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336 pages, Hardcover
First published June 7, 2016
Social Media
If Kelly only for a second he manages to digress to one of the challenges of the technological themes he is discussing, he diverts with solutions which are unlikely because there are few forces promoting them. E.g. he manages to discuss the filter bubble* in an absurdly superficial way, and while explaining the concept without ever really acknowledging the reality of the problem, he closes the issue with something like there need to be put code in place which ensures we aren’t completely filter-bubbled.
*(A filter bubble: a result of an algorithm which selectively guesses what a user would like to see based on information about the user making users becoming separated from information that disagrees with their viewpoints, effectively isolating them in their own cultural or ideological bubbles.)
Think! What would that entail? Pushing info on fx global warming, and racial inequality to angry (stupid) white men who are seriously contemplating voting for Trump, or pushing the reality these people are encountering on google and facebook to people like me who takes it as a scientific fact that they are driven by fear, bigotry and ignorance?
Kelly argues that technological impact means that there will produced much more individualized entertainment to suit anyone’s personal preferences. Maybe, for my part I am not so convinced that this emphasize on individuality and individual preferences is healthy for the individual or the society.
We are social creatures, and I think there is a real possibility that this “me” focus undermine our need for meaning outside our ‘egoistic self’, and establishes a climate of solitude and social inaptitude.
Obviously there is being produced much more media content today than ever before and this evolution will continue. But with regard to quality, the answer is less obvious. Jaron Lanier in his preface to his book You are not a gadget, writes, “You have to be somebody before you can share yourself”.
The media produced by people who are sharing to become, appears increasingly overwhelming compared to those who share because they have something to share.
Privacy
Kelly also acknowledges that we are looking at a future with ever less privacy. He still manages to make a positive spin on this as he believes that this lack of privacy also pertains to public institutions and corporations. As examples, he is point to Snowden and similar cases.
I believe he is wrong; what we are seeing now I a rapid change in security technologies. (For the technically inclined, we are moving from perimeter security to where the identity is the security perimeter). This will make future “Snowdens”/whistleblowers a lot less likely.
It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future, but if we are to make any predictions about the future of privacy, it is that the individual will have less privacy, and the largest corporations and organizations more privacy – such is the nature in a world where every single piece of information is individually encrypted and protected by machine learning!
In my perspective, Kelly is doing us a disservice with his mindless optimism dulling people into sleep. As individuals and as society, we need to think much deeper about what we want from technology rather than what technology wants – otherwise technology will rule and not to our general comfort.
Books which touches the subject matter
Jaron Lanier: Who Owns the Future (more nuanced than Kelly)
Christopher Steiner: Automate This: How Algorithms Came to Rule Our World The shallows (though dated this book will provide a much better idea about what these technologies entails than Kelly)
The human perspective forgotten by Kelly:
- Jaron Lanier: You Are not a Gadget
- Sherry Turkle: Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other
- Sherry Turkle: Reclaiming conversation
- Carr: The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains