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RE: How Social Media's Predictive Algorithms Are Perpetuating Division Among The People
I've been thinking about the social effects of recommender for a while now, and I appreciate the way you've treated it. I hadn't thought much about this self-reinforcing problem, but that's definitely a concern.
Something that occurred to me last year sometime is the possibility that you could develop a recommender algorithm and get everybody using it, and then subtly, imperceptibly, tweak the recommendations that it makes to people in an effort to steer them to think how you want them to. I'm sure it's possible, and I suppose it's probably what ad agencies are doing right now.
Yeah I believe things are slowly getting worse, and that something needs to be done before the damage is irreparable.
I worry that your suggestion may not be the best course of action though.. It's essentially a form a manipulation. I think we have had enough of deception and we need to head towards an era of truth. If we are going to repair lines of communication between our species, then it must be done willfully.
I think the best we can hope for is to spread the message. But, what we really need, is a way to communicate that message to people in a way that they will take heed. I know that this article is the conduit for which we will see change.
But, if it can be the message that inspires another to send a message which then causes another to create that message that everyone will hear, then I can say that I did my part... If that makes sense..
Oh god no, I didn't mean it as a suggestion. I meant it as a warning!
Yeah, I have no idea what the solutions are. It's just so easy to isolate ourselves from opposing viewpoints these days! It's a very tricky set of problems, and I think your approach of spreading the news person to person is the only one that I can definitely believe in. Thanks!
My apologies. I must have misunderstood.
Yes, it's certainly the hard way. But perhaps the difficulty in regaining what we have lost is what--if achieved--will remind us not to make the same mistakes again.
Should it be easy, we would not appreciate it nearly as much.