3 ms·

Yuval Harari keeps saying this, that we live in a time where the systems know our weaknesses better then we know them ourselves.

• Benjammer 8y ago
  It's so much worse than this. The systems aren't "evil." They don't "know our weaknesses." The opposite of love is not hate, it's apathy. The machines are optimized around numbers and parameters and have no idea what a person is or what a weakness is or what the concept of "weakness" means at all. They are statistical optimization algorithms designed to make one number get as close as possible to another number, by tweaking the values of a whole bunch of other numbers. Like, a person who knew your weakness and had bad intentions would hone in on the weakness and then use it to manipulate you and take pleasure from interactions where you feel bad and they feel good. The computer is just existing at a higher level of ideas than your feelings, and will simply steam-roll your brain into mush as a minor side-effect of its effort to make that one number look like the other number.
  • kopo 8y ago
    Good point and well put. These issues were being raised as far back as 2005-6 when debates were raging about whether likes/clicks/views and other "easy to collect" numbers were the right proxies for peoples needs and feelings. We know which camp prevailed. What's changed is people's reaction and awareness. Hopefully we learn how to inject some love into the machine and dilute the apathy.