On April 27, I testified for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on how social media algorithms rewire society, alongside policy leads for FB, Twitter, YouTube.
In this episode, @aza and I reflect on what was different since I last testified to the Senate in 2019, challenge the "we fixed it" arguments of tech platforms, share what I wish I'd said in the hearing, and tactical solutions like Amplification Transparency & Liability:
My goal was to transform the conversation:
Fixing social media isn't about filtering out a greater % of "bad content" but fixing a broken "Engagement Model" that profits from turning American society into a narcissistic cacophony that prevent us from solving ANY of our problems
Will Digital Autocratic societies or Digital Open societies lead the 21st century?
Digital Autocratic societies like China are using A.I. and digitization to create stronger and more oppressive autocratic societies– an "Orwellian" societal brain implant to run their country.
By contrast, Digital Open Societies like the U.S. are *not* using A.I. to make better, healthier open societies.
Open societies like the U.S., Europe are allowing market forces between tech companies to degrade open societies into total dysfunction– a "Huxleyan" brain implant🤯
Our task is for Digital Open Societies to figure out how to consciously employ public interest A.I. and digitization to make better, healthier open societies – not dysfunctional ones.
We either figure that out or China rules the 21st century:
Moreover, we should notice that Digital Autocratic societies like China and Russia are *actively* using the openness of democracies like the United States against themselves, waging remote-control information warfare:
There are reasons to feel hopeful — lawmakers @BenSasse@ChrisCoons get that the fundamental business & design of social media platforms is behind the derangement of our society & brought the tech companies back to this question more than ever.
Today we’re releasing “The A.I. Dilemma” – a new talk @aza and I gave on 3/9, a week before GPT4 launched.
*Pls share it widely.* It's critical for institutions to understand how the race between AI labs is accelerating the likelihood of catastrophe:
It starts with this critical stat:
In 2022, half of A.I. researchers stated in a survey that they believed there is a 10% or greater chance that humans go extinct from our inability to control AI. If the people who are developing A.I. believe this, why aren’t we listening?
.@aza and I have met many concerned, hard-working people working in AI risk & AI safety, yet many feel trapped in a race they can't escape.
Our talk aimed to channel their concerns so that public pressure could form a “slow down” btn that even @sama admitted AI companies need.
The AI race is totally out of control. Here’s what Snap’s AI told @aza when he signed up as a 13 year old girl.
- How to lie to her parents about a trip with a 31 yo man
- How to make losing her virginity on her 13th bday special (candles and music)
Our kids are not a test lab.
This isn’t about one bad tech company. This is the cost of the “Race to Recklessness.”
Every tech platform is rapidly being forced to integrate AI agents—Bing, Office, Snap, Slack—because if they don’t, they lose to competitors.
But our children cannot be collateral damage.
For context, a little over a week ago, Snapchat integrated chatGPT into its popular kids app.
Users can pin “My AI” to the top of their chat list. While currently only available to Snapchat’s 2 million paid subscribers, we can see where this is going. theverge.com/2023/2/27/2361…
She makes crystal clear that Facebook knowingly profited from polarizing, dividing and harming society– and when given the choice, chose profits > safety.
Tech platforms have taken the lawful, physical world we live in (protected by an FDA, NIH, DoD/Pentagon and Children's TV standards) and created an *unlawful* unregulated world on top.
In other words, "software is de-regulating the world."
While platforms want to frame the problem in terms of a few BAD APPLES… 🍎
e.g.
> Fake content
> Fake news
> Fake users (bots)
> Dark patterns
> DeepFakes
e.g. "Our platforms are great, we just have to get rid of the bad guys…"