> On the other hand, the people who design Facebook or mobile games to be maximally addicting definitely understand something about how their software is affect

> On the other hand, the people who design Facebook or mobile games to be maximally addicting definitely understand something about how their software is affecting society. It's not a huge leap to go from "I'm pretty sure that certain people will become obsessed with this," to "It's probably harmful for lots of people to become obsessed with this." I don't agree. I think this causal relationship makes sense in hindsight, but I don't think most people capable of designing or implementing software can reliably extrapolate what its impact on society will be. That goes for both positive and negative impacts. Researchers and engineers should still put the effort into questioning the nature of their work and its impact on society, because that's a good exercise in general. But I'm skeptical any given individual would be good at arriving to the right answer.