It’s Not Just the Media and Governments, It’s Much More Widespread and Dangerous

While I tend not to tumbl content from outside Steem here, this TC guest contribution reminded me of two Steemians I’ve been reading for quite some time. So I’m going to leave this here for them, they are @krnel and @tarazkp. Combined with one of my preferred memes about nowadays society.

Too often we talk about governments and MSM having an agenda, but in last decade the danger has grown exponentially and reached also those who otherwise think that even the daily news is too challenging for their little mindset them and who generally resort to even lower level forms of interaction, discovery and socializing: the internet and in this era that means always more mobile apps. Apps niches mostly dominated by few players and no I’m not talking about the CandyCrushes, Egg Inc and other games but Social Media and Co.

Apps, platforms always more powered by algorithms defining what we get to see, based on our own conscious or not so conscious input. Or based on what the delivery drone saw.

In short, the way we go about our lives mimics the way we engage with the Internet. Algorithms are an easy way out, because they allow us to take the messiness of human life, the tangled web of relationships and potential matches, and do one of two things: Apply a clear, algorithmic framework to deal with it, or just let the actual algorithm make the choice for us. We’re forced to adapt to and work around algorithms, rather than use technology on our terms.

Of course, TechCrunch being TechCrunch the article doesn’t go too in-depth but combined with the ever wider proliferation of mobile apps, at always younger ages and definitely in demographics where time and money come at a premium, algos are ever more defining what our offspring (read: yours, I have none that I’m aware of) gets to see and eventually also learns.

But as we adopt programming language, code, and algorithms as part of our own thinking, are human nature and artificial intelligence merging into one? We’re used to think of AI as an external force, something we have little control over. What if the most immediate threat of AI is less about robots taking over the world, and more about technology becoming more embedded into our consciousness and subjectivity?

In the same way that smartphones became extensions of our senses and our bodies, as Marshall McLuhan might say, algorithms are essentially becoming extensions of our thoughts. But what do we do when when they replace the very qualities that make us human?

Or about what we don’t get to see. Not merely the filter bubble danger but also the lack of discovery. I recall having had this discussion with a mother of 4 not that long ago and trying to explain her that nobody denies the good of Facebook when it comes to staying connected, especially with older contacts, but the risk is about what is withheld from one’s feed.

Chunnel vision, constant validation of one’s own thinking, and lack of challenging opposing views.

Obviously, I understand the irony of forwarding that TC article to @krnel, @tarazkp, and #informationwar since I’m doing nothing else than preaching to the choir within our own little echo chamber, yet I thought it important to also highlight the danger of always more innocent souls and minds being developed by AI’s and algos’ selections of what they get to see.

When we operate within the bubble of distraction that technology creates around us, and when our social media feeds consist of people who think just like us, how can we expect social change? What ends up happening is we operate exactly as the algorithm intended us to. The alternative is questioning the status quo, analyzing the facts and arriving at our own conclusions. But no one has time for that. So we become cogs in the Facebook machine, more susceptible to propaganda, blissfully unaware of the algorithm at work–and of all the ways in which it has inserted itself into our thought processes.

How will we achieve those people to become woke? How will we protect children and young adolescents from being not only brainwashed by the [editorial] agendas of the MSM and the FUD machines but also by the constant drive for time on site and perpetual tweaking of the addictive elements to make sure users, no matter which age, have no desire to leave?

Source: TechCrunch: Are Algorithms Hacking Our Minds

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