Buzzwords have become integral parts of any organization’s marketing activities these days. Almost all technology products seem to be enhanced by AI, with a foot in the Metaverse and working for a sustainable future. Ignoring how vague phrases like these sound, companies seem to be dipping all they do in the buzzwords sauce.

It might seem sensible to promote how your solution is perfectly aligned with some megatrend and is probably the next big thing. However, using these words without caution can bring forward numerous ethical red flags about your organization.

Let’s review some of these most commonly used words in marketingand the ways their usage might be problematic.

AI This, AI That, AI All the Way

Artificial Intelligence technology is finally entering public realms. ChatGPT, Bing and Bard are the first Large-Language Models(LLMs) that had their public outing. By interacting with them, we can get a clear sense of how most AI technology works as well as the technology’s strengths and limitations.

None of the LLMs have hard-coded databases for facts and simply predict which new word should follow their last by looking at the data available to them. Mostly, it seems like they make quite a lot of sense. Some other times, they really don’t make sense.

https://twitter.com/DieterCastel/status/1598727145416790028?embedable=true

LLMs perform especially well in certain tasks with a rather narrow scope and clear requirements. Like many agree, it seems like ChatGPT is especially useful for debugging purposes or as a helper for creating fictional tales. In a similar vein, also when AI is used within closed doors and not in public-facing systems, it’s only really truly helpful for a bunch of clearly-defined scenarios where it’s trained with enough data that reflect the conditions you want to emulate.

Why You Should Be Careful with AI Buzzwords

Most of the marketing we see boasting AI these days seem to promote the technology as some sort of magical all-competent system that changes things forever. That is misleading. We need to do better in explaining why AI works for the problem at hand, where and how we get the data that feeds into it and how we make sure that it remains a bias-free, respectful and ethical part of our solution stack aligned with your organization’s values.

The mere mention of an “AI-powered” system leaves many of us unhinged and gives the impression that your organization simply wants to ride the next-big-thing-wave without much care for how well your systems work.

The Metaverse Megatrend

Facebook, or Meta, has big ambitions for the Metaverse. Microsoft is one of the biggest funders of OpenAI, which has lost its not-for-profit status in 2019. Nvidia is building its own “practical” Metaverse called Omniverse for businesses to simulate their working conditions for better efficiency.

All the while, gazillions of smaller companies receive Venture Capital funding to focus on building another infrastructure solution for the Metaverse, mostly to mixed results with human-in-the-loop systems.

Some other funded players are interested in the vision of a Metaverse and build more fancy digital things for trading purposes. Most investment into any company with the Metaverse flair is driven by big names continuing to take giant, heavy-lifting mammoth steps into some yet-unknown direction. Investors dream of those companies getting acquired by some big name within 5-6 years.

Why You Shouldn’t Blindly Use Metaverse Buzzwords

To cut to the chase: Metaverse is a dream, sold to one another by companies and investors. It’s likely fueled by some ethically deranged and somewhat helpless tech billionaire’s fantasies on re-conquering the entire digital realm. There’s not a single solution alternative the Metaverse provides to the global challenges we face, like raised inequalities, mass-scale economic deprivations or climate change.

If I read ‘Metaverse’, or any adjacent term in your promotion, your value proposition is doomed for many.

I can’t help but assume that the product I’m reading about is some aloof nonsense some privileged kid dreamt up to cater for their consumerist fantasies.

If you think you can convince me otherwise, please give it a shot, but be very careful in explaining why this Metaverse solution actually does anything other than bringing financial profit to you.

Web3

Another big megatrend word that made its way into the public dictionary is web3. The term was coined in 2014 by one of Ethereum’s and Polkadot’s co-founders, Gavin Wood. While a precise definition is hard to find, web3 is usually attributed to projects with some decentralization promise based on blockchain.

Many projects within web3 have clear use cases, engaged communities and plausible businesses. Unfortunately, just as many are weak in design and perhaps even rely on rug pulls to make money for their founding team.

Similar to ‘metaverse’, projects that claim to be within the web3 space need clear justifications for why decentralization and blockchain is crucial for their solution’s existence. In other words, there needs to be satisfying answers to what circumstances oblige the solution to only really efficiently exist with blockchain and how decentralization will be increasingly ingrained in the solution over time. Otherwise, the buzzword sounds alarms for many that are rightfully skeptical towards any superficial scheme that made a handful of people a lot of money at the cost of a lot of other people.

Sustainability Buzzwords

Greenwashing has become an essential toolkit in today’s bad example of a marketing professional. It refers to brands’ creating false perceptions of environmental friendliness, in an attempt to relieve burdened minds that want to cut back on their consumerist tendencies.

With greenwashing, brands can pat their potential consumers in the back, nudging them a little further towards check-out. Environmental friendliness is, thereby, a mask, an insincere gesture and simply part of the logistics.

Sustainability is not planting one random tree. It is a much wider term that needs to suggest ways to enable the long-term co-existence of various species.

Sustainability does not mean we’re each getting a fish; it’s about all of us learning how to fish, in a way that doesn’t damage the ecosystem, including the fish population.

Anytime a product or service with a sustainability flair comes my way, I’m extra attentive to what’s going on. I ask myself: Do I really need this? Why is this sustainable from a material point of view? Are the larger organizations that enabled the product or service ethical or, in their further existence, not a burden to the planet?

You Need to Justify the Buzzwords You Use and the Megatrends You Hop On

History is full of brands’ disgusting tricks and deceitful communication to sell more. Buzzwords, like the above examples, have become integral parts in marketing communications. While canceling their usage completely would make things harder for our shorter attention spans, sprinkling them everywhere leads to imprecise messages loaded with ethical question marks.

Not only marketing professionals, but also entire teams need to define and act in accordance with their core values from their first day of operations. And when they use buzzwords, they need to make sure it’s tied back to their core values, ethically correct and justified.

The lead image for this article was generated by HackerNoon's AI Image Generator via the prompt "buzzword mania".