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Early Facebook and Google Employees Form a Center for Humane Technology
- rhizome 9y ago"It will be aimed at educating students, parents and teachers about the dangers of technology, including the depression that can come from heavy use of social media." So, treating the symptoms rather than the disease, and at any rate nothing to do with these companies' pervasive and invasive data practices. Maybe they still have positions in their former employers, I don't know, but following the money will have to be a task for the future. All I can say is, "good luck." I'm sure some good speaker fees and book deals will come of this.
- dang 9y agoPlease don't post reflexively dismissive comments to HN, especially when talking about other people's work, and extra-especially when it's the first comment to a thread. You might have a good point, but the genre itself drowns it out in a medium-is-the-message way. Discussions are sensitive to initial conditions and we're hoping that HN can be better than that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- whatshisface 9y agoI think the pattern where the comments usually disagree with the article is healthy. It's a point-counterpoint argument structure, where the odd layers in the tree are arguing opposite to the even layers. The article makes its case, the first comments make the case that was missing from the article, the replies make the case missing from them... and so on.
- dang 9y agoYou're right, and we're not asking commenters to always agree with an article—but when disagreeing, to reflectively engage rather than reflexively dismiss. The article doesn't necessarily deserve such treatment, but the community does. We all share an interest in HN being a place for quality discussion, and this is how quality discussion emerges. It is most important early in the thread, because discussions are sensitive to initial conditions and the blank page is most vulnerable to rapid, shallow responses. By the time the more thoughtful ones have had time to emerge, the thread is often already choked by faster-growing weeds.
- rhizome 9y agoI read the article before posting, it's not reflexive.
- dang 9y agoI believe you, but the comment itself contains one commonplace criticism ("data practices"—an important issue, but not so relevant in this context and very widely discussed elsewhere) followed by two cheap insinuations. That's not good enough. That combo of shallow and inflammatory is exactly what takes threads into hot mediocrity. That's a bit harsh and I definitely don't mean to pick on you. It's a systemic problem. I'm hoping we can gradually persuade the community to be more conscious of it.
- Fnoord 9y ago> So, treating the symptoms rather than the disease If you want to convince people with the point you're trying to make you I suggest you address the why and come up with one or more alternative, viable solutions. IOW, in short you must be constructive and I gave two examples how. What I quoted from you reminds me of Schneier's essay Data Is a Toxic Asset [1]. I'm not as intelligent as Bruce Schneier so instead of using my own interpretation I will quote his essay instead. The relevant part in understanding the why: > There are three reasons. The first is that we're in the middle of the hype cycle of big data. Companies and governments are still punch-drunk on data, and have believed the wildest of promises on how valuable that data is. The research showing that more data isn't necessarily better, and that there are serious diminishing returns when adding additional data to processes like personalized advertising, is just starting to come out. > The second is that many organizations are still downplaying the risks. Some simply don't realize just how damaging a data breach would be. Some believe they can completely protect themselves against a data breach, or at least that their legal and public relations teams can minimize the damage if they fail. And while there's certainly a lot that companies can do technically to better secure the data they hold about all of us, there's no better security than deleting the data. > The last reason is that some organizations understand both the first two reasons and are saving the data anyway. The culture of venture-capital-funded start-up companies is one of extreme risk taking. These are companies that are always running out of money, that always know their impending death date. And some solutions: > We can be smarter than this. We need to regulate what corporations can do with our data at every stage: collection, storage, use, resale and disposal. We can make corporate executives personally liable so they know there's a downside to taking chances. We can make the business models that involve massively surveilling people the less compelling ones, simply by making certain business practices illegal. Some of his other essays as well as his most recent book Data and Goliath also covers the subject (and also addresses solutions though the solutions are unfortunately not easy; they're difficult). In one of the chapters he suggests taking a smartphone with you is a conscious choice and that we should shift from a default always taking it with you to seeing the pros and cons of such a decision. [1] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/03/data_is_a_toxic.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/03/data_is_a_tox...
- rhizome 9y ago
- amirmc 9y agoNice idea but I think this is only really going to change when either the incentives change (i.e. not ad-based) or there’s legislation/regulation of some kind. Until then, the BigCos will keep doing what they’re doing, because that’s how everything is set up.
- fancyfacebook 9y agoPeople are fleeing facebook in droves. Read last week's release. Something's gotta change, it's more of a debate as to what or how.
- scarface74 9y agoYes for Facebook owned Instagram... Meet the new boss.
- fancyfacebook 9y agoIt's not quite that simple, but yes insta is helping facebook hide their problems due to them stealing everyone from snapchat.
- tw1010 9y agoTheir hearts are probably in the right place, but I wonder if there's a more effective strategy than what they're suggesting; trying to teach teens about the dangers of tech via ads. That hasn't been a very effective strategy historically. If anything, it feels like it just produces the opposite desired effect.
- woolvalley 9y agoI've found teens react fairly well to messaging on how to avoid 'the man' from manipulating you.
- tw1010 9y agoI think we've had enough ads about how books make you smart and tv makes you stupid to know that whatever is cool and enjoyable is more likely to win in that crowd, no matter what well meaning parents and teachers and PSAs try to tell them.
- filoleg 9y agoI think the "TV makes you dumb" propaganda worked just fine over time, and in big part because it was honest and non-aggressive (as opposed to something like DARE). I know it is just anecdata, but out of the people in their 20s that I know, very few have cable, and those usually do it because with their provider it is cheaper to have it bundled as opposed to internet alone.
- deleted 9y ago
- fancyfacebook 9y agoIs there any trend currently for young people or new college grads to avoid these huge manipulative companies like Facebook or Google? I honestly have no idea, I haven't talked to a student or recent grad in awhile, but after the events of the past 24 months I wonder what a 20 year old pondering internships thinks about all this? When I graduated in '98 the most "cool" thing was to work for the biggest name possible (so Microsoft or IBM at the time), but I imagine things have changed.
- marnett 9y agoNot any meaningful trend that I have realized. Most kids still flock to the large companies. Working for them for the prestige and pay is always the aim for the super ambitious, but, with the fat checks they get, working for Facebook is just the beginning of compromising ethics.
- jonathanyc 9y agoI have observed a dangerous sort of fashionable cynicism based on the (claimed) belief that things are so bad in general—in politics, in industry, and in society—that surely working for such a company, or on Wall Street, isn’t such a big deal. In other words, that this is just how things are. In fact it seems like some sort of perversion of the Protestant ethic where instead of undeserved salvation being witnessed by material success through hard work, so-called intelligence and maturity—“ironically” acknowledged to be the fruits of privilege and good fortune—are evidenced by holding reactionary (“centrist”) views and by taking these sorts of jobs. This accounts for many of the upper middle class new grads I see (kids who couldn’t guess how much their family earned within 100k and wouldn’t see that as unreasonable). When it comes to lower income or many international students, there is definitely an advantage to the Google/Facebook brand on your resume, magnified when you are talking about using your resume overseas. And of course in that case or if you expect to have to pay medical bills for aging parents soon it is a grand sort of luxury to turn down such a job offer. The consequence, ironically, is that both the fashionable cynics as well as the idealistic new grads who turn away from Google/Facebook thus end up being mostly affluent and (debatably) largely white. Go to the careers page of some social-good startup and check out their photos! That covers the pull factors I’ve seen. In terms of push factors you have to also account for Google/Facebook just having an order of magnitude more recruiting money and brand recognition.
- samnwa 9y agoIt's always fun to see what rich people do to find meaning.
- dang 9y agoMaybe so, but that's no reason to post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16304411 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16304411
- mstank 9y agoFacebook and other social media platforms might be heading for the type of reckoning the fast food industry had in the late 90s and early 2000s. http://marko.la/facebook-is-mcdonalds/ http://marko.la/facebook-is-mcdonalds/
- gaius 9y agoMcDonalds is still a viable business. When Facebook goes, it will evaporate like MySpace did. And not a moment too soon.
- blawson 9y agoI'm not too sure. I think there's a lot of value in a centralized identity management system. Facebook seems to have filled that role. I can see a near future where it acts as a sort of SSO for the web. That doesn't necessarily sound like a $550B company, but could still be worth quite a bit.
- vanilla_nut 9y agoI wonder if their rampant quest for click-money (annoying users with constant emails, useless spammy notifications, ads, sponsored content) is going to poison that well, though. I anecdotally know a lot of people in their early-mid twenties who have already deleted their accounts. If too many people start doing that, Facebook loses its one trump card.
- ethiclub 9y agoSimilarly, tv channels on YouTube (for the UK, see BBC, C4, E4) appear to be jumping on the bandwagon with clickbait, videos empty of genuine content, misleading titles and clips repeatedly churned through different videos. This appears to have short term benefits (huge view counts), but surely it turns people off long term and impacts the brand.
- Splines 9y agoThe number of sites that tie their cart to that horse is pretty low. Most sites offer their own authentication or offer multiple ones besides FB.
- fourstar 9y agoMust feel nice to attack the gift horse. Such hypocrisy.
- dang 9y agoSnarky dismissals aren't allowed here. Regardless of how right you are, you end up damaging the container of this community by posting this way. Please don't do that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dang 9y ago> Ads warning teens about the dangers of technology, that's definitely going to work. That's a good point of course, but on HN if you make your point as a snarky dismissal, we get lousy discussion. So please don't do that. There's no point worth making that can't be made thoughtfully. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16304411 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16304411 Edit: since the comment was edited (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16304414 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16304414) I'll detach this bit and mark it off-topic.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- dang 9y agoMuch better! I'll detach the original reply so your comment can run free.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- chiefofgxbxl 9y agoLooking at their website, they should really swap the landing page [0] with their "Problem" page [1] if they mean to communicate the strongest message they can about this issue. The landing page isn't as clear at what they're looking so solve. I'd love for them to have a sort of "shop" to raise awareness. If I could just get my hands on some stickers, I'd be posting them around in public to point people to the /problem page. [0] http://humanetech.com http://humanetech.com [1] http://humanetech.com/problem http://humanetech.com/problem
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- yaacov 9y ago> “The largest supercomputers in the world are inside of two companies — Google and Facebook — and where are we pointing them?” Mr. Harris said. “We’re pointing them at people’s brains, at children.” I'm not sure if I should be concerned that the leader of this initiative is wrong about something so trivial. https://www.top500.org/lists/2017/11/ https://www.top500.org/lists/2017/11/
- jdcarr 9y agoWhile the wording by the author is technically incorrect in that Google and Facebook aren’t operating a single supercomputer, the computing resources in possession of each company would almost certainly exceed any entry in the top500.
- cube2222 9y agoThe author used the wrong name, surely what he means is the biggest group of computers working as one system software-wise. But that really doesn't strike a chord, especially for lay people.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ipsum2 9y agoTechnically true, but if you were measuring raw compute power it's possible that tech companies can beat super computers. (Numbers are hard to come by because companies are secretive about how many servers they have)
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- gowld 9y agoYou should be considered that you are intentionally missing the point by using an overly narrow and domain-irrelevant interpretation of "supercomputer". Do you think that the users of any of those supercomputers would turn down an offer to run their projects on Google or Facebook's fleet instead of their "one" supercomputer (given some time to adapt their software)
- rco8786 9y agoCool, I'm in. That said, using a Facebook group as a way to "get involved" is on a whole new level of ironic.
- intopieces 9y agoI think it’s rather un-ironic. The central thesis is not that the technology itself is flawed, but that it needs to be done in a way that is more adaptive to the needs of humans. The best way to reach people is where they are, and people are overwhelmingly on Facebook.
- ppbutt 9y agoYounger generations are increasingly not on Facebook. They're on other various social platforms.
- saagarjha 9y agoThey might not be "on Facebook", but many of them use Facebook Messenger extensively.
- darpa_escapee 9y agoWhich is why Facebook buys them out.
- wu-ikkyu 9y ago>people are overwhelmingly on Facebook Is hypercentralization not a major problem of tech at the momemt, both in terms of security and freedom of thought?
- intopieces 9y agoHypercentralization is a contributing factor (and indeed an enabler) of the main problem, which its the exploitation of attention. It is, in itself, not bad, and not in itself a problem. The same issue that this organization is fighting could also occur in an attention economy dominated by no major player.
- fma 9y agoWith smartphones being ubiquitous, and we all have a few minutes here and there to spare...we just need to come up with a better and productive way to kill those time where you are idle. Any suggestions? Right now I'm waiting on my wife to get ready before we head out and spending it here on HN, but still, it's not productive.
- gowld 9y agoInstall a chess app?
- Fnoord 9y agoCan recommend Lichess [1], the puzzles are a lot of fun! I can also recommend Wordfeud (a Scrabble clone), and Duolingo (an interactive language-learning tool by professor Luis von Ahn (creator of reCAPTCHA)). But I can also recommend mindfulness, or listening to music which makes you relaxed such as classical or ambient music. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lichess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lichess [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duolingo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duolingo
- pcmaffey 9y agoSelf-plug: I built a 5 minute word game for this very reason (diffuse mind time) that fits right in with your list of options. www.esoterica.io
- Fnoord 9y agoThat's cool, just didn't know how to confirm at start. Reminds me of a game by Microsoft. I really like Wordament. What I like about it, is that if you select the same language, you get the same puzzle. So you can play against a friend who's sitting in the same room! Who'd have thought I'd love a game by Microsoft (for Android!). Only annoying this is the ads; I wish I could buy a premium version.
- 9y ago
- nothrabannosir 9y agoAmen, hallelujah, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc With that out of the way: > Apple, Samsung, and Microsoft can help solve the problem, because keeping people hooked to the screen isn’t their business model. Isn't it? "How often do I use my phone, and how much does the price work out to in $/minute used?" is a real metric I consciously use to determine how expensive a phone I can buy. If I only used my phone for calling, texting, maps and e-mail, I would buy the cheapest phone possible. But the more apps I use, the more sense it makes to get a more expensive phone. I assume most people would act the same way, in the end, no? That sounds like a pretty significant issue with this position they're taking. Or is it not relevant?
- gaius 9y agoThe big 5 is a misleading concept because Microsoft, Apple and Amazon make money by providing actual products and services. The whole sleazy attention-economy stuff could be outlawed tomorrow and they wouldn’t skip a beat. Unlike the other two.
- IntronExon 9y agoAmazon in particular has AWS, I think as a majority of profit. Apple and MS might care due to secondary effects, such as a reduced rate of mobile device replacement? It would probably not matter too much though, and they could adapt. FB and Google would just implode with a wet thuck.
- skybrian 9y agoI suspect Google could get a lot of people to pay for a "Google Prime" subscription if they had to.
- IntronExon 9y agoSub to what? Their search engine? I’d rather use DDG most days without Google trying to charge me. To something like YouTube? How is YouTube Red going?
- gowld 9y agoTitle is misleading. Harris's job at Google was the same thing he is doing now (but obviously he realized he could do it better from outside), so he's not "fighting what he built".
- dang 9y agoIf you or anyone can suggest a better title, we can change it. A good title is accurate, neutral, and uses representative language from the article. Edit: I took a crack at it above.
- rock_hard 9y agoGo get those speaker fee’s and book deals! Seriously though...this is such hyperbole! Quotes taken out of context, etc. Follow the money folks
- KhanMahGretsch 9y agoThere certainly appears to be a swell of anti-Facebook sentiment in recent times. Leading in from a lengthy public discussion around it's role in Russia influencing the Presidential Election (the facts of that matter rendering the discussion almost comical), and a recent high-profile call-out by George Soros, I've noticed a glut of hand-wringing articles alleging it's clear-and-present-danger to the population and, in particular, children. While I agree with many of Facebook's detractors, I will be paying particular attention to what solutions are proposed as the narrative develops. Given that some of the louder-voices were also heavily in favour of "Net Neutrality" regulation, I'm anticipating calls for direct regulatory intervention (as opposed to, say, pursuing violations of existing anti-competition laws, and eliminating anti-democratic lobbying influence of these and other entities).
- dvt 9y agoI tried not to be cynical, but what a circlejerk. Ex-GOOG/FB/AAPL employees and early investors in GOOG/FB/AAPL get together to school us about how bad GOOG/FB/AAPL is. Give me a break.
- staunch 9y agoIf the current technology services are like cigarettes, then the solution is to solve the disease and addiction problems, so people can smoke in a safe way. That's kind of what vaporizer technology is attempting. Facebook and Google are built on old technology, and it's technology that we now know to have fundamental flaws. The answer to out-dated bad technology is next-generation good technology. Technology is supposed to work for us, and to the extent it doesn't, that's a bug to be resolved. No amount of warnings or education is going to solve the problem. No panicked response is necessary. If you want to fix the problem, just create, fund, and promote the new and improved technology.
- confounded 9y ago> No amount of warnings or education is going to solve the problem The most effective solutions (the closest we've got to "solving the problem") to habitual cigarette smoking so far seem to be regulation; increasing prices, making things socially arduous. > The answer to out-dated bad technology is next-generation good technology. The problem is not technology, and neither is the solution. There's nothing that technologically innovative about aggregating and re-ordering images/hyperlinks via a PHP app. The problem is one of power, control, informed-consent, and incentives.
- staunch 9y agoIf the problem isn't modern technology such as Facebook and smartphones, then why didn't we have this problem in the past? And if it is modern technology, then why couldn't it be the solution? As one example, why can't we create a social network that's designed to help users mitigate the negative aspects of using it?
- confounded 9y agoWhat about Facebook is modern technology?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- dawhizkid 9y agoI feel like mobile gaming is Facebook at a smaller scale but 10x worse...not only are they trying to hook you but the hook is actively extracting money from you.
- gukov 9y agoBoth prey on our increased dependency on an instant dopamine release.
- notyme 9y agoIn the movie,The Insider (1999) a Big Tobacco CEO says "We are in the nicotine delivery business", substituting nicotine to dopamine and you have your Tencent and Facebook. They now are increasingly targeting women for social media gaming. [0]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-31/fueled-by-wechat-female-gamers-power-tencent-s-3-billion-hit https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-31/fueled-by...
- rapnie 9y agoyou are right. there was an interesting discussion on 'lootboxes' couple of days ago on HN..
- scarface74 9y agoIt's interesting how all of these early employees can now speak out about the ills of their former employers after they have cashed out all of their RSUs and gotten rich...
- rapnie 9y agointeresting indeed.. but any persons can repent and change their ways, so let's see where this is going :)
- woolvalley 9y agoNot using facebook or a smartphone is the new 'I don't watch TV'. The parallels and complaints are fairly similar.
- filoleg 9y agoDon't even have to go far to see that. Open any thread on HN that is about Facebook or has it in the title, and you can already predict half of the comments, with a variation of "I quit facebook N months/years ago, and if you are still using it, you must be a sheep" being in the top 5. As soon as someone reasonably objects to this by saying that facebook is helpful to plan and coordinate events with friends, there will be the token reply saying "if they are real friends, they would reach out to you specifically through other means, no matter how impractical that is." It's as if some people live in this fantasy world where everything is binary.
- mlinksva 9y ago> Governments can pressure technology companies toward humane business models by including the negative externalities of attention extraction on their balance sheets What does this mean? I'm genuinely curious. Meanwhile, easier: tax ads.
- clusmore 9y agoOh, this is the Time Well Spent movement - I thought it sounded like them but it wasn't in the article and wasn't until halfway down their landing page [1] that they mention this. I first heard about this via Max Stossel's talk at Google: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkeZJh937sE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkeZJh937sE [1] http://humanetech.com/ http://humanetech.com/
- tanilama 9y agoFear mongering lobbying group for traditional media.
- rapnie 9y agothat is a tiny bit easy.. read their problem statement and tell me if you don't see these things in your everyday life :) if not, are you living off-grid? (which is also interesting, but a different topic altogether)
- anonytrary 9y agoPeople don't stop using horses until they can go out and buy a car. So, what's the product? I read their site, it seems to just complain about all of the downsides of social media. Is this just for awareness? I like some of their ideas, but I don't really understand how they aim to change things.
- tmptmp 9y agoIt reminds me Google's "do no evil"; hoping it won't turn out even worse.
- DoreenMichele 9y agoSo, it sounds to me like "Tech is eating our world. Let's create some more tech to counteract that!" Um, maybe we should fix healthcare and affordable housing and institute maternity leave and other policies so parents can spend time with their kids instead of having the iPad babysit them? I know. Radical thought that maybe something other than more tech is the solution to our tech problem. Like... less tech. But someone had to toss out the stupidly obvious answer.
- Santosh83 9y agoThat's loss of productivity.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- seangrogg 9y agoThere's something sublimely humorous about the fact that ex-employees from the world's largest ad distributors are working to start an ad campaign.
- gukov 9y agoIt's a hot niche right now, that's for sure.
- sidcool 9y agoThis has a Silicon Valley episode written all over it.
- rapnie 9y agoits a community.. if you are non-SV and join you can help steer the direction, become a prominent member :) the problem, i think, is very real.. many people in this thread seem not to be affected, and that is good. but people are getting addicted in droves.. and they need the help! sure, it is fighting bad tech with more tech - but that will be _good_ tech, hopefully.. besides that more regulation is needed - as others have rightfully stated. but this is not an either/or choice.. both are needed and tech is not going to be ditched any time soon.. on the contrary i would think :)
- gnicholas 9y ago> Apple’s chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, told The Guardian last month that he would not let his nephew on social media Does anyone else wonder how old the child in question is? Much of the media attention has been framed as "Tim Cook wouldn't let a kid use social media", ignoring the fact that the statement was about one child—not all children. We can't really draw meaningful conclusions about Cook's philosophy without knowing if this kid is 9 or 17.
- T-A 9y agoFrom http://fortune.com/2015/03/26/tim-cook/ http://fortune.com/2015/03/26/tim-cook/ : "He plans to give away all his wealth, after providing for the college education of his 10-year-old nephew." So presumably 12 when he said that.