The hacking of culture and the creation of socio-technical debt

The hacking of culture and the creation of socio-technical debt
schneier.com

Great article, wish it talked about how we might address the issue.

1) Chinese Tiktok scaring the US government: Sure OUR corps can mentally rape our citizenry, but someone else? Nononononononono. This may provoke the first real debate on pernicious ubiquitous algorithmic manipulation.

2) Are we really out of "think of the children" political movements? With the polarity of Democratic and Republican parties changing, we may be ripe for protections for children (I mean, the tactics that childrens games use in the app store are utterly depraved: gambling games, social payouts, a litany of PTW strategies for fleecing adults applied to children) that may bleed into general society and adult welfare

3) fear of AI: AI is a boogeyman, and will continue to be. AI is just an algorithm, the next mass corporation/state algorithmic weapon to be deployed.

4) democratic institutions. maintain a functioning government and the core aspects of western "free" society such that they maintain a massive competitive advantage over totalitarian states in the long run.

One thing I will say is that people are smarter from the first (pre-social-network/mobiles) internet, and the initial stages of mobile/social network internet. I think people are educated at a rapid rate to deal with advertising and manipulation, and from an early age. I think it is making saavier people, even if in the short run your kids will get swept up in some manipulation/scam at some point. Better they get manipulated and conned early on by the Nigerian prince before they have real money to lose.

We shall see with AI.

What is abundantly apparent with the later stages of social/mobile internet is the massive distrust users of social networks now have of the platforms, even if they continue to consume it. This is what is underlying the very very correct distrust people have of corporate AI: if the social network corps have gone to such depraved degrees with the last round of algorithms, what will they do with new AI weapons? We already know: nothing remotely good.

The larger social network companies are firmly in their ossification phases: the biggest hallmark, publicly and openly having contempt for their customers. They are all ripe for collapse.

In a perverse gradiose manner, consider Conway's Law applied to the entire internet: the current internet mirrors the open trade period provided and maintained by post-WWII US hegemony.

Many many many people predict that globalization and trade is coming to an end, and the internet will change to reflect a less global and guarded real world.

We are also in a world of first-world demographic decline. Despite the rise of AI, people are about to get MORE important, because there will be less of them in the peak/prime years. If regard for human rights tracks the economic value of a productive human, it may increase substantially in the coming decades.

We need to find opportunities for more and better means of civic engagement. Democracy can’t just be a thing that happens every 4 years. One small example: maybe something like a “customer service hotline” at a local level. Local government could also send out “UX” people to better understand local pain points. Hyperlocal representation at the subdivision or even block level would also be interesting.