5 ms·

DARPA investing $42 million in "memetrackers"

45 points by sethbannon 15y ago

mkramlich 15y ago
note to DARPA: may I suggest buying Reddit?
- keypusher 15y ago
  Seriously. Reddit has struggled for years under Conde Naste to get adequate funding, and they have already built the community and technology to do exactly this. Then DARPA comes in ready to drop $40+ million, I doubt their project will ever get off the ground, community-wise. Meanwhile Reddit continues to scrounge up a living off advertising.
  - philwelch 15y ago
    I'm pretty sure Reddit's userbase would immediately quit as soon as the site was sold to DARPA.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - mkramlich 15y ago
      Agreed. I was only half-serious. I do think that what this DARPA project could do, for much less than $40 million, is write software that scrapes a bunch of existing websites and newsfeeds, looking for common patterns that could constitute memes. And that Reddit.com would be one obvious site to have in their list. I would gladly write such a system for a mere -- (pinky in mouth) -- one million dollars, however.
treelovinhippie 15y ago
Heh, been predicting this for a while. In the short-term a select few companies will know the intricacies of the functions in social groups, how any individual responds given certain inputs, who the social influencers are, and how to spread a message rapidly through any given social network using all this information. In the long-term, there is the possibility that a group/company could manipulate and in-essence, "program", a human being to think and do whatever they desire. I'm talking here, the ability to dramatically alter an individual's deepest, strongest beliefs, anonymously and automatically. The target individual wouldn't have a clue that they were being slowly and incrementally re-programmed. It could be a global, anonymous propaganda/conditioning system. Brilliant if it were a decentralized system, but I think that would rare. I think I know how to do this, but I'm definitely not in a position to do anything about it (yet). You'd need huge content distribution channels and access to huge amounts of user data - Facebook could do it. The other option would be to develop a recommendation algorithm system where you encourage companies with existing content platforms to use your algorithms to route recommended content to individuals (now this one is more accessible, and I'm gradually working on it). I posted a vidcast on the possible implications of the DARPA social media initiative back in September: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrlHVDAjOSU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrlHVDAjOSU
- ugh 15y ago
  Media effects research suggests otherwise. This is a hot sociology research topic and debates about how easily media can influence people have been raging for nearly the past century (well, basically ever since mass media arrived). Empirically it has always been hard to find any media effects at all. Opinions cannot be easily changed by media. Other effects like agenda setting or framing and priming have much stronger empirical support. This suggests to me that it is extremely hard to control people's opinions and views through media content, especially given the extent to which a single actor can influence media content.
  - bluedanieru 15y ago
    I don't get your post at all. What exactly do you mean by 'media' which apparently excludes these other effects? As far as I can tell mass media does all those things. Moreover, one particularly successful mass media outlet is virtually entirely controlled by a single actor.
    - ugh 15y ago
      Media effects studies were done with television, radio, print and web content. Opinion changes in response to media content would generally be considered strong media effects. Agenda setting, framing and priming are of course also media effects but they are seen as much weaker. There also still is plenty of pluralism in media content, both internal and external. Worrying developments do exist, sure, but in the grand scheme of things they are not such a big deal. Especially the web can actually increase pluralism.
      - bluedanieru 15y ago
        This doesn't suggest that, as you say, 'opinions cannot be easily changed by media'. Sure, it would not do much good for a personality to appear on the air and basically tell his audience 'you need to think this', but these weaker, less direct methods of influencing opinion are effective and mass media uses them with generally great success. Perhaps the key word is 'easily', but the damage is done regardless.
mattangriffel 15y ago
Nicholas Christakis has a great TED talk about this called "How social networks predict epidemics" here: http://www.ted.com/talks/nicholas_christakis_how_social_networks_predict_epidemics.html http://www.ted.com/talks/nicholas_christakis_how_social_netw...
dpezely 15y ago
There's a conference this week in San Francisco that is to cover these topics: http://SentimentSymposium.com http://SentimentSymposium.com

45 points by sethbannon 15y ago

mkramlich 15y ago

note to DARPA: may I suggest buying Reddit?

keypusher 15y ago
Seriously. Reddit has struggled for years under Conde Naste to get adequate funding, and they have already built the community and technology to do exactly this. Then DARPA comes in ready to drop $40+ million, I doubt their project will ever get off the ground, community-wise. Meanwhile Reddit continues to scrounge up a living off advertising.
- philwelch 15y ago
  I'm pretty sure Reddit's userbase would immediately quit as soon as the site was sold to DARPA.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - mkramlich 15y ago
    Agreed. I was only half-serious. I do think that what this DARPA project could do, for much less than $40 million, is write software that scrapes a bunch of existing websites and newsfeeds, looking for common patterns that could constitute memes. And that Reddit.com would be one obvious site to have in their list. I would gladly write such a system for a mere -- (pinky in mouth) -- one million dollars, however.

treelovinhippie 15y ago

Heh, been predicting this for a while. In the short-term a select few companies will know the intricacies of the functions in social groups, how any individual responds given certain inputs, who the social influencers are, and how to spread a message rapidly through any given social network using all this information. In the long-term, there is the possibility that a group/company could manipulate and in-essence, "program", a human being to think and do whatever they desire. I'm talking here, the ability to dramatically alter an individual's deepest, strongest beliefs, anonymously and automatically. The target individual wouldn't have a clue that they were being slowly and incrementally re-programmed. It could be a global, anonymous propaganda/conditioning system. Brilliant if it were a decentralized system, but I think that would rare. I think I know how to do this, but I'm definitely not in a position to do anything about it (yet). You'd need huge content distribution channels and access to huge amounts of user data - Facebook could do it. The other option would be to develop a recommendation algorithm system where you encourage companies with existing content platforms to use your algorithms to route recommended content to individuals (now this one is more accessible, and I'm gradually working on it). I posted a vidcast on the possible implications of the DARPA social media initiative back in September: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrlHVDAjOSU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrlHVDAjOSU

ugh 15y ago
Media effects research suggests otherwise. This is a hot sociology research topic and debates about how easily media can influence people have been raging for nearly the past century (well, basically ever since mass media arrived). Empirically it has always been hard to find any media effects at all. Opinions cannot be easily changed by media. Other effects like agenda setting or framing and priming have much stronger empirical support. This suggests to me that it is extremely hard to control people's opinions and views through media content, especially given the extent to which a single actor can influence media content.
- bluedanieru 15y ago
  I don't get your post at all. What exactly do you mean by 'media' which apparently excludes these other effects? As far as I can tell mass media does all those things. Moreover, one particularly successful mass media outlet is virtually entirely controlled by a single actor.
  - ugh 15y ago
    Media effects studies were done with television, radio, print and web content. Opinion changes in response to media content would generally be considered strong media effects. Agenda setting, framing and priming are of course also media effects but they are seen as much weaker. There also still is plenty of pluralism in media content, both internal and external. Worrying developments do exist, sure, but in the grand scheme of things they are not such a big deal. Especially the web can actually increase pluralism.
    - bluedanieru 15y ago
      This doesn't suggest that, as you say, 'opinions cannot be easily changed by media'. Sure, it would not do much good for a personality to appear on the air and basically tell his audience 'you need to think this', but these weaker, less direct methods of influencing opinion are effective and mass media uses them with generally great success. Perhaps the key word is 'easily', but the damage is done regardless.

mattangriffel 15y ago

Nicholas Christakis has a great TED talk about this called "How social networks predict epidemics" here: http://www.ted.com/talks/nicholas_christakis_how_social_networks_predict_epidemics.html http://www.ted.com/talks/nicholas_christakis_how_social_netw...

dpezely 15y ago

There's a conference this week in San Francisco that is to cover these topics: http://SentimentSymposium.com http://SentimentSymposium.com