‘Limbic Capitalism’ Preys on Our Addicted Brains • Hacker News Board

Re: ‘Limbic Capitalism’ Preys on Our Addicted Brains

#41

Post by dgudkov » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 3:45 PM UTC

This is why the advances in AI sometimes look scary to me. "Limbic capitalism" (great term, btw) existed and thrived long before the internet and AI era - tobacco, alcohol, credit cards, etc. Finding and monetizing a human addiction has always been extremely profitable. What worries me, is that the power of AI and the easy ability to reach millions of people at once through social media and internet advertisement will make finding new human additions and exploiting them easier than ever. There is nothing that can stop businesses from basically hacking the human limbic system (aka lizard brain) and monetizing it using the vast power of AI. Facebook just pioneered it, but many will follow.

The most dangerous AI is not the killer robots scorching the Earth a-la the Terminator movie. The most dangerous AI is the one that will make humans fall in love with it.

Re: ‘Limbic Capitalism’ Preys on Our Addicted Brains

#42

Post by bittercynic » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 3:49 PM UTC

microcolonel wrote: post #38

CyanBird wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our entire idea of "agency", "individuality" and even "freedom" needs to be re-thinked. Basically all of what we have built resides in one way or another on the idea that individuals bar exceptions such as with physical drugs have some sort of inalienable agency to them. That entire rockbed is simply not really true, and more like highly idealized thoughts from thinkers of the 1800's Policy makers and politicians hav…

Now imagine for a moment that you're not better than everyone else at thinking for them. Agency is the only option. It's not like the concept of agency was thought up in a society with no dumb people. If you want to live in a society where the state doesn't believe in agency, and where your difficult decisions will be made by people who are (on average) more intelligent than you, go ahead and move to the PRC, they're…

>Now imagine for a moment that you're not better than everyone else at thinking for them.

I didn't read that in GP. Currently we seem to be very reluctant to admit that we're all vulnerable to being manipulated, and it might actually increase the total amount of agency available to individuals if we could restrict the ways we're allowed to manipulate each other.

Re: ‘Limbic Capitalism’ Preys on Our Addicted Brains

#43

Post by microcolonel » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 3:59 PM UTC

bittercynic wrote: post #42

microcolonel wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now imagine for a moment that you're not better than everyone else at thinking for them. Agency is the only option. It's not like the concept of agency was thought up in a society with no dumb people. If you want to live in a society where the state doesn't believe in agency, and where your difficult decisions will be made by people who are (on average) more intelligent than you, go ahead and move to the PRC, they're…

>Now imagine for a moment that you're not better than everyone else at thinking for them. I didn't read that in GP. Currently we seem to be very reluctant to admit that we're all vulnerable to being manipulated, and it might actually increase the total amount of agency available to individuals if we could restrict the ways we're allowed to manipulate each other.

The problem is the line between preventing manipulation, and imposing on people's private thoughts.

Poorly-conducted industry-funded research? That's pretty straightforward; and in some sense it is not that different from other forms of fraud. I'm okay with punishing people for acting with intent to knowingly mislead.

On the other hand, you look at lending, and it becomes a little bit difficult. There are illegal interest rates in many places, and for setting an upper bound, that works fine; but people throw around a lot of dubious allegations about lenders.

At some point, if you deny the existence of agency, you end up telling people things you can't know, because you don't have the imagination to consider that they might know what they're doing.

That is tyrannical.

Re: ‘Limbic Capitalism’ Preys on Our Addicted Brains

#44

Post by DougN7 » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 4:01 PM UTC

manfredo wrote: post #8

How do we differentiate from a compelling and effective form of entertainment with an addictive activity? Most people wouldn't look down on someone who stays up till 3 AM reading a gripping book, but many would if we swap the book with a video game. Definitely people who can't hold down jobs or education due to addition to video games or social media is a problem, but I suspect that a lot of the concern is due to an…

I suspect the person that stays up with the book will only get that involved once or twice a month. But with gaming it could easily be every night. So there is a degree of effect that has to be considered.

Re: ‘Limbic Capitalism’ Preys on Our Addicted Brains

#45

Post by api » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 4:02 PM UTC

microcolonel wrote: post #38

CyanBird wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our entire idea of "agency", "individuality" and even "freedom" needs to be re-thinked. Basically all of what we have built resides in one way or another on the idea that individuals bar exceptions such as with physical drugs have some sort of inalienable agency to them. That entire rockbed is simply not really true, and more like highly idealized thoughts from thinkers of the 1800's Policy makers and politicians hav…

Now imagine for a moment that you're not better than everyone else at thinking for them. Agency is the only option. It's not like the concept of agency was thought up in a society with no dumb people. If you want to live in a society where the state doesn't believe in agency, and where your difficult decisions will be made by people who are (on average) more intelligent than you, go ahead and move to the PRC, they're…

This is exactly the problem: the fallacy of self exclusion on the part of those who would rule or otherwise think for us.

If humans are all vulnerable to all these manipulative tactics, where are we supposed to get humans who are not?

There is another alternative: reclassify exploitation of cognitive failure modes as a type of initiation of force. We already do this with deception in certain areas like con artistry, giving false testimony, bad faith in business, etc. Maybe we need to vastly expand our notion of tortious or civilly actionable deception to include clear use of dark patterns.

The idea that we are perfectly rational and can deal with any form of deception is perhaps the intangible analog of saying we are impervious to bullets. If that's not true, then it is the responsibility of law enforcement to protect us.

This is kind of radical of course. It would lead to regulations on speech that classify certain kinds of speech as assault.

The more I see of this emerging mass mind control dystopia the harder it is for me to think of non-radical solutions.

Re: ‘Limbic Capitalism’ Preys on Our Addicted Brains

#46

Post by DougN7 » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 4:05 PM UTC

taneq wrote: post #19

manfredo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Having worked in GameDev, one of the most flooring things I have faced is people asking me for me to introduce said addictive inducing systems and mechanisms.... They want the enjoyment, they want to be "addicted", they want a game "so good" that they can't put it down. This is what I'm talking about though. Back when games were bought on a disk or cartridge and didn't feature any sort of micro-transactions there w…

Not only were games addictive back then, but they were explicitly advertised as such and it was considered a good thing. Being addictive was the mark of a good game!

Sid Meier’s Civilization (from almost 30 years ago!) was built this way. (Fantastic game! :)

Re: ‘Limbic Capitalism’ Preys on Our Addicted Brains

#47

Post by microcolonel » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 4:21 PM UTC

api wrote: post #45

microcolonel wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now imagine for a moment that you're not better than everyone else at thinking for them. Agency is the only option. It's not like the concept of agency was thought up in a society with no dumb people. If you want to live in a society where the state doesn't believe in agency, and where your difficult decisions will be made by people who are (on average) more intelligent than you, go ahead and move to the PRC, they're…

This is exactly the problem: the fallacy of self exclusion on the part of those who would rule or otherwise think for us. If humans are all vulnerable to all these manipulative tactics, where are we supposed to get humans who are not? There is another alternative: reclassify exploitation of cognitive failure modes as a type of initiation of force. We already do this with deception in certain areas like con artistry,…

> ...reclassify exploitation of cognitive failure modes as a type of initiation of force.

Yeah, I think there's some room for that, and the law (as you point out) is already somewhat headed that way. I think we need to be careful also not to write laws we can't afford to enforce fairly, or read too much into people's private interactions.

I remember having to help my employer prove that they were not the reason I wasn't in school when I was 17; and I think even with that they were still at my mercy. As a result of this, and a pretty large number of other experiences, I'm very very sensitive to the unintended outcomes of the law, and the limits of legislators' ability to understand what precisely they are doing.

Re: ‘Limbic Capitalism’ Preys on Our Addicted Brains

#48

Post by badpun » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 4:25 PM UTC

CyanBird wrote: post #11

manfredo wrote: post #8

How do we differentiate from a compelling and effective form of entertainment with an addictive activity? Most people wouldn't look down on someone who stays up till 3 AM reading a gripping book, but many would if we swap the book with a video game. Definitely people who can't hold down jobs or education due to addition to video games or social media is a problem, but I suspect that a lot of the concern is due to an…

>ow do we differentiate from a compelling and effective form of entertainment with an addictive activity? Just like we have always done, if something constantly disturbs day to day activities, then it is an addictive behaviour >That is, the addictive behavior “spills over” into several dimensions of one’s daily life https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3210595/ _______ >What I do think is a problem is the fac…

> Reddit, Twitter, Youtube they all are designed to be addictive

I think addictiveness it's probably for this medium. I remember the news forums, they peaked way before capitalism reached the Internet, and were better designed and more addictive than Reddit.

Re: ‘Limbic Capitalism’ Preys on Our Addicted Brains

#49

Post by GavinMcG » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 4:37 PM UTC

microcolonel wrote: post #38

CyanBird wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our entire idea of "agency", "individuality" and even "freedom" needs to be re-thinked. Basically all of what we have built resides in one way or another on the idea that individuals bar exceptions such as with physical drugs have some sort of inalienable agency to them. That entire rockbed is simply not really true, and more like highly idealized thoughts from thinkers of the 1800's Policy makers and politicians hav…

Now imagine for a moment that you're not better than everyone else at thinking for them. Agency is the only option. It's not like the concept of agency was thought up in a society with no dumb people. If you want to live in a society where the state doesn't believe in agency, and where your difficult decisions will be made by people who are (on average) more intelligent than you, go ahead and move to the PRC, they're…

But we frequently are better off having others think for us. There are a broad spectrum of examples, from research that we don't have the time or resources to accomplish, to, say, getting advice from a friend, while in a crisis, that we fail to follow even though we would give that same advice.

Re: ‘Limbic Capitalism’ Preys on Our Addicted Brains

#50

Post by homonculus1 » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 4:52 PM UTC

convolvatron wrote: post #30

isoprophlex wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To the detriment of people demanding their "freedom", it turns out people don't always make the best choices for themselves, and for their societies at large. Maybe we can take the lessons learned in adtech et al., and apply them to governing irrational people. That will mean less "freedom", though...

in this world how does the government decide whats the best choice is? one of the reasons we ended up with 'people should decide for themselves unless it harms someone else' is that we dont have any other basis to evaluate options. the church, the monarchy, and the market have been 3 other go-to deciders. maybe a 1970s style AI with flashing lights?

You've hit on the center of the sheer arrogance of these tech bros and authoritarians.

Freedom isn't a failure because people make suboptimal decisions. Freedom was NEVER SUPPOSED to lead to people making their best decisions. It's a safeguard against something inevitably far worse, which is having to obey the type of people all up and down this thread who want to impose their ideas about how much sugar I should eat and how often I'm permitted to drink.

I'd literally prefer to give myself diabetes and die of alcoholism than live 90 healthy years under the command of someone else's thumb. I don't care how benevolent you perceive yourself, I don't care smart you think you are, I don't care how subtly you think you can meddle and shape my actions to your own values without me noticing.

YOU HAVE NOT SOLVED LIFE. STOP INTERFERING WITH PEOPLE.