'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia • Hacker News Board

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#341

Post by endgame » Mon, Oct 09, 2017, 2:24 AM UTC

andrei_says_ wrote: post #153

apatters wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it's not the smartphone that's the problem. The smartphone is just the delivery system. It's remarkable how well some of Richard Stallman's quotes have aged. "With software, either the users control the program, or the program controls the users..." The idea of a program controlling its users must have seemed very esoteric when that quote was first penned in 1985, at a time when home PCs (let alone ones with GU…

Thank you for this. Putting Stallman’s quote in context helps me see how forward his thinking is and how important the distribution of power and consent can be in software. I see a parallel with food companies spending money on researching and marketing foods that are more addictive and more profitable. Yes, people do “want” addictive foods, but that’s not the type of want we want empowered; rather it is a hook into…

Junk food messes with what you want, despite you wanting to want different things.

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#342

Post by zeta0134 » Mon, Oct 09, 2017, 2:27 AM UTC

KirinDave wrote: post #279

archiepeach wrote: post #228

As noted multiple times in the article, the unethical design we’re seeing in popular apps and services today is largely a result of the widespread use of advertising as a revenue model. This is an appropriate time to show appreciation and support for the companies who are trying to demonstrate successful revenue models which are NOT based on advertising: Medium - the replacement of “Recommends” with “Claps” was to al…

> As noted multiple times in the article, the unethical design we’re seeing in popular apps and services today is largely a result of the widespread use of advertising as a revenue model. Advertisement as a revenue model exacerbates this problem, but I submit the problem stems from how we define success for mobile apps and websites. We directly designate "engagement" as success, rather than customer value provided or…

Part of the reason Google's initial launch was so ballsy and great (which they've lost over the years) was a strong focus on getting the user off the search results page as fast as possible. It was a decision informed by their technical limits at the time, but it was a fantastic value to the user. Once they had the results they needed (very quickly) they were gone, off to do whatever it was they had asked Google for in the first place.

This contrasted starkly with the Alta Vistas, Yahoos, and AOLs of the day, which were all creating interlinked portal networks and trying to keep users within the company's own bubble of services to increase engagement.

Somewhere along the way, when we figured out how to use advertising revenue to "pay the bills" and turn on a profit on the cost of hosting... I think this was lost. Sometimes the user just needs the content they came for, and sometimes delivering that content to them in the leanest, most efficient manner possible is worth more than all the engagement tactics in the world.

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#343

Post by thisrod » Mon, Oct 09, 2017, 2:39 AM UTC

I remember a quote from some Unix book around 1990: "IRC is a simple tool that allows two users to type ASCII messages to each other's terminals. Oh, did we mention that it's more addictive than crack cocaine?"

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#344

Post by keypress » Mon, Oct 09, 2017, 4:00 AM UTC

I'm scared of owning a smartphone, precisely as my self -control is poor. Currently I have a dumb phone and check that a couple of times a day. I'm a member of a Facebook forum - the content of which is interesting. That is the only use I have for Facebook. The notifications are handy as they indicate new and active threads.

I follow only a small number of people on Twitter. I'd love to bulk that number up if I could manage it, but scrolling through my current feed is already quite a time waster.

The web still sucks me in without the reward trinkets mentioned in the article, and it has done for hours a day since I discovered it. I will say I am an addict. It prevents and impedes me from doing things that I really should be doing.

It's very useful but mostly a distraction, but I always assume that's my problem.

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#345

Post by Terr_ » Mon, Oct 09, 2017, 4:03 AM UTC

walterstucco wrote: post #311

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if You can get bored of novels with all their formats and styles and character arcs and high complexity why can’t you get bored of scrolling through empty one-or-two line updates of people’s lives that you know don’t r fleet reality? It’s basically a worse novel that also makes you feel bad for reading it.

That's the point: if you get bored by a book, you stop reading the book, if you get bored by infinite scrollable content, you keep scrolling looking for less boring content, that never shows up. It's the same effect that gambling has on the brain. You keep playing, even though you keep losing. That's the danger and that's why books, the TV, movies, radios (music in general) and other form of entertainment are not equ…

I disagree about categorizing TV as "the safer half" of the comparison, in the same section as books or movies. If anything, TV is an earlier iteration of the same stuff.

Flipping through the circular loop of cable TV channels predates scrolling and refreshing webpages, but people exhibited the same addictive novelty-seeking. It was so common it became a cliche to say things like "N channels and nothing [good] on."

In addition, they share same emphasis on advertisements as a funding stream, whereas movies and books are typically paid for up-front.

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#346

Post by intended » Mon, Oct 09, 2017, 4:11 AM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #291

intended wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your position is important - because I think this battle may be lost. Regulation is the only solution, but that’s just tossing the ball to another team and hoping for a magic win. Even should regulation manage to handle this - it’s only the first step between this and what worse comes next. We’re moving directly to the worst options of mine control and people are only useful for the neurological reactions you…

Improvement of society starts with improvement of self. If we each refuse to cooperate, by curtailing our "use" of various horrible online services, we can be the inspiration for our families and communities to do the same. I like to think that, but I have not-so-distant family who, after learning I would not join FaceBook just to help them with a problem they claimed was quite important to them but would be very res…

Send an email yourself I guess.

Perhaps there’s a set of minimally laborious actions on our part, that re-trigger the growth of old habits and mental connections.

But now that I write that I’m worried someone is figuring out a model/way to do the opposite.

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#347

Post by feelin_googley » Mon, Oct 09, 2017, 4:20 AM UTC

"As noted multiple times in the article, the unethical design we're seeing in popular apps and services today is largely a result of the widespread use of advertising as a revenue model."

The simple question that I never see addressed in any of these discussions of the ad revenue model is whether the websites or the software could earn revenue without using this model.

If not, then what does that say about the inherent value of the websites or software? No one would pay for it? (Who believes that?)

It appears to me that in recent years the value has been in acquiring an "audience" which can be bought or sold as a "product" (or perhaps access to the audience as a "service"). This is the ad revenue model. As such, in an increasing number of cases, the product of web or software development, i.e. software itself, is not sold (but is made available for "free" or a nominal cost). Instead, audiences are sold.

The result is an overabundance of websites and software that (from a commercial perspective) serve no other purpose than to try to construct audiences. Including databases of personal information.

Other goals of website or software development are consequently neglected.

The thought I keep having is that developing websites and software solely to acquire audiences in some way presumes web and software development is "worthless" except for this limited purpose.

Some VC once said "Software is eating the world" and it became a meme. What if the media business is eating the world of software? When software developers are focused only on ad sales or publicity, the software industry begins to resemble the media business. (Has software been subsumed by media?) Ad sales becomes the lifeline. And like the media, software developers will do or say anything to sell ads. Anything.

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#348

Post by intended » Mon, Oct 09, 2017, 4:28 AM UTC

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #304

andrei_says_ wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for this. Putting Stallman’s quote in context helps me see how forward his thinking is and how important the distribution of power and consent can be in software. I see a parallel with food companies spending money on researching and marketing foods that are more addictive and more profitable. Yes, people do “want” addictive foods, but that’s not the type of want we want empowered; rather it is a hook into…

I was one who thought Stallman was just weird and obsessive way back when. I can't same I'm a devout follower, but I admit I was wrong about him. He had incredible foresight and was absolutely, insanely ahead of his time. He was providing solutions for problems 30 years before we could even realize we had them.

I disagree with the insanely/adjectives. This makes it seem that the current problems are greater than they are, beyond the ken of mortal humans.

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#349

Post by gnaritas » Mon, Oct 09, 2017, 4:45 AM UTC

wutbrodo wrote: post #92

gnaritas wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Subtle aka bland.

I'm not sure these are quite the same things. Take a North Indian curry for example: even it's detractors wouldn't call it particularly bland, but the flavors are obviously way more subtle than, say, pixie stix. This isn't particularly surprising given that you put half a teaspoon of a dozen different spices into a curry while the pixie stix are literally just sugar and maybe a single flavor, wired directly to a part…

> I'm not sure these are quite the same things.

People who enjoy bland things always say this. :) Those words mean the same thing "to me", does mean it does to you, wasn't an insult, subtle just isn't a word I use for food. I like what I like and I've tasted things people use that word for, I call them bland.

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#350

Post by lucraft » Mon, Oct 09, 2017, 5:54 AM UTC

bostik wrote: post #179

vonnik wrote: post #47

This excellent article fails to mention artificial intelligence. Facebook has recruited one of the world’s top AI teams, led by Yann LeCun. Their work and Google's are the equivalent of tobacco companies engineering cigarettes to ensure that nicotine hits a smoker's brain more quickly. Facebook and other social networks are the cigarette companies of the mind. Cigarettes blackened our lungs with tar, and social media…

I'm going to make a prediction. If you are correct with the analogy of comparing FB to modern cigarettes (and I am inclined to believe you've hit the nail in the head here), then FB is going to find a way to make money off of two more categories of people. 1: Those who do not use FB, and who make every effort not to be under their influence; and more importantly.. 2: Those who do use FB and want to limit their exposu…

Recall that story a few months ago about how Facebook had purchased an “anti-tracking” VPN provider in order to use their data