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I've said it before, but I'll repeat it here: This is our fault (the many of us who have worked on profiling tech, or for companies that do). But there are thi
by SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
I've said it before, but I'll repeat it here:
This is our fault (the many of us who have worked on profiling tech, or for companies that do). But there are things to do about it.
The problem is largely a coordination and logistics issue -- there are far more people and resources concerned by the problem than think things are going well. The problem is that they are spread out and have trouble focusing on issues such as this, and so end up being largely ineffective.
Here we see our second fault: how many of us have taken the time to actually do something about it, rather than complain while we spend our work hours exacerbating the problem?
Many of us have backgrounds in crowd sourcing, in logistics, in machine learning (especially things like auto-summarization) -- why are we applying those skills (only) to cab rides and not to making democracy more efficient and robust?
We've spent too much time on offense -- against people, to build addiction, manipulation, and control -- and if we want a healthy society, one that isn't going to tear itself to shreds on behalf of a few wealthy radicals, we need to work on defense -- deprogramming psychological traps, tools that increase autonomy and self-control, media meta-analysis, etc.
Politics only works if we engage with it, putting ourselves and our ideas out there, and technologists have been reluctant to, because many of us saw that it would devolve in to this mess. Well, the mess happened anyway -- can we at least get engaged about trying to fix it?
- rtx 10y agoYou are mistaken if you think these things are not being done. The only difference is that people with different ideology than yours are doing it.
- SomeStupidPoint 10y agoCould you point to some, of any ideology? I agree that people of multiple political camps are using technology, but my experience has been that all camps are exploiting rather than empowering people. You seem to be of the opinion that Im advancing a particular political agenda here. This is actually a policy neutral concern -- Im worried about how we're having the debate, not the outcome. (And there are some I know of, like CBT apps and productivity timers, but I don't think they're that effective as engineered. They also don't cover, eg, meta-analysis.)
- rtx 10y agoI didn't mean to imply anything on your behalf. I just meant you might have missed the use of technology in politics. Because you might not be part of the group (ideology) who are using it. I will not go into the technological details as I am just a end user. But I will say this you are mistaken when you say people are manipulated. I see them as a cost effective way of dispensing your message. People always vote based on their interest. Those can be short term or long term.
- SomeStupidPoint 10y agoWell, if you're not going to name particular services or technologies, I think we're going to have to leave it at disagreeing -- but I do want to thank you for trying to make sure I'm informed! Have a good one! :)