> ...even really smart engineers... No, ESPECIALLY really smart engineers. "Techies" have some of the most crippling blind-spots when it comes to political se

> ...even really smart engineers... No, ESPECIALLY really smart engineers. "Techies" have some of the most crippling blind-spots when it comes to political sensibility. Moreover, it's not just bots and computational propaganda that we need to worry about (though that is serious problem too). Propaganda is just as "real" regardless of whether it's computational and offered up by bots, or if it's a guy with a megaphone, or if it's a poster or newspaper article (like in the 1930's). What really matters is the intention behind the propaganda and that's what needs to be uncovered and dealt with. Coming up with AI to deal with AI-backed disinformation campaigns can only ever be an infinite game of wack-a-mole, unless the root-causes are addressed. These are political problems and they require a political solution. Facebook and Google aren't going to be the hero here.