Why I think we are already living in a virtual world

in ai •  7 years ago  (edited)

Introduction
For my first article, I'm not going to do a giant one, just wrote my point of view, I would really appreciate to discuss about it. Feel free to react.


What you may think
Usually people think of virtual worlds like they were a whole, like everything, from the flower to our galaxy, just made by a huge computer. And usually those same people are scared about it because it means that their life isn’t free. It’s just a list to follow, already made for them where they have pre-chosen friends, pre-chosen wife or husband, pre-chosen kids, pre-chosen choices in fact.


What I relay it to
Reminds me something, and as sad as it sounds, it remembers me the world we’re living in. If you think about it, Facebook gives you recommended friends, YouTube gives you recommended videos that influence your opinions or even ads, they give you what to buy and what you need. But, I use those services every day, and those recommendations are not meant to be bad, they are here to help you, I understand that.


Example

  • To illustrate what I’ve just said, let me demonstrate it with a very simple example. During the French election, Marine Le Pen got to the 2nd round against Emmanuel Macron, and at first I thought that it was very weird, when I went to Facebook or YouTube, Marine Le Pen was mocked and not taken seriously, she was said to be the Hitler n°2. But she was there, she was selected by about 21% of the people. But as I said, when I opened my computer not even 1% of the reactions were for her.
    Sure, you may say that usually people who vote for Marine Le Pen don’t have internet or don’t use it often (based on where the votes are coming from), but there should be at least some voices that speak in her favor on the world-wide web, and well there are. But not where I go, not what the websites gave me to see.

What does it mean
And that’s the virtual world, I’m speaking about. You’re just in a bubble, except that this time, the soap is replaced by the algorithms of YouTube, Google or Facebook.


The solutions

So is that bad? I think it is, how can you be able to forge your own opinion, if every time you try to get information, you get the same ones? But sure shouting at things sometimes help, but giving solutions does even better.

Make people discover what they don't know
This solution is the best I think, I'm going to use YouTube as an example. Normally YouTube's side videos looks like the left part of the image, the right one is for me way better :

Youtube VIDEO_Recom_3.png
Illustration of a solution, made by Herozin

As you can see, if YouTube used their algorithm to propose a ideologically contrary video to the user, a big part of the problem should vanish. But I know it isn't easy to do, and keeping the user in his bubble make him stay. But I really think it's important to let the user have real choices.

I'm going to finish this article by this very beautiful quote written by Saint-Exupéry

Only the unknown frightens men. But once a man has faced the unknown, that terror becomes the known.

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