We Made This Mistake With Social Media. Don’t Repeat It With AI

The useful part

The failure of the social media era was not simply that we failed to predict what would happen. It was that we continued giving technology companies the benefit of the doubt long after there were compelling reasons not to. Perhaps AI will cure cancer, eliminate mindless work, unlock unimaginable scientific discoveries and usher in an era of human flourishing.

How it works

• I also have surprisingly little interest in figuring out how AI is going to reshape every aspect of my family's existence.
• I have lived and worked in communities where access to clean water, reliable electricity and quality education are not the norm.
• The executives running these companies also have no democratic mandate to decide how much risk the rest of society should tolerate.
• If I picked up the telephone and told a friend I was going to kill someone, I could be held responsible for that threat, but the phone company would not be liable simply because I used its network to make it.
• Recommendation systems spoon-feed users material they never requested because the system has learned that provocative content keeps them watching.

What to take from it

They did not receive one because they founded a successful company, raised billions of dollars or built a remarkable piece of technology. The problem is that today's social media platforms bear very little resemblance to a telephone line. Hate, conspiracy theories, radical content and outrage do not simply sit somewhere on these platforms waiting for someone to find them.

Example or evidence

• School districts should be developing policies now that preserve the development of critical thinking, writing, research and problem-solving skills, while universities need to determine what intellectual...
• If AI is making you less capable of writing, thinking, remembering, navigating, researching or making decisions independently, perhaps the appropriate response is not simply to celebrate how much time you...
• Perhaps it will destroy millions of jobs, hollow out our brains, flood the internet with synthetic garbage and eventually decide that humanity was an unfortunate beta test.
• Against that backdrop, listening to wealthy people debate whether artificial intelligence is going to transform humanity can sometimes feel like a conversation about which humanity we are actually talking...

Details worth keeping

I have no idea, and neither, I suspect, does anyone else. Maybe I simply hate the idea that a handful of technology companies and their executives could have such an enormous role in determining how our children learn, how we work, how we consume information and how we interact with one another, while the rest of us have remarkably little say in the matter. Or perhaps I just find the whole thing a little boring.

Related coverage

• Inc: Companies that once underestimated social media are at risk of making the same mistake again, this time with far bigger consequences.
• Foreignpolicy: Global reporting standards are a key step toward safety.
• Uxdesign: The internet's founders governed a technology nobody agreed on, without kings, presidents, or voting.