Emoji may overrun the world, but there’s hope: AI may kill it
FORGET DONALD TRUMP. Let’s talk about something truly dim and oafish: emoji.
The world is in the middle of a disturbing emoji-gasm. You can go see The Emoji Movie and sit through a plot as nuanced and complex as an old episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. (Don’t miss esteemed Shakespearean actor Patrick Stewart getting to be the voice of Poop.) July also brought us World Emoji Day. To mark the occasion, Apple trumpeted its upcoming release of new emoji, a milestone for society that might only be topped by a new shape of marshmallow in Lucky Charms. Microsoft, always an innovator in artificial intelligence, announced a version of its SwiftKey phone keyboard that will predict which emoji you should use based on what you’re typing. Just one more reason to be scared of AI.
Billions of emoji fly around the planet every day—those tiny cartoons of faces and things that supposedly let us express ourselves in ways words can’t, unless you know a lot of words. Emoji are such a rage, they have to be governed by a global nonprofit called the Unicode Consortium—kind of like the G-20 for smiley faces. Full members include companies such as Apple, Google, Huawei, SAP and IBM. The group has officially sanctioned 2,666 emoji that can be used across any technology platform. Obviously, the people who sit on the Unicode board do important work. This is why the middle finger emoji you type on your iPhone can look the same on an SAP-generated corporate financial report.
This story is from the August 11, 2017 edition of Newsweek.
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This story is from the August 11, 2017 edition of Newsweek.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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