How to fix Big Tech and Social Media

[Berkut]

Interesting that you posted an article that directly disagrees with you.

Social media companies do regularly fail in their responsibilities to manage the kind of hate speech and abuse that poses a danger for everyone from vulnerable children to ethnic minorities and members of parliament. It is clear that the management of harmful content online cannot be left to tech platforms themselves and that some form of regulation is now long overdue.

At the least that rather nicely aligns with what those of us who want some kind of "fix".

[Tamas]

Interesting that you posted an article that directly disagrees with you.

Social media companies do regularly fail in their responsibilities to manage the kind of hate speech and abuse that poses a danger for everyone from vulnerable children to ethnic minorities and members of parliament. It is clear that the management of harmful content online cannot be left to tech platforms themselves and that some form of regulation is now long overdue.

At the least that rather nicely aligns with what those of us who want some kind of "fix".

It also rather nicely ignores the rest of a long article. But I don't have the energy to stand in the way of regulating zeal.

[garbon]

I now kinda wish fbook had gone with Metaverse!

[The Minsky Moment]

If advertising on social media is made illegal, how are they to maintain themselves financially?

The same way most other products and services do so- by getting the ostensible users of the service to pay for it based on the value that it provides to them.  Or by giving away the base product for free but giving special capabilities, "skins" etc for premium users. I think linkedin does the latter - seems to work for them.

[The Brain]

Tamas, the philosophers have decided that it leads to wrongthink. What more reason for a ban could you possibly need?

[Syt]

Vice, predictably, is not impressed by the new meta.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjb485/zuckerberg-facebook-new-name-meta-metaverse-presentation

Zuckerberg Announces Fantasy World Where Facebook Is Not a Horrible Company

Facebook's new name is "Meta," and its new mission is to invent a 'metaverse' that will make us all forget what it's done to our existing reality.

Moments before announcing Facebook is changing its name to "Meta" and detailing the company's "metaverse" plans during a Facebook Connect presentation on Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg said "some people will say this isn't a time to focus on the future," referring to the massive, ongoing scandal plaguing his company relating to the myriad ways Facebook has made the world worse. "I believe technology can make our lives better. The future will be built by those willing to stand up and say this is the future we want."

The future Zuckerberg went on to pitch was a delusional fever dream cribbed most obviously from dystopian science fiction and misleading or outright fabricated virtual reality product pitches from the last decade. In the "metaverse—an "embodied" internet where we are, basically, inside the computer via a headset or other reality-modifying technology of some sort—rather than hang out with people in real life you could meet up with them as Casper-the-friendly-ghost-style holograms to do historically fun and stimulating activities such as attend concerts or play basketball.

These presentations had the familiar vibe of an overly-ambitious video game reveal. In the concert example, one friend is present in reality while the other is not; the friend joins the concert inexplicably as a blue Force ghost and the pair grab "tickets" to a "metaverse afterparty" in which NFTs are for sale. This theme continued throughout as people wandered seamlessly into virtual fantasy worlds over and over, and the presentation lacked any sense of what this so-called metaverse would look like in practice. It was flagrantly abstract, even metaphorical, showing more the dream of the metaverse than anything resembling reality. We're told that two real people, filmed with real cameras on real couches, are in a "digital space." When Zuckerberg reveals that Facebook is working on augmented reality glasses that could make any of this even a remote possibility, it doesn't show any actual glasses, only "simulated footage" of augmented reality from a first-person perspective.

"We have to fit hologram displays, projectors, batteries, radios, custom silicon chips, cameras, speakers, sensors to map the world around you, and more, into glasses that are five millimeters thick," Zuckerberg says.

Whatever the metaverse does look like, it is virtually guaranteed to not look or feel anything like what Facebook showed on Thursday.

While Zuckerberg was pitching this Black Mirror-ass future he claims we all want, it is worth checking out what was happening on Facebook's own platform at the present.

About 19,000 people were watching Zuckerberg cosplay as James Halliday, the fictional metaverse creator from the bleak Ready Player One series on Facebook's Live platform. Facebook's algorithm, meanwhile, was recommending that users also watch a Latina woman dominate and lick the stomach of a little person (11,000 viewers); it also recommended people watch a video game livestream pitched with a thumbnail of two CGI men fucking each other (4,000 viewers).

There's nothing wrong with wanting to watch either of those things, of course. But Zuckerberg's pitch of living, working, playing, and generally existing in a utopian, fake, Facebook-developed virtual world loaded with fun and friendly people, concerts where you can always be in the front row, seamless mixed-reality basketball games where you feel like you are actually playing basketball, and kicksass, uhh, NFTs you can use to modify your metaverse avatar, is a far cry from the disinformation, conspiracy theories, genocide-related, self-esteem destroying, spam, and general garbage content that exists on the platforms Facebook has already built.

There is no universe, meta-or-otherwise, in which people will not spread conspiracy theories, hate speech, and make threats online. In the metaverse, they will try to show each other their dicks, though it's worth noting right now that Facebook's current metaverse avatars do not have bodies that exist below their waists.

Zuckerberg repeatedly said Facebook alone won't build the metaverse. But the metaverse Facebook is building will be and has been built with Facebook developers to run on Facebook servers using Facebook hardware, which are connected to Facebook accounts. 

About halfway through the delusional fever dream that was Facebook's biggest product announcement of all time, Mark Zuckerberg said that "the last few years have been humbling for me and our company in a lot of ways," as Facebook has nominally had to grapple with the harm it's done to this world. It's hard to find anything "humble" about a proposal to fundamentally remake human existence using technology that currently does not and may not ever exist and that few are currently clamoring for.

But Facebook's problems are too numerous to list, and so he is pitching products that don't exist for a reality that does not exist in a desperate attempt to change the narrative as it exists in reality, where we all actually live.

[The Minsky Moment]

But Zuckerberg's pitch of living, working, playing, and generally existing in a utopian, fake, Facebook-developed virtual world loaded with . . . seamless mixed-reality basketball games where you feel like you are actually playing basketball

it's worth noting right now that Facebook's current metaverse avatars do not have bodies that exist below their waists.

I think I may have spotted a flaw.

[Savonarola]

Behold THE METAVERSE! a world of unending happiness where you can play cards with your friends IN SPACE! and post videos of your dog running around, day or night. 

[Admiral Yi]

I've never heard the Zuck's voice before.  He sounds a little like Keanu Reeves.

[Savonarola]

From the IEEE Spectrum

Meta Offers Nothing New to THE METAVERSE!
Facebook's got a new name, but a tired business model
MATTHEW S. SMITH17 DEC 20213 MIN READ



YOU MAY HAVE HEARD that Facebook is owned by a company that is no longer called Facebook but, instead, Meta (officially Meta Platforms). CEO Mark Zuckerberg detailed the name change in a CGI-laden presentation that spanned an hour and 17 minutes. THE METAVERSE!, he says, is what's next for the Internet.

"The next platform and medium will be even more immersive, an embodied Internet where you're in the experience, not just looking at it," he said.

The announcement was not well received. Journalists, pundits, and politicians saw it as an attempt to deflect attention from Facebook's real, present problems by focusing on a better, imagined future. I share this view. As a consumer-technology journalist, however, I have a different problem with Facebook's vision of THE METAVERSE!: It's not new. Not even close.

Zuckerberg's demo was basically a virtual reality hangout. It depicted a small group of people playing a game of cards in VR before one of Zuckerberg's friends, taking the form of a robot, teleports him to a fantastic virtual forest. Zuckerberg is also shown admiring a VR art installation and using a video call to speak with friends in the "meataverse."

The show might have impressed those who are new to augmented and virtual reality. But the tech-savvy certainly know that everything shown by Facebook—sorry, Meta—is possible right now and has been for several years. It's not even that expensive.

An excellent VR setup with a Valve Index and fast PC costs about US $3,000. A passable setup with a Vive Pro 2 and a midrange PC is around $1,500. Or you can hop in with Meta's Oculus Quest 2, which doesn't require a PC and starts at $299.

The experience doesn't fall far below Meta's demo. VRChat, a popular platform, has thousands of attractive 3D levels. The software can, if you opt for the more expensive VR setups, detect the movement of your limbs and face and animate your avatar to mimic your gestures and expressions. You can hang out with friends, play basic games, or explore virtual landscapes, as depicted in Meta's demonstration.

VRChat is used by tens of thousands of people every day, and the number continues to grow. A spike of users during New Years 2021 temporarily took down VRChat because the company's service provider thought it was experiencing a distributed denial of service attack.

Zuckerberg knows this. Facebook bought Oculus in 2014 and has released several iterations of Oculus hardware since. The company has its own virtual reality chat platform, Facebook Horizon, which more-or-less does what's shown in Meta's first demo but with less fidelity. VRChat is available on Oculus headsets along with competitors such as AltspaceVR and Rec Room. Still, the user base for VRChat and its ilk is tiny compared with Facebook's 2.91 billion active users.

Meta tried to set itself apart from the competition in a 10-minute segment toward the end of Zuckerberg's presentation. Michael Abrash, chief scientist of Meta's Reality Lab, showed prototype technology that will make avatars photorealistic, create lifelike interactive environments, and let users control input with subtle hand gestures.

All interesting stuff, to be sure, and it will require a massive R&D effort. This, in part, is the reason for Facebook's change of name. The company plans to spend a lot of money on THE METAVERSE!. That could be hard to justify without signaling a shift away from Facebook.

Yet by focusing on what THE METAVERSE! can be in the future, Meta deflected from a question that cuts to the core of Zuckerberg's vision. If that VR vision is already accessible on hardware that costs as little as a midrange Android smartphone, why aren't consumers already eager to experience it?

That's the trillion-dollar question—and I don't think Meta has the answer.

I know some people here have VR Goggles; does anyone use VR Chat or the augmented reality features that MetaZuck was touting in his demonstration on THE METAVERSE!?

[Jacob]

I saw one thing the other day that claimed Intel figures computation power needs to increase by a factor of roughly 1,000 to support Zuck's version. So there's a bit of additional R&D that needs to happen.

There need to be a few killer apps for the Metaverse to take off, I reckon. If you can do sex / porn/ prostitution on the Metaverse, that may do it. Other than that I'm out of ideas... good thing I'm not in charge over at Metaface.

[Savonarola]

Something to keep you up at night:  AI's Six Worst Case Scenarios

HOLLYWOOD'S WORST-CASE scenario involving artificial intelligence (AI) is familiar as a blockbuster sci-fi film: Machines acquire humanlike intelligence, achieving sentience, and inevitably turn into evil overlords that attempt to destroy the human race. This narrative capitalizes on our innate fear of technology, a reflection of the profound change that often accompanies new technological developments.

However, as Malcolm Murdock, machine-learning engineer and author of the 2019 novel The Quantum Price, puts it, "AI doesn't have to be sentient to kill us all. There are plenty of other scenarios that will wipe us out before sentient AI becomes a problem."

"We are entering dangerous and uncharted territory with the rise of surveillance and tracking through data, and we have almost no understanding of the potential implications."
—Andrew Lohn, Georgetown University

In interviews with AI experts, IEEE Spectrum has uncovered six real-world AI worst-case scenarios that are far more mundane than those depicted in the movies. But they're no less dystopian. And most don't require a malevolent dictator to bring them to full fruition. Rather, they could simply happen by default, unfolding organically—that is, if nothing is done to stop them. To prevent these worst-case scenarios, we must abandon our pop-culture notions of AI and get serious about its unintended consequences.

1. When Fiction Defines Our Reality...

Unnecessary tragedy may strike if we allow fiction to define our reality. But what choice is there when we can't tell the difference between what is real and what is false in the digital world?

In a terrifying scenario, the rise of deepfakes—fake images, video, audio, and text generated with advanced machine-learning tools—may someday lead national-security decision-makers to take real-world action based on false information, leading to a major crisis, or worse yet, a war.

Andrew Lohn, senior fellow at Georgetown University's Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), says that "AI-enabled systems are now capable of generating disinformation at [large scales]." By producing greater volumes and variety of fake messages, these systems can obfuscate their true nature and optimize for success, improving their desired impact over time.

The mere notion of deepfakes amid a crisis might also cause leaders to hesitate to act if the validity of information cannot be confirmed in a timely manner.

Marina Favaro, research fellow at the Institute for Research and Security Policy in Hamburg, Germany, notes that "deepfakes compromise our trust in information streams by default." Both action and inaction caused by deepfakes have the potential to produce disastrous consequences for the world.

2. A Dangerous Race to the Bottom

When it comes to AI and national security, speed is both the point and the problem. Since AI-enabled systems confer greater speed benefits on its users, the first countries to develop military applications will gain a strategic advantage. But what design principles might be sacrificed in the process?

Things could unravel from the tiniest flaws in the system and be exploited by hackers. Helen Toner, director of strategy at CSET, suggests a crisis could "start off as an innocuous single point of failure that makes all communications go dark, causing people to panic and economic activity to come to a standstill. A persistent lack of information, followed by other miscalculations, might lead a situation to spiral out of control."

Vincent Boulanin, senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), in Sweden, warns that major catastrophes can occur "when major powers cut corners in order to win the advantage of getting there first. If one country prioritizes speed over safety, testing, or human oversight, it will be a dangerous race to the bottom."

For example, national-security leaders may be tempted to delegate decisions of command and control, removing human oversight of machine-learning models that we don't fully understand, in order to gain a speed advantage. In such a scenario, even an automated launch of missile-defense systems initiated without human authorization could produce unintended escalation and lead to nuclear war.

3. The End of Privacy and Free Will

With every digital action, we produce new data—emails, texts, downloads, purchases, posts, selfies, and GPS locations. By allowing companies and governments to have unrestricted access to this data, we are handing over the tools of surveillance and control.

With the addition of facial recognition, biometrics, genomic data, and AI-enabled predictive analysis, Lohn of CSET worries that "we are entering dangerous and uncharted territory with the rise of surveillance and tracking through data, and we have almost no understanding of the potential implications."

Michael C. Horowitz, director of Perry World House, at the University of Pennsylvania, warns "about the logic of AI and what it means for domestic repression. In the past, the ability of autocrats to repress their populations relied upon a large group of soldiers, some of whom may side with society and carry out a coup d'etat. AI could reduce these kinds of constraints."

The power of data, once collected and analyzed, extends far beyond the functions of monitoring and surveillance to allow for predictive control. Today, AI-enabled systems predict what products we'll purchase, what entertainment we'll watch, and what links we'll click. When these platforms know us far better than we know ourselves, we may not notice the slow creep that robs us of our free will and subjects us to the control of external forces.

4. A Human Skinner Box

The ability of children to delay immediate gratification, to wait for the second marshmallow, was once considered a major predictor of success in life. Soon even the second-marshmallow kids will succumb to the tantalizing conditioning of engagement-based algorithms.

Social media users have become rats in lab experiments, living in human Skinner boxes, glued to the screens of their smartphones, compelled to sacrifice more precious time and attention to platforms that profit from it at their expense.

Helen Toner of CSET says that "algorithms are optimized to keep users on the platform as long as possible." By offering rewards in the form of likes, comments, and follows, Malcolm Murdock explains, "the algorithms short-circuit the way our brain works, making our next bit of engagement irresistible."

To maximize advertising profit, companies steal our attention away from our jobs, families and friends, responsibilities, and even our hobbies. To make matters worse, the content often makes us feel miserable and worse off than before. Toner warns that "the more time we spend on these platforms, the less time we spend in the pursuit of positive, productive, and fulfilling lives."

5. The Tyranny of AI Design

Every day, we turn over more of our daily lives to AI-enabled machines. This is problematic since, as Horowitz observes, "we have yet to fully wrap our heads around the problem of bias in AI. Even with the best intentions, the design of AI-enabled systems, both the training data and the mathematical models, reflects the narrow experiences and interests of the biased people who program them. And we all have our biases."

As a result, Lydia Kostopoulos, senior vice president of emerging tech insights at the Clearwater, Fla.–based IT security company KnowBe4, argues that "many AI-enabled systems fail to take into account the diverse experiences and characteristics of different people." Since AI solves problems based on biased perspectives and data rather than the unique needs of every individual, such systems produce a level of conformity that doesn't exist in human society.

Even before the rise of AI, the design of common objects in our daily lives has often catered to a particular type of person. For example, studies have shown that cars, hand-held tools including cellphones, and even the temperature settings in office environments have been established to suit the average-size man, putting people of varying sizes and body types, including women, at a major disadvantage and sometimes at greater risk to their lives.

When individuals who fall outside of the biased norm are neglected, marginalized, and excluded, AI turns into a Kafkaesque gatekeeper, denying access to customer service, jobs, health care, and much more. AI design decisions can restrain people rather than liberate them from day-to-day concerns. And these choices can also transform some of the worst human prejudices into racist and sexist hiring and mortgage practices, as well as deeply flawed and biased sentencing outcomes.

6. Fear of AI Robs Humanity of Its Benefits

Since today's AI runs on data sets, advanced statistical models, and predictive algorithms, the process of building machine intelligence ultimately centers around mathematics. In that spirit, said Murdock, "linear algebra can do insanely powerful things if we're not careful." But what if people become so afraid of AI that governments regulate it in ways that rob humanity of AI's many benefits? For example, DeepMind's AlphaFold program achieved a major breakthrough in predicting how amino acids fold into proteins, making it possible for scientists to identify the structure of 98.5 percent of human proteins. This milestone will provide a fruitful foundation for the rapid advancement of the life sciences. Consider the benefits of improved communication and cross-cultural understanding made possible by seamlessly translating across any combination of human languages, or the use of AI-enabled systems to identify new treatments and cures for disease. Knee-jerk regulatory actions by governments to protect against AI's worst-case scenarios could also backfire and produce their own unintended negative consequences, in which we become so scared of the power of this tremendous technology that we resist harnessing it for the actual good it can do in the world.

[crazy canuck]

Good article - all of those points are of concern.

[Syt]

Came across https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Metamorphosis_of_Prime_Intellect the other day (thanks Atun-Shei) about a super powerful AI that runs the world on the basis of Asimov's Three Laws. It's heavily dystopian, I suppose?

[Razgovory]

I haven't paying much attention, but has Berkut fixed Social Media yet?