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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?

#61

Post by sneak »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #49
sneak wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little sad to see him falling into the "we are under attack and something must be done!" narrative around free and open discussion on the internet. By all accounts, the election system in the US is working, most people aren't antivaxxers, and belief in an undetectable wizard in the sky seems to be falling. We are winning the war against misinformation. Why are so many smart people claiming that we aren't, and t…

Here's one. There are plenty of others. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-social-media-...

It doesn't offer any indication that social media is the root cause of the current state of political polarization in the US, or any indication that polarization is bad or harmful.

I think people place far too much stock in US partisan screaming. It simply doesn't matter that much.

I'm not arguing that the US isn't polarized, that much is clear. I just don't see any precipice.

Re: Should There Be Limits on Persuasive Technologies?

#62

Post by HabitCaptology »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #21
HabitCaptology wrote: post #10

Highly interesting topic, I am currently planning to write my thesis about persuasive technology. If anyone has articles/ ideas/ stories/ books or papers to share I would highly appreciate it! I thought about researching how humans react to persuasive technology and start self regulating by installing adblocker/deleting apps... I am all ears if there are other interesting questions you might think of :)

I should think that actually having academics access to the internal effectiveness metrics would in and of itself be hugely beneficial. - what is the range of ads to be served like? I rmeber thebfounder of duck duck go saying lack of PII made little difference to him - someone is searching for "PC Monitor" then the range of ads seems pretty obvious. Is this true in "persuasive" mode? Are there bidders trying to serve…

Thank you for the inspiration, I am currently reading the Subprime Attention Bias (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374538651) that seems to pick up on the internal effectiveness metrics, and might have some answers regarding your first question.

I am personally intrigued by the idea that people, who are aware of persuasive tech, PII, captology and marketing efforts skyrocketing in the attention economoy, start to mistrust products/ services or political agendas that spread their message with the help of such tech. Might only be my bubble though...

Re: Should There Be Limits on Persuasive Technologies?

#63

Post by benjaminjosephw »

agent008t wrote: post #51
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 ("…

I suppose there are both philosophical and pragmatic reasons for the current situation: 1. Philosophical - you don't want to get the threat of physical force involved unless there is a very very good reason for doing so. That is, you don't want to make things illegal. So we forbid outright lying and fraud, openly misleading customers, but allow things that you describe. If you have a private online platform, why shou…

I don't think there's anything reasonable about either of these:

1. Are the freedoms of corporations to act without the coercion of the state more important than the freedom of citizens to act without the subtle but effective coercion of corporate persuasion? The case for individual freedom doesn't always imply the absence of action by the state.

2. Would restricting manipulative practices by businesses really lead to more businesses exploring those practices? That may be the case in restricting consumer choices but would it also be true for corporate behavior? I'm not so sure.

Re: Should There Be Limits on Persuasive Technologies?

#64

Post by HabitCaptology »

deegles wrote: post #55
HabitCaptology wrote: post #10

Highly interesting topic, I am currently planning to write my thesis about persuasive technology. If anyone has articles/ ideas/ stories/ books or papers to share I would highly appreciate it! I thought about researching how humans react to persuasive technology and start self regulating by installing adblocker/deleting apps... I am all ears if there are other interesting questions you might think of :)

You're probably aware of the "illusory truth" effect, basically that if you repeat something enough times people will perceive it as true. That's probably the original persuasive technology :) https://fs.blog/2020/02/illusory-truth-effect/ https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2958246

No I was actually not, my academic paper library is overflowing with papers from neuroscience, over economics to tech but somehow I have not heard of the illusory effect. Thank you, deegles :)

Re: Should There Be Limits on Persuasive Technologies?

#65

Post by atypicaluser »

What's amusing is how Schneier himself falls prey to his own 'emotional thinking'--

> Emotional appeals have likewise long been a facet of political campaigns. In the 1860 US presidential election, Southern politicians and newspaper editors spread fears of what a "Black Republican" win would mean, painting horrific pictures of what the emancipation of slaves would do to the country. In the 2020 US presidential election, modern-day Republicans used Cuban Americans’ fears of socialism in ads on Spanish-language radio and messaging on social media. Because of the emotions involved, many voters believed the campaigns enough to let them influence their decisions.

... where he sets up (anchors) a reprehensible example of an emotional appeal (19th century racial bigotry) to reflect a 'reprehensible' example of modern-day emotional appeal (animosity towards a social/economic philosophy.) To reinforce his point he purposefully neglects to mention it was Southern Democrats who spread fear against 'Black Republicans' and instead uses 'Republican' twice (as a callback) to tweak the more modern-day version of that political party.

The irony of Schneier using his long-standing and influential blog to insist we 'have a serious conversation about limiting the technologies of persuasion' is not lost on this reader.

Edit--Feel free to downvote, but perhaps explain where my comment is wrong?

Re: Should There Be Limits on Persuasive Technologies?

#66

Post by sokoloff »

Would these limits apply to essays written by people who have for good reason cultivated a following of people generally interested in what they write and positively inclined towards agreement with them?

Maybe this essay should be forced to be presented on essays.com without attribution and compete on the ideas within rather than the implied authority of the author.

(I happen to agree with a lot of the content, but couldn’t completely compartmentalize that this was a persuasive essay against persuasion.)

Re: Should There Be Limits on Persuasive Technologies?

#67

Post by aaron695 »

sneak wrote: post #38
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #34

As usual for Schneier, a thoughtful, complete, balanced article. It will be hard to put guardrails on this stuff. It's pretty much 100% "gray area," easy to cast in many ways.

I'm a little sad to see him falling into the "we are under attack and something must be done!" narrative around free and open discussion on the internet. By all accounts, the election system in the US is working, most people aren't antivaxxers, and belief in an undetectable wizard in the sky seems to be falling. We are winning the war against misinformation. Why are so many smart people claiming that we aren't, and t…

You are right.

Witchcraft accusations (which honestly in the 80's there were a lot) are way down. People understand glass is not a liquid. All music is now mainstream. String Theory is being exposed as a religion.

But people are very polarised on what they do disagree with. You wouldn't fire someone for being in the KKK 30 years ago. Now you fire someone for naive accidents.

I don't know what to think on your point.

Re: Should There Be Limits on Persuasive Technologies?

#68

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

sneak wrote: post #61
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's one. There are plenty of others. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-social-media-...

It doesn't offer any indication that social media is the root cause of the current state of political polarization in the US, or any indication that polarization is bad or harmful. I think people place far too much stock in US partisan screaming. It simply doesn't matter that much. I'm not arguing that the US isn't polarized, that much is clear. I just don't see any precipice.

Social media is not the cause of any of this. The techniques used, are probably hundreds of years old (maybe thousands).

Social media is just a new medium; but an effective one that allows scale. I'm old enough to remember when television occupied the same slot.

Re: Should There Be Limits on Persuasive Technologies?

#69

Post by rriepe »

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 ("…

There's never not advertising/PR. The choice is between a market or a monopoly.

Re: Should There Be Limits on Persuasive Technologies?

#70

Post by makomk »

atypicaluser wrote: post #65

What's amusing is how Schneier himself falls prey to his own 'emotional thinking'-- > Emotional appeals have likewise long been a facet of political campaigns. In the 1860 US presidential election, Southern politicians and newspaper editors spread fears of what a "Black Republican" win would mean, painting horrific pictures of what the emancipation of slaves would do to the country. In the 2020 US presidential electi…

It's more than just amusing - I think it gets to the heart of what arguments like this aim to achieve. They're not about how terrible tactics like this are in general, but about how awful it is that they're being used in the service of the wrong political ideology and goals (that is, not the author's political ideology) and how not only does the full force of the government need to be used to stop this but not doing so is actually undermining democracy and the legitimacy of of the system itself. They're also part of a broader idea that the legitimacy of democracy itself depends on whether the party supported by the pundits and journos wins.
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