Modern Pictograms - Emojis as a Proxy Language

In the digital age, we have an abundance of information at our fingertips. We communicate with each other through text messages, emails, and social media platforms. However, we often overlook the fact that these mediums come at a cost to the environment. Every time we send a message or an email, we are consuming energy that comes from non-renewable sources, contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, and ultimately, climate change.

This is something I have given a lot of thoughts to over the years and have had as a personal mission for sometime to address. However, it turns out there was an angle that I had not taken into account. Until yesterday when I received this message from a colleague.

In its simplicity it says it all. But devoid of contexts it makes little sense. (It came as a response to a post about our sustainability efforts related to our cloud offerings).

The cloud loves the environment and the earth.

Brilliant, I thought. Only to realize in an instance that it’s even better. Its geniuses.

By reducing the message to emojis that whole sentence had been reduced from 45 bytes of data to a mere 12. So a reduction in size by four. An impressive feat. And this led me down a path I have visited before as my mind once again started exploring the benefits of pictograms for data compression.

The idea of using symbols as a language is not new. Ancient civilizations used hieroglyphics, pictographs, and other visual representations to convey information. Unlike the western alphabet they often represent a whole concept or word and derive their meaning from the context, relation and placement of them in regards to the other symbols. This is in bright contrast to the letters of the alphabet, like the ones before you, that only represent their correlating sound. Sounds that are altered depending on their placement next to each other.

In the digital age, we have emojis, which are small semi abstract images that are used to represent emotions, objects, and concepts. Emojis were first introduced in Japan in the late 1990s, but they did not become popular until they were included in smartphones in 2011. Today, emojis are a ubiquitous part of our digital communication landscape, with over 3,000 emojis available across various platforms. They are literally everywhere.

One of the main advantages of using modern pictograms would be that they are much smaller in size than text. A single emoji can convey an entire message, which would require several words to express in text. This means that we can communicate the same message with fewer characters, reducing the amount of data that is transmitted over the internet.

A normal letter (even spaces) takes up one byte of data. Meaning that a five letter word uses at least five bytes. An emoji takes up about 3-4 bytes saving us precious bytes as a direct effect. Less kilobytes over the wire. And as a result, we can save energy and reduce the carbon footprint of our digital communication.

Another advantage of using modern pictograms would also be that they can be used to represent concepts that are difficult to express in text. For example, an emoji of a tree can represent the concept of nature, sustainability, and the environment. The meaning of the message is therefore directly derived from its context.

In addition, modern pictograms can be used to create a universal language that can transcend linguistic and cultural barriers. Emojis are already being used to represent concepts that are difficult to translate across different languages. For example, the heart emoji is used to represent love and affection, regardless of the language, grammar and/or culture of the person using it.

This means that modern pictograms can be used to create a global language of communication that can facilitate cross-cultural understanding and cooperation as well as reducing the message to only be the thing we actually want to convey, derived of any other fillers and

However, modern pictograms are not without their limitations. One of the main challenges is the lack of standardization across different platforms. Emojis can look different on different devices and platforms, which can lead to confusion and miscommunication. This can be especially problematic when communicating with people who are not familiar with a particular platform or device. And their informal nature makes them hard to use in a professional or less personal setting.

Enter AI! A large language model would make this whole ordeal simple and precise. Reducing a message to a series of symbols that it then on the receiving end could reconstitute back to an actual message. As part of the reconstitution that message could be reinterpreted in any language and set to any number of styles from formal to friendly.

The same message I would send to closest colleagues, whom I have an informal tone with could be sent to a client or even my boss in which case I would like to use a less direct and more formal tone.

Sorry. I’ll miss the meeting. My kid is sick.

Or

I’m terribly sorry. I can’t attend the meeting since my child has fallen ill.

Now, before you start wondering if I actually suggest that we should reduce all messages on the internet to emojis I can assure you that that is not the case. The emojis themself are not the point here and their job could easily be replaced by using a series of ASCII symbols that could be combined into a myriad of combinations and therefore outnumber the possible combinations by an enormous margin.

The main takeaway is an universal language, a proxy language, that could not only transcend cultures and offer a way to reduce our carbon footprint and promote cross-cultural understanding.

As we become more aware of the impact of our digital activities on the environment, it is time to start exploring alternative ways to communicate online. These modern pictograms, or rather the proxy language, have the potential to revolutionize the way we communicate online.

It might be a crazy idea, but it deserves serious consideration as we move towards a more sustainable future.