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Should There Be Limits on Persuasive Technologies?

schneier.com

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Re: Should There Be Limits on Persuasive Technologies?

#211

Post by GreenWatermelon »

Veen wrote: post #154
vannevar wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's a monopoly? What is a business expense? What's NSFW? There are lots of gray areas in regulation, to the point where ambiguity is more the rule than the exception. This is just another aspect of complex behavior that, now that we see it abused, we realize we need to regulate.

Well, yes, but since you are a proponent of regulation, I was asking where you would draw the line. Presumably you have given it some thought.

Draw it anywhere and keep tweaking until you find the right balance. Some things are obviously bad, while others are obviously good. Put the line somewhere in the grey area on between and tweak as needed until you find the right balance.

Definitely not easy, but probably doable to a certain extent.

Re: Should There Be Limits on Persuasive Technologies?

#212

Post by mistermann »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #203
mistermann wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teaching people things like logic, critical thinking, psychological biases, etc so they understand it when in abstract thinking mode when the topic is just that is one thing - teaching people to be able to practice it during realtime conversations of unrelated object level discussions (say, politics) is something else entirely. > I cant think of any downside here. I can imagine many people who may see a downside of a…

> teaching people to be able to practice it during realtime conversations of unrelated object level discussions (say, politics) is something else entirely. In my experience, once you give people the basic toolkit for introspection, it can kick off a positive feedback loop. Not everyone will become a stoic, but they can make meaningful progress on their own. > I can imagine many people who may see a downside of a popu…

> In my experience, once you give people the basic toolkit for introspection, it can kick off a positive feedback loop.

No doubt it is an improvement over baseline - but do you have any opinions on this specific notion that skills in abstract thinking mode may not successfully transfer to object level thinking, particularly when under pressure (ie: conversations)? I truly believe that this is a real phenomenon.

> On the contrary I think those who see this as negative are few and far between. Democratic power in the western world has never been greater than today, so if this is something the people want, there is very little that can stand in their way.

Oh, I think this is a very small group of people. I believe the general public has wanted a lot of things for a very long time (general welfare for all people, within reason, especially domestically), but improvements along these lines seem rather marginal, despite essentially unending productivity and GDP growth. Something seems rather imperfect here - the advertised benefits of democracy seem more impressive than the results, not unlike TV commercials for a Big Mac Meal versus what you actually get at the restaurant.

Re: Should There Be Limits on Persuasive Technologies?

#213

Post by mistermann »

seph-reed wrote: post #204
mistermann wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This problem space has barely been cracked open, and we're going to have to get big smart about it before it destroys us. 100% agree, but try getting any group of people to agree on this idea even in principle.

Rallying for mass adoption -- generally -- should be done after having discussed it in an open-minded setting. Most ideas become refined as they grow from very small open-minded spaces, towards mass appeal. So perhaps this idea can be refined as well... no sense in trying not trying.

I am not aware of any particularly impressive implementations of this sort of thing currently underway - do you know of any?

Re: Should There Be Limits on Persuasive Technologies?

#214

Post by winston_smith »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #206
winston_smith wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your assumption is that people are helpless to resist persuasion, then who is this incorruptible entity who will protect us from having to make our own choices?

the assumption is that there is some point where people need to be protected, the scenario I envisage is a point where it is extremely obvious because if there was an advertisement that could cause you to automatically buy it people would need to be protected or the company with the advertised product would soon have all the money and all their customers would end up enslaved to it. The question of course is if there…

You're using the passive voice, "people must be protected", which calls for action without considering whether the cure might be worse than the disease.

Re: Should There Be Limits on Persuasive Technologies?

#215

Post by santraginean »

geofft wrote: post #16
xwdv wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because that case is too vague. Sending a notification isn’t a crime, especially when you request them by not turning off notifications.

I mean, is giving someone nicotine a crime, especially when they request it by going to the store and buying more cigarettes?

If that person is underage, yup.

But also, are there social media apps where you have to opt in to notifications? At least with native apps, I've only ever seen opt-out behavior, which doesn't really work with that analogy.

Re: Should There Be Limits on Persuasive Technologies?

#216

Post by My7thAccount »

GreenWatermelon wrote: post #211
Veen wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yes, but since you are a proponent of regulation, I was asking where you would draw the line. Presumably you have given it some thought.

Draw it anywhere and keep tweaking until you find the right balance. Some things are obviously bad, while others are obviously good. Put the line somewhere in the grey area on between and tweak as needed until you find the right balance. Definitely not easy, but probably doable to a certain extent.

It’s was already drawn in 1789. It’s far worse to accidentally suppress the truth than to share a lie. Falsehoods will reveal themselves in time because of the very fact that they are not true. The opposite is not the case. There are infinite lies but only one truth

Re: Should There Be Limits on Persuasive Technologies?

#217

Post by geofft »

santraginean wrote: post #215
geofft wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, is giving someone nicotine a crime, especially when they request it by going to the store and buying more cigarettes?

If that person is underage, yup. But also, are there social media apps where you have to opt in to notifications? At least with native apps, I've only ever seen opt-out behavior, which doesn't really work with that analogy.

(My point is that it's also illegal when the person is of age - there was a fairly big lawsuit against the tobacco sellers for pushing an addictive, harmful product and pretending it was fine!)

Re: Should There Be Limits on Persuasive Technologies?

#218

Post by GreenWatermelon »

Mirioron wrote: post #201
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People should be allowed to make their own choices in a free society. When the rest of the "free society" has to bear the costs of certain choices, it doesn't seem so illegitimate to argue that it has some interest in constraining those choices. And there of course is the endless contradiction of being a social creature: on the one hand, being part of a society creates possibilities that were not there before, but…

> My hypothesis is that in those who are introduced to Gacha games, you will see an increase in other 'addictive' behavior, because the content they see will whittle away at their resistance to other addictive behaviors. But we obviously tolerate this to some extent. I think it's reasonable to limit smoking so that it doesn't cause second hand smoking effects on other people. However, going further than that seems od…

People who are addicted to gacha are psychologically manipulated, not to mention the gambling aspects. Gambling is already regulated across the world.

Just like laws protect the physically weak from exploitation, they should protect the psychologically weak from psychological exploitation.

You wouldn't accept someone holding you at gunpoint demanding your money, and you would have no choice but to give up you belongings. Even though it was your choice to give up your stuff, you were coerced into it. gacha/loot boxes and similar addictive phenomena pry on your psych.

This isn't some conspiracy, this is a tried and true method which you can learn about from the whaler himself[1].

[1] https://youtu.be/xNjI03CGkb4

Re: Should There Be Limits on Persuasive Technologies?

#219

Post by hinkley »

zupatol wrote: post #42
lordnacho wrote: post #26

I wrote this for a related article yesterday: --- If we know that humans have all sorts of cognitive biases, how come it's ok to use that fact while at the same time we insist there's some kind of free market? Say you discover that putting good-looking women next to cars causes the sale of cars to increase. Why does nobody question whether it is legitimate to do so? It's as if there's a line between actively lying ("…

Some economists have tried arguing that advertising adds value to products, but I think it only hinders people from making choices based on the product's merit. It's a distortion of the market. We wouldn't lose much if advertising would just be forbidden. A traditional definition of it would probably be enough to get rid of most of it. The main problem is that huge sums of money are involved, and almost all media pro…

Do we have to outlaw it?

How about just making it no longer tax deductible as a start and see how that goes? Spend some of the money on increased consumer protection.

Re: Should There Be Limits on Persuasive Technologies?

#220

Post by names_are_hard »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #47
names_are_hard wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. I don't know what percentage of advertising revenue is from political advertising, but that's money that Facebook makes off of you that doesn't come out of your pocket. Essentially any time you're shown an ad that aims to convince you to support some idea, or vote for something, or change your behavior in some way (like going vegan) instead of trying to get you go spend money, you provide value to Fa…

I can't remember ever seeing an ad on Facebook trying to convince me to go vegan or do anything public-spirited. Ever. I have however seen plenty of ads trying to get me to spend money on something/someone. And conflating the political process with the marketing process is absolutely pernicious in a democracy. The Brexit campaign used micro-targeting of individuals with knowingly dishonest ads that played to their bi…

Maybe I wasn't clear. I'm not defending political advertising or saying it's a good thing. Just that it exists, and people will pay Facebook for the privilege of reaching your eyeballs even if they don't think they can get money out of you directly, if they think they can get something else out of you, like a vote. So even you're poor financially you are still useful to advertisers because you have something to give.

I agree that most of the time that's a bad thing, although it's possible it can be used by good people trying to convince you to be good, or raise awareness of an important cause. Probably much less frequently, but evaluating good and bad views is very subjective so I'm not going there.

Now perhaps all or advertising is manipulative , dishonest, and immoral. Doesn't detractfrom my point.

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