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Canajun Finances Home » Mothers Day, Counterfeit Reality, Higher Stress and #MoneyTalk

Mothers Day, Counterfeit Reality, Higher Stress and #MoneyTalk

It is Mothers Day on Sunday, normally the day with the most long distance calls (if that data is still being collected). Traditionally Fathers Day was when the most collect phone calls happened. To paraphrase Keith Hampshire, “Be Good to Your Mother!”, remember all the things she did for you?  Time to start paying back a little.

Counterfeit Reality

Do you realize that many articles you read are actually AI created? Not here, as you can tell by my bad grammar and punctuation no computer could easily recreate my awkward writing style. Gartner in their Top Strategic Predictions for 2018 pointed to the dawn of Counterfeit Reality 1 (analysis by:Daryl Plummer, David McCoy). The funny part of this analysis is that with the explosion of fake news via AI will be tools to combat it. It will all become an AI arms race, with your brains being the target. The best recommendation was, “…Do not underestimate the number of counterfeit reality sources that exist in the world today….”. This is very important in the world of Financial News. So much of Financial Documentation in general and Financial Media in specific is becoming AI based.

How can you tell you are getting a Real Financial Reality? For lack of a better term, guess you are going to have to do some research. Just because it is on Face-hole doesn’t mean it is the truth.

A more telling statement about Counterfeit Reality is from the same report, “By 2022, most people in mature economies will consume more false information than true information” (research by Magnus Revang & White Andrews). If this is true, we end up with the liar paradox of “All financial blogs are liars, and I write a financial blog“. Good luck figuring out what is the truth, and what is fiction in the coming years, sums it all up.

What might Counterfeit Reality in the financial world look like? Maybe talking about how investing in any of the 900 cryptocurrencies (at last count) is a great idea? Just saying folks, if I was going to send Hype to pump up an investment, that is where I would start.

If you are of the belief that this is in the future, think again, the Associated Press is already augmenting their writing staff with AI (according to the MIT Tech Review). Maybe Financial Blogger won’t be a job of the future?

The Bank of Canada announced a 20 basis point increase on the Stress Test Rate, that is to be used to figure out whether you can afford a mortgage. The rate is now 5.34% according to the CBC. This means if you want a mortgage you will have to prove that you can live with a mortgage rate of 5.34%, can you?

I did enjoy a Twitter discussion this week about Financial Media Whores, well worth checking out and I will be talking more about this in the near future.


1. [“Counterfeit Reality” is the digital creation of images, video, documents or sounds that are convincingly realistic representations of things that never occurred or never existed exactly as represented (according to Gartner)]↩

My Recent Writings

I did write about Get Your Taxes Done Dammit ! However, you are late now. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t file your taxes, just that you might have to pay penalties if you owe money. It really isn’t that hard, time to get that done, and if you are due a rebate, think how next year you can stop loaning the government money (for free).

Micro Blogging for Motivation

I do wander around the financial internet and found a very interesting article outlining a long list of things to do. Normally, I hate list articles, but this one was OK by me.

Non-counterfeit Reality

I really hope the folks I link to here are genuinely human, and not simply spewing Counterfeit Reality news. I have been listening to a few podcasts lately, as you may notice.

  • Doug Hoyes had his partner on to discuss Second Mortgage or Interest-Free Consumer Proposal? on the Debt-Free in 30 Minutes podcast. It is a great podcast to listen to while commuting.
  • Michael James points out that Money = Human Work , and it is important thing folks need to understand. If you make $15 an hour and you get a $5 latte, that cost 20 minutes work (at least).
  • Preet brings us a very interesting talk and a lot of chat about Whiskey too.

Other Mother’s Day

The New 2018 Random Thoughts

My RSS feed is available.


Feel Free to Comment

    1. I think unequivocally this is happening, and this is where fake realities are the most dangerous. The old pump and dump schemes are now amplified by the Internet’s reach and the ability of AI to obfuscate (and lie).

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