you can talk about this.
But things like, we had never talked about
the use of masks before.
That was off limits, always off limits.
And then all of a sudden, it wasn't off limits anymore.
When? When was that?
It was about four years ago.
Once they say, yeah, you can put that in a book.
Then we assume, okay, they're not using that anymore.
The philosophy at the CIA,
as technology was moving forward
and we would look at the next great thing and say,
oh my God, how will we deal with that?
We would take something that looked to us like a threat
and find out a way that we could use it ourselves.
That's John Amendes, the CIA's former chief of disguise.
You can see her full talk at Ted.com.
Today on the show, In Cognito,
I'm Manouch Somorodi and you're listening
to the Ted Radio Hour from NPR.
This is my voice.
I can tell you a lot about me.
And I'm not changing it for anyone.
In NPR's Black Stories, Black Truths,
you'll find a collection of NPR episodes
centered on Black Experiences.
Search NPR Black Stories, Black Truths, or ever,
you get your pocketness.
In this country, some truths aren't self-evident.
In NPR's Black Stories, Black Truths,
a collection of stories as wide-ranging
and real as the people who tell them,
we celebrate the Black Experience
for all its soul and richness.
Search NPR Black Stories, Black Truths,
wherever you get podcasts.
When voters talk during an elections season,
we listen, we ask questions, we follow up,
and we bring you along to hear what we learn.
Get closer to the issues, the people,
and your vote at the NPR elections hub.
Visit npr.org slash elections.
What does it mean to be Black in America?
An NPR's Black Stories, Black Truths,
a collection of stories as varied, nuanced,
and dynamic as Black Experiences,
you'll hear.
It means everything.
Search NPR Black Stories, Black Truths,
wherever you get your pockets.
This message comes from Wired,
on Wired Politics Lab.
You will be guided through the exciting, challenging,
and sometimes entertaining vortex
of internet, extremism, and spiracies and disinformation.
Listen to Wired Politics Lab,
wherever you get your podcasts.
What does it mean to be Black in America?
An NPR's Black Stories, Black Truths,
or even a collection of stories as varied,
or diverse as Black Truths,
or even a collection of stories as varied,
or even a collection of stories as varied,
or even a collection of stories as varied,
or even a collection of stories as varied,
or even a collection of stories as varied,
and a collection of stories as varied, nuanced,
and dynamic as the Black Experiences.
You'll hear, it means everything.
Search NPR Black Stories, Black Truths,
wherever you get your podcasts.
Before we get back to the show,
I just want to let you know that our next bonus episode
for Ted Radio Hour Plus listeners
is coming out soon.
And it's two of our producers
in a lovely conversation
about one of the TED Talks that most stayed with them.
It's about TED Speaker Nora McInerney
and they are talking about grief and love,
and it's really intimate and really special.
It'll be out on Wednesday,
and you can access these Plus episodes
and all our shows sponsor-free
by supporting us at plus.npr.org slash TED
or right in the Apple Podcasts app.
And thanks.
It's the TED Radio Hour from NPR.
I'm Manoosh Zomaroti.
On the show today, in Cognito.
And what if we can disguise
and manipulate our voices
to do things that no human can do?
Well, it gets really confusing.
This is artist Holly Hunden on the TED Stage,
playing and recording of what sounds like her singing.
But here's the thing.
So that was my voice,
but that wasn't me singing.
So who wasn't that?
So that was actually a machine learning model
trained on my voice
that can read scores in Catalan.
So I've been working with machine learning for years,
and I've been attempting to create a kind of version
a machine learning model of my voice
that could perform beyond my own physical limitations.
And so just recently,
I've been able to achieve this
and not only can this version of myself sing in English,
but also in multiple other languages.
Holly calls her software appropriately,
and Holly Plus.
And yeah, Holly Plus can read notes on sheet music,
and it can do this.
Sing a German rendition of Mac the Knife.
Sing the classic Latin hit,
Bessene Muccio.
But I just want to reiterate,
Holly, the person,
does not speak Spanish,
and she has never sung these songs.
Holly Plus is singing these songs,
and it can do it in any language,
and in any vocal language.
I trained a machine learning model
on hours of my natural singing voice.
So this required that I sang the entirety
of the range of phonemes in the English language.
So what does that mean?
That means all of the kind of sounds
that I would potentially make in the English language.
So what I would do is I would sing from a set of phrases
that are specifically designed to cover all of the sounds
that I could create in English.
Braises like what?
Well, I don't have the script in front of me,
but you can find them pretty easily online.
They're called timet scripts.
And they're really kind of random phrases.
I think one phrase that pops into mind is
that quick beige fox jumps in the air.
Surprise, he shouts.
Just kind of random things like that.
I love it.
It's kind of nonsense.
And so then that is mapped on to other languages.
And I can kind of create this multilingual voice
that can sing beyond my own physical capability.
From what I've read,
it took you and your collaborators years
to get Holly Plus working so that you can give it instructions
and it's out a remarkably lifelike song.
And that is what we have heard so far on the show.
Yes.
But at the end of your TED talk,
you took Holly Plus to another level.
So I invite you to consider,
if given the opportunity,
who would you like to perform through?
And can you imagine someone else performing you?
With that in mind, I'd like to invite the incredible musician
Fur to the stage.
You invited another singer on stage,
a man named Fur.
Fur sang into a mic that he was holding in his right hand,
he has a beautiful voice.
But then he sang into another microphone held in his other hand.
And we heard a live version of Holly Plus,
which was adapting his voice into your voice in real time.
When you come around acting this way,
and yes, the truth is,
I show you every day,
as you love to stay.
Living in all the pain.
Holly was so weird to see a black man wearing glasses,
someone who looks completely different than you,
open his mouth, and have your voice come out of it,
and have complete and total artistic control of your voice.
Hey, no, leave it here.
With you standing right next to him with your mouth shut.
Exactly.
I mean, it was surreal,
but it was also kind of disturbing.
How would you describe the audience's response?
Well, you know, when you're standing on this stage,
you just see the lights,
you kind of can't really see so much,
but you can't really see the lights.
You can't see the lights.
You can't see the lights.
You can't see the lights.
You can't see the lights.
You can't see the lights.
You can't see the lights.
You can't see the lights.
You can't see the lights.
You can't see the lights.
You can't see the lights.
You can't see the lights.
You can't see the lights.
You can't see the lights.
You can't see the lights.
You can't see the lights.
You can't see the lights.
You can't see the lights.
You can't see the lights.
You can't see the lights.
I have started an organization called Spawning.
I have started an organization called Spawning.
Spawning.
And so we're trying to figure out this really thorny question
and so we're trying to figure out this really thorny question
and so we're trying to figure out this really thorny question
of ownership and custody of one's own model.
What kind of interactions we can build around that
what kind of interactions we can build around that with fans
that works for the artist.
There's a very justified kind of awareness for new technology.
My answer to that would be that everyone should have
the ownership and the ability to custody their own model
and to be able to decide whether or not they want to make
that public or whether or not they want to keep that to themselves
or whether or not they want to license that to people.
I think that should be a personal choice.
So I think there are going to be people listening
who are really excited by this technology.
But then there are going to be others who are like,
why? Like why?
Cool party trick, but why?
Well, why?
I think that there's many kind of artistic reasons
why someone might want to perform through someone else's
local timbre.
For example, even just kind of the range.
So if you have a baritone range and maybe you would like
to know what it's like to sing as a soprano.
You know, or it's your kind of changing your bodily resonance.
By being able to jump into someone else's vocal timbre.
And I think, you know, with me, it's maybe less exciting.
But with someone like Beyonce, maybe her fans would love
to make a kind of series of songs in homage to their queen.
And so I could see other voices being really revered by fans
and creating a whole kind of ecosystem of fan generated art
and fan generated music that could be actually really fun
and interactive.
Okay, so I guess Beyonce, I mean, I don't claim to ever speak
for Beyonce, but I guess she might say, well,
that's not okay if you are writing your own music
and using my voice and then selling it.
She might very well say that.
And I think that should be entirely up to her.
I don't think that should be up to her record label
or up to her publisher or up to anyone else for her.
So we've mostly been talking in the musician or artistic way
of using the software.
But, you know, most of us have probably heard of this ability
to transform a voice as like those fake videos
of President Obama saying things that he has never said
or other deep fake voices.
That's what's going to come to mind for most people.
Yeah, I mean, I think I try to avoid the deep fake phrase
because I feel like it has such negative connotations
around trickery and scamming people and whatnot.
I see this technology as a really interesting way
for people to find new ways to perform.
So there's kind of two sides to this coin.
There's the dystopian side where we're using this technology
to cheat people or fake people.
And then the other side to that coin is to ask,
okay, what if we could create digital versions of ourselves
and allowed other people to perform through us
and we could perform through other people with their permission?
What might that unlock?
What kind of weird new performance styles and genres could that create?
What kind of new art forms would come out of that?
So I'm trying to look at it from a more optimistic perspective
but I think that also requires consent.
Okay, so let's say everyone's in.
There's consent.
Let's go back to what you were saying about, you know,
the average person or average baritone being able to sing a soprano.
It's kind of the ultimate disguise in some ways.
What does it feel like?
Have you ever sang into a microphone and had your voice come out
sounding like someone else?
Or right now, is it just your voice that you're doing this with?
Well, the only voice model I have is my own voice,
so it's not really as spectacular when I do it.
No, you're missing out clearly.
I am, but I definitely have plans to expand the catalog of voices.
But also, you know, my journey with machine learning and voice processing,
you know, it didn't really just start five years ago.
One of the reasons why I got into this topic in general
is because I've been working with the digitally processed voice
for over a decade now.
And so I started doing that back in the day when I was a computer musician
and I was looking for a way to make my computer music performance more embodied.
And so I started using my voice as a kind of data stream
as a way to control different parameters in my computer.
I never really thought of myself as a vocalist in that way.
So I very much relate to this idea of using computer processing
to be able to create sound beyond the physical limitations of my voice.
That's something I've been really obsessed with for a very long time now
and it's an incredibly beautiful feeling on stage
when I can sing into a microphone and I can rumble an entire auditorium
with a huge kind of like engulfing sub-base that I've mapped to my voice.
That's a really wonderful and beautiful, empowering feeling.
So I think it can be really transformative in that way.
That's artist Holly Harnedon.
If you want to hear what else Holly can do with her voice and computers,
you can find all her music online like this track
chorus from her album, Proto.
You can of course watch her full talk at TED.com.
So you may not realize it, but there are companies that go in Cognito
so that they can smoothly and swiftly help you get through the day.
So let's imagine you're running late to a meeting
trying to get home and you know, too far to walk.
Maybe you don't have public transit.
This is anthropologist Mary Gray.
And so you decide to order a lift or an Uber or some even a taxi.
And after a few seconds, your driver accepts your request for the ride.
Let's call him Sam.
Benoan's do you, Sam, shaved off his beard last night?
And this only matters because for a company like Uber, for example,
it has all of their drivers verify their IDs with pictures.
So the picture verification that a driver like Sam might send in the morning
may not match his photo ID that's on record.
That's going to set off an automated alarm bell for Uber.
Sam doesn't know it, but before he picks you up,
halfway across the world, a woman named Ayesha is quickly checking his ID.
And in front of Ayesha is going to pop up this two faces,
a photo of Sam that's on record.
And the photo he just took where he doesn't have his beard anymore.
And her job is within seconds quite literally as a timer is ticking down
to identify is this the same person.
She's coincidere screen with just moments to decide,
is the clean shaving guy really your Uber driver?
Ayesha decides.
Yup, that's Sam.
When she clicks yes, it's funneled into Sam's account.
And he's none the wiser.
He has no idea that his ride could have been rejected.
And then you're on your way to the meeting.
Sam's behind the wheel.
You're both completely unaware that Ayesha has actually facilitated you
being able to get back to the office or to get home in time for dinner.
This work, this micro job that Ayesha did is what Mary describes as ghost work.
And for the past decade, she's been researching how millions of people like Ayesha
make our interactions with companies like Uber, Amazon, Google and Microsoft appear seamless.
In many ways it's the people behind the screen who are doing content moderation,
data labeling, and a host of other activities that for the most part we have no idea
or integral to making the internet work.
So me in the scenario I trust that the app is not going to send
you know, ax murder to come pick me up.
Why? Why doesn't the app want us to know that there are these humans doing really important work
to keep us safe?
Why do they keep it under wraps?
Well the hard part is that in most cases the assumption is as the consumer,
you don't want to be bothered.
But there isn't a way to have this kind of what seems frictionless smooth experience as a consumer
without having also a process that verifies who's behind the wheel.
There is no computational system that can identify a person with 100% accuracy every single time.
And so I should become necessary just for a moment, but we're sold the magic that Aisha doesn't exist at all.
That is just the algorithms doing the work.
To be clear, it's not as though everything on these apps like when you call a car or you get food delivered
or whatever the case might be.
It's not all invisible humans working behind the scenes.
It's this crucial combination of algorithms, artificial intelligence and humans.
Where does the line get drawn?
So the dirty little secret of the past 10, 15 years is that there is no way to automatically update information
and verify its accuracy.
So we've always had people involved in a moment of looking at information and saying, yes,
that's the accurate spelling of a book.
Yes, that is information that is still living on a website.
It's not just a dead link.
There's some of that work that can be automated, but there's quite a bit that that cannot.
So it's a moving target for computer science and engineering to figure out what can you automate.
I wonder, you know, it feels like smoke and mirrors a lot of the time.
And I guess it feels like ghost work and not telling us that there are humans doing a lot of the things that we take for granted
as when we use our phone and computers.
It feels like deception.
Yeah, so I think tech companies are pretending to be something they're not because they're kind of faking it until they make it.
As long as it seems like we want things done for us through robots or through AI, they'll keep trying.
So this is really important because we haven't had the general public aware enough that artificial intelligence cannot solve all of the problems.
But I think also we are just coming to grips, both the engineering parts of the house and society with, wow, this is intractably hard to fix.
When we come back more with Mary Gray and about what it takes to be an on-demand online worker, it's the Ted Radio Hour from NPR.
I'm Anusha Zamorodi, and we'll be right back.
It's a high stakes election year, so it's not enough to just follow along.
You need to understand what's happening so you are fully informed on November.
Every weekday on the NPR Politics Podcast, our political reporters break down important stories and back stories from the campaign trail.
So you'll understand why it matters to you.
Listen to the NPR Politics Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
This election season you can expect to hear a lot of news. Some of it meaningful, much of it not.
Give the up first podcast 15 minutes, sometimes little less, and we'll help you sort it out.
What's going on around the world and at home?
Three stories, 15 minutes, up first every day.
Listen every morning, wherever you get your podcasts.
This message comes from Pushkin. In the original audiobook, the art of Small Talk,
actresses and comedians Casey Wilson and Jessica St. Clair share six simple rules for how to engage in Small Talk,
available on Audible, Spotify, or wherever you get your audiobooks.
Propalestinean protests have popped up on college campuses across the country.
But from the eyes of students, what are we missing?
From the outside gets protestor painted as really violent when that couldn't be further from the truth.
I'm Brittany Loose. Host of NPR's It's Been a Minute, and I'm inviting you to hear from student journalists
who see what the rest of us cannot. On It's Been a Minute from NPR.
This message comes from Kelly Corrigan Wonders.
Kelly Corrigan gathers holistic experts from all fields of wellness like Esther Perel and Francis Collins
to challenge junk science. Come for the myth-busting, stay for their practical advice.
Tune in to Kelly Corrigan Wonders.
Why is everyone so obsessed with traditional wives or tradwives on social media?
This week we're talking about the viral videos of women making marshmallows and mozzarella from scratch.
And how behind the scene of calm kitchens and cute fits, there's some interesting pessimism about our modern world.
And that's what we're thinking into. Next time on It's Been a Minute from NPR.
This message comes from the Kresge Foundation.
Established 100 years ago, the Kresge Foundation works to expand equity and opportunity in cities across America.
A century of impact, a future of opportunity. More at kresge.org.
Taylor Swift has dropped a new album. She is the biggest pop star in the world and everything she does makes news.
I gasped. I was like, oh my god, I've been there and you can identify with it.
For a breakdown of Taylor Swift and her new album, The Tortured Poets Department, listen to the pop culture happy hour podcast from NPR.
It's the Ted Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Anush Zomerodi. And on the show today, Going in Cognito.
And we were just talking to anthropologist Mary Gray about the mostly invisible workforce that keeps many of our apps and services run through the world.
And we're doing a lot of work and services running.
It's the people behind the screen who are doing content moderation, battle labeling, and a host of other activities that for the most part we have no idea or integral to making the internet work.
These companies hire people to do short, quick tasks, ghost work. And this workforce Mary says is growing quickly.
There was a research study that was done by McKinsey and they estimated that in the US and Europe alone, there are around 25 million people who have done some form of this on demand gig work online.
At that rate of growth, if you combined the current trend in contract staffing, temp agency services, that's like 60% 60% of today's global employment could likely be converted into some form of this kind of on demand gig work by 2055.
Oh, that's a lot of people. That's not that far out. Yeah. And it's not like these are easy jobs. You have found that people are often paid sense per minute and they have to work incredibly fast, but also be extremely accurate.
Yeah, the intense pressure and low pay is fairly common. And that's because this is I would argue today it's unregulated work.
I mean, this is contract labor that is constantly changing. It's like a steady stream of what's next that you need to vet or classify or sort.
And at the same time, it's cognitively draining. I think the irony here, let's take the example of content moderation. When we started this work, I think most people imagined that that was work that would go away once we automated.
Identifying content that should be removed. Right. I mean, that's what Mark Zuckerberg told us, right? I think that's what he believed. I mean, I think if you're a techno optimist or someone who's just relentlessly committed to fixing something with technology, it's awfully hard to see problems that are perhaps beyond the reach of technology.
Okay, but we have to say there is a plus side to some of this work to, right? I mean, it fits in with people's lives. In some cases, they may not be able to work at all if they don't take these tasks.
Yeah, it's appealing. And I think it's important to see why is it appealing. It's a response to what's not working in employment today.
We met people who were doing this work because they had no choice. There were no other good job options. They were trying to control their schedules that often had to do with family care.
So for many people, it's about controlling their time. The other thing they're trying to control is what they work on. You know, they wanted to be able to pursue interest.
For example, Natalie was someone we met after American woman who was living with her parents in Queens. She was in her late 20s, early 30s.
So for her, for Natalie, this was a chance to be able to do the work that could generate an income and also balance her interest in music and choreography.
She wanted to balance her, what she was working on, in a way that we give her room to do what she really wanted to do, which was her art.
The theme of our show is incognito. And I was trying to think, I'm like, so who is incognito? Who is in disguise? Is it the ghost workers themselves that they are disguised by the technology?
Or is it the companies who are saying, here's where we are. We're amazing. Look at what we can do. And it's so fast and it barely cost you anything. Use Uber. It's only $5 for you to drive, you know, all the way to Midtown, in my case.
Who is doing the disguising? Who is incognito in your mind?
This is where it is really important to say the workers are not incognito. Just because we can't see them, doesn't mean they aren't carrying out really valuable work. And importantly, they see each other every day online. They connect with each other.
I would say right now, it's the tech companies that are incognito, that have whether with intention or not put off recognizing seeing the value of the people who are critical to their contributions, to their services, to consumers.
To a lesser extent, in some ways, consumers are just asleep at the wheel. And now that we are learning to pay attention to how many people have a role in us having an experience online or being able to have an app, whisk us away or bring us food.
Now that we know that involves even more people than we realize before, are we ready and willing to pay our fair share?
So if you're saying that these jobs aren't going anywhere, that they're absolutely needed by these companies, why don't they build this workforce into something that is reliable and high quality?
Well, I think we could. Most of the labor laws that we reference as the things that create security, that create safety on the job, they come from the 1930s, literally.
Like we have no good laws in place that have recognized the current relationship we have to technology and how it mediates all of our work lives. We haven't even begun to think about what that means globally and for a globally connected workforce that works around the clock through the internet.
That was anthropologist Mary Gray and she wrote her book Ghost Work with computer scientist Siddharthus Surrey. You can see her full talk at TED.com.
Today on the show, in Cognito. So far this hour, we have mostly explored strange and unusual ways that people and companies disguise themselves.
But it's something we all do every single day when we get dressed.
Why do we wear clothes? So first of all, you need clothes to protect yourself, obviously. But how you choose your clothes, how do they look? This is fashion.
And this is part of your identity and this is how you want to be perceived.
This is Croatian fashion designer Gala Maria Verbonic. And a few years ago, she started a company called Tribute Brand. And she wanted to debut her work in a big way.
Our first dress is like a huge dress, golden dress with a bow and a corset. It's very simple, but it has a lot of volume.
And when Gala says volume, she means volume. This dress looks like a huge balloon bent into a dress. It's made of gold with a humongous bow. Massive.
It's big, it couldn't fit your wardrobe or room. It's very big. The other part is the material.
So it has this very metallic, golden material added to it. And it's very shiny and smooth. So it could be only done like if you look at like Jeff Coons sculpture or something like that. But it's a dress.
And if you're thinking who could possibly wear this dress? Well, that's a rather analog question.
Because Gala is a digital fashion designer. And this golden balloon like gown, it only exists online in the virtual world. Meaning you can't wear it on your actual body. But you could put it on a photo of yourself on Instagram.
It looks real in a manner that it looks perfectly fitted. So it looks real and unreal at the same time because you see a digital garment.
You see there's something different. You see that this is not possible. And then you see it fitted on you like it was there.
Designing digital fashion has opened Gala up to wild creative possibilities. Like pants made of fire, anyone?
Now you have so many possibilities to create something totally crazy and never seen before.
Other virtual outfits that she's made include a shirt made of butterflies, a dress that shoots lasers. And people are spending millions of real dollars shopping for virtual clothes online.
Our community are people who actually follow trends like to set trends, but they're at the same time tax savvy. So they like to also experiment with the new technologies.
And you know, of course it's younger people. We need fashion where we express ourselves, where we socialize.
And this is currently happening and it will happen even more inside online spaces.
So from what I understand part of your inspiration for creating cyber fashion came from noticing that young people were buying and then immediately reselling expensive physical street.
Where brands so who was doing this and why were they doing it?
So those are those kids that are buying street wear like supreme off by and you know all of those brands that supply very limited amount of clothing.
So what I realized they were gathering in those Facebook groups and reselling the garments they've just bought like two hours ago they bought a garment and then they're reselling.
They just took a photo of themselves wearing that garment posted it on their Instagram and then they didn't need it anymore because they've shown I got the garment and then they reselled because they wanted to buy something new.
And I just realized they just need an image of a garment in a virtual space.
Okay, so you saw this Instagram fashion trend happening, but you had also experienced dressing up virtually yourself.
Because you're into video games, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I was a fan of the game and I'm still I'm GTA, Grand Theft Auto.
I'm a car. That's my wheels, man. That's my wheels.
I spent all of my childhood playing that game and this is actually what brought me to digital fashion because my background is in traditional fashion.
And my mom was a ease of fashion designer, so I was always surrounded by fashion, but I was spending my time since childhood in those virtual spaces playing games.
And I realized like all of the time I was playing that game, I was just going to like shops and buying clothing for my avatar.
And then I realized that I cared more like how I look in those games, then how I looked in physical world.
And then I also realized that I'm not probably the only one because there was a reason there were so many stores in those games.
I know that some people like if they are playing video games, they will spend money to buy, you know, a special cake or a special sword.
Is that considered digital fashion?
It is everything you use to express your identity is fashion or digital fashion.
And you know, when we were young, what was very, you know, wrong, I think with a game back then that all of the characters were male characters.
And you couldn't choose. This is why I like the clothes because this was how was I able to change my character and do whatever I want to do?
I've heard that from a lot of gamers, especially people who because of their gender identity or sexuality that maybe they don't feel safe in the real world and that they really appreciate the freedom that virtual worlds can give them to be whomever they want.
Yeah, it's easier. People feel more safe and people feel more confident.
And it might be also a reason that online they are creating that persona they want to be. They are not constrained by their own physical persona they can't move away from.
And they are in the online space, they can be 100% what they want to be.
So it's what we've been noticing, you know, it's very welcoming, it's very inclusive. And now they are, you know, totally free.
Okay, so cyber fashion is happening in gaming, it's happening on social media.
But the place that I've been wondering about is augmented reality like Google glasses or other wearable devices that are allegedly going to change the way we see the world around us.
I think AR glasses will bring us there very soon because right now if you want to wear digital fashion in AR you have to take your phone and you have to film it.
So it's kind of, you know, it's not very convenient.
With AR glasses, you'll just put those glasses on yourself and you look at around you and you'll see that added layer instantly and you'll see everything through it.
What is it going to be like? Are we going to have an entire digital wardrobe? What if I decide I don't want to be a human? What if I want to be a hawk? Like what, what will be possible?
That's the most exciting thing to me because there are, I think many, many people who don't want to look like humans.
Once people realize they can be whatever they want to be, they can be a box, they can be a bear, they can be themselves.
They can have multiple different identities. This is where I think, you know, it's kind of this, I would say mindset shift is needed for people to realize.
And of course the tech is also needed. So it will, it will happen with time.
I think there are some people who might think that this is actually terrifying to them.
Being a real person in the world who gets dressed every morning is hard enough as it is. The thought of having to do it for the virtual version of themselves seems exhausting. And maybe a little scary.
Of course, of course, I think like each time I'm speaking, you know, about fashion, I always say we are not doing anything new.
We are just using a new medium, but basically the principles that work inside traditional or physical fashion, like the whole psychology around the product and why would anyone buy it and why would anyone need it is the same in the digital space.
And I think human psychology will always stay the same, just the medium where we are is different.
And regarding fashion and identity expression, which is like, I think the most beautiful thing is you'll be able to choose to whom and how you want to present yourself.
So you'll be able to choose to very multiple different outfits at the same time.
Right. So let's say I'm walking down the street and I see my kids teacher.
She might have chosen to look to me like she's wearing, you know, an old-fashioned, beautiful outfit clothes though. But if maybe she's made it possible that if she runs into her friends, she looks like a peacock, like an actual bird.
That's right. Exactly. I mean, it's mind boggling.
And this is, you know, this is just a surface right now we've been speaking about, you know, you can go in many different directions.
I was just scrolling through your Instagram and there's a woman wearing a beautiful ball gown that looks as though it's electrified.
There's another guy wearing what kind of looks like a superhero chest plate, but it's fitted to him kind of perfectly.
There's another gown that's made out of sort of metallic, puffy material like those Jeff Coons artworks. And her dog is wearing the same dress and also looks amazing.
Yeah, you can be anything. You can be anything.
And your dog too.
That was tribute brand founder and digital fashion designer, Gala Maria Verbonic. You can watch her TED Talk at TED.com.
Thank you so much for listening to our show this week about being in Cognito. This episode was produced by Katie Montellone, James Delahousi, Fiona Gearen, and Catherine Cipher.
It was edited by Rachel Faulkner, James Delahousi, and Katie Simon. Our production staff at NPR also includes Sauna's Meschkin Poor and Matthew Cloutier.
Our theme music was written by Romteen Arablui. Our partners at TED are Chris Anderson, Colin Helms, Anna Fielin, Michelle Quint, Sammy Case, and Dan Yella-Bella Rezzo.
I'm Manouch Zomerodi and you've been listening to the TED Radio Hour from NPR.
Jasmine Morris here from the Storycore Podcast. Our latest season is called My Way. Stories of people who found a rhythm all their own and marched to it throughout their lives.
Consequences and other people's opinions be damned. You won't believe the courage and audacity in these stories.
Hear them on the Storycore Podcast from NPR.
Okay, close your eyes for a second. Now imagine you're on your dream vacation. No work calls to answer, no text messages to respond to, just your suitcase and an opportunity.
The opportunity to just take yourself out of your routine and travel deeper. How to actually take that dream trip. That's on the LiveKit podcast from NPR.
On NPR's Threwline. We cannot function for 24 hours without Cobal. Because it's in our smartphone, our tablet, our laptop.
And as a consequence, the lives of the people living in that part of the Congo descended into just a catastrophe.
Find NPR's Threwline, wherever you get your podcasts.
