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:
The problems illustrated in
#TheSocialDilemma
Netflix documentary are just the tip of the iceberg.
Dig deeper into these urgent issues on our
@HumaneTech_
podcast "Your Undivided Attention" with me &
@aza
:
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.
One year ago,
#TheSocialDilemma
"went viral" with over 100M views.
Why? Because it confirmed how social media's design and business model nurtures addiction and warps our beliefs.
Yet the film was only available to Netflix subscribers— until now:
Our new documentary film
#TheSocialDilemma
arrives on Netflix tomorrow, Weds Sept 9th!
Truly hope it will become an "Inconvenient Truth for tech" moment for tech's dangerous business model… causing what
@FT
calls "the climate change of culture"
I'll be joining HBO's RealTime with
@billmaher
tonight to talk about social media's influence on the U.S. election, our heightened polarization and
#TheSocialDilemma
.
Can't think of a more important moment to have this conversation.
The
@SocialDilemma_
predicts a future that doesn't have to be true.
In order to avoid more events like January 6th’s attack on the Capitol, we must collectively wake up from the digital spell cast by 10+ years of social media’s warping of our minds. Full stmt from
@HumaneTech_
:
This week, the whole world witnessed the consequences of a broken, yet highly-profitable business model that rewards self-reinforcing cycles of outrage, rumors, and political and racial division.
🌟🌟BIG DAY🌟🌟
🎬The Netflix trailer for our new film, "The Social Dilemma" just debuted this morning. It pulls back the curtain on how Silicon Valley has been reprogramming civilization – from the mental health of kids to democracy.
Only on Netflix, Sept 9:
#TheSocialDilemma
We tweet, we like, and we share— but what are the consequences of our growing dependence on social media? Silicon Valley insiders reveal how social media is reprogramming civilization.
#TheSocialDilemma
Only on Netflix, September 9th.
Big announcement today from
@AndrewYang
: the Attention Economy is now a 🇺🇸 2020 Presidential Issue, with Yang’s proposal for a federal Department of the Attention Economy 🦅! Here’s why this matters (1/7) 🧵
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.
Crystal clear evidence of the "global assault on democracy" described in
#TheSocialDilemma
leaked by a brave FB insider, detailing attacks on:
Honduras.
Azerbaijan.
Bolivia.
Ecuador.
Brazil.
Spain.
With limited resources, FB focuses on protecting Western EU & US. Rest? Too bad
BREAKING: A 6,600-word internal memo from a former Facebook data scientist exposes how the social network knew about specific examples of global political manipulation with fake accounts — and failed to act. W/
@RMac18
&
@PranavDixit
:
Imagine a "Humane" regenerative attention economy where our devices aren't about screen time at all, but more like a GPS-- always routing us towards more life, more connection, more common ground. The point of a GPS isn't to keep us fiddling, it's to get us to our destination.
I really enjoyed doing this in-depth interview with
@joerogan
yesterday. If you’re familiar with
#TheSocialDilemma
I especially recommend watching through the 2nd half where we get into the accumulating dominance of A.I. over human weaknesses— from virtual chatbots to GPT-3.
I had a fascinating and sobering discussion with
@tristanharris
of
@netflix
’s The Social Dilemma about the impact of social media on the future of the human race. Enjoy!
Everyone should watch
@60Minutes
's interview with brave Facebook whistleblower,
@FrancesHaugen_
.
She makes crystal clear that Facebook knowingly profited from polarizing, dividing and harming society– and when given the choice, chose profits > safety.
The Social Dilemma receives 7 Emmy Award nominations! Huge congratulations to the whole team that worked so hard for so many years on it!
We estimate more than 100 million people in 190 countries and 30 languages have seen it.
‘The Social Dilemma’ has received 7 Primetime Emmy Award nominations. We’re thrilled to be honored alongside so many incredible films and humbled to be recognized for our contribution toward revealing the harms of Big Social’s business model to the public.
Opposing candidates running for governor of Utah offer a joint message on rebuilding civility, decency for how we elect future leaders. We can disagree without hating each other.
This is how you do it.
#StandUnited
I’m not sure this has ever been done before...but as our national political dialogue continues to decline, my opponent
@PetersonUtah
and I decided to try something different. We can disagree without hating each other. Let’s make Utah an example to the nation.
#StandUnited
#utpol
Honored to be included in this year’s
#TIME100Next
List alongside so many brilliant innovators, creators and leaders. For me, it’s a recognition of the urgency w/ which we must address the dangers the attention economy poses to our collective future.
(1/2)
Former Facebook VP of Growth: "I feel tremendous guilt...I think we are creating tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works." Chamath Palihapitiya, watch from 21m 20s
Facebook's release of tool to see if you liked a Russia propaganda page is perfect example of why they cannot be trusted to self-regulate. It's hollow PR, not substance: Buried in Help Center, only accessible on desktop, only shows pages you liked/followed instead of VIEWED.
It's the Friday before Christmas, so $FB is launching a tool to figure out if you liked/followed a Russian page on FB or Insta. It's buried in the help center so here's a link:
💥NEW My OpEd in the today's NYTimes: “Our Brains Are No Match for Our Technology.” 🧠
PUNCH LINE: In order to tame Big Tech we must realign it with the values that make us human.
Highly recommend reading & watching videos below in this thread…🧵
Super clever approach to stop companies who are accelerating climate change through fossil fuel extraction:
>> Go after the open-source code they depend on.
Get major open-source software libraries to use this:
🌏Climate Strike Software License
Important! FB's
#1
advertiser threatens to pull their $$'s until they clean it up - powerful move bc advertisers, not users, are social media's true customers. Now let's get the other 9/10 advertisers on Facebook to speak up – use your voice!
Unilever threatens to pull advertising from platforms such as Facebook and YouTube, if they don’t do more to combat the spread of fake news, hate speech and divisive content.
Fbook will keep dodging hard questions bc they have no good answers. Nearly all FB's negative impacts on society (addiction to Cambridge Analytica) implicate their biz model, which prefers to see humans as minds/eyeballs to influence, not lives to protect and empower.
It's so important that we create cultural antibodies for "deep fakes" NOW not later-- esp while social media remains a divisiveness/conspiracy/outrage amplification engine for coming elections. The platforms need to do better: auto-labeling doctored content for example.
As the tech improves, we’re seeing more “deep fake” videos pushed by bad actors to influence our politics. We all need a healthy dose of skepticism about what we see online, but companies also need to take responsibility for those who use their platforms to spread disinformation.
Enjoyed going on
@TheDailyShow
with
@TrevorNoah
last week to talk about what Frances Haugen's testimony means…
Let's make sure our north star isn't just "10% less toxic social media" but to achieve a digital democratic future where Technology + Democracy = Stronger Democracy
“It’s actually democracy plus technology equals a stronger democracy.”
Center for Humane Technology co-founder
@tristanharris
busts the myth that the only options for responding to the current social media conundrum are either a hands-off approach or authoritarian control.
Exactly.
"The answer to bad speech = more speech" is nonsense in a world where you can FLOOD the attn channel.
Systems that allow ppl to FLOOD a finite channel w/ exponentially produced, A/B-optimized, micro-targeted, unchecked and un-reviewable speech isn't democratic, PERIOD
Zuckerberg says Facebook doesn't need to fact check ads from political candidates because political speech is already heavily "scrutinized" by the public
Trump currently has 5000 ACTIVE FACEBOOK ADS
Bloomberg has 14000
How many of these are being scrutinized?
Today’s announcement by
@Apple
moves the ecosystem further away from the malicious effects of secretive profiling and micro-targeting that enables many of the problems outlined in
#TheSocialDilemma
.
"A social dilemma cannot be allowed to become a social catastrophe."
Apple's Tim Cook: “It is long past time to stop pretending that this approach doesn’t come with a cost of polarization, of lost trust, and yes, of violence. A social dilemma cannot be allowed to become a social catastrophe.”
"A new study conducted by psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania has shown — for the first time — a causal link between time spent on social media and depression and loneliness,"
Here is Snap’s AI teaching a kid how to cover up a bruise when Child Protection Services comes and how to change topics when questions about “a secret my dad says I can’t share”
Don't just watch the film.
Host a watch party with your friends on Netflix and host a discussion afterwards.
We can change the system once enough people understands the warping effect that social media has had on the collective psyche.
Learn more at:
The quote I read
@joerogan
at the end is from Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death" contrasting George Orwell & Huxley's contrasting dystopias to avoid:
"Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us.
Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us."
#HindsightIs2020
– Cambridge Analytica (or SCL)'s data files just leaked to the public for 1st time includes campaigns they ran in Malaysia, Kenya and Brazil elections… important to understand historical influence + U.S. election 2020.
🗽 Democracy is under attack everywhere.
The story doesn't end with
#CambridgeAnalytica
as we said.
#SCL
shuttered it's doors so you couldn't see what they'd done in secret. Now you can.
#Hindsightis2020
. Welcome to a new year!
🎰Addiction by design.
🤬Polarization for profit.
🤩Affirmation not information.
🤯Weapons of mass distraction.
Glad people are finally picking up the message that this business model is toxic.
Tech doesn't have to be this way… it can be
#humane
if we do it differently.
When I worked on the YouTube algorithm, the management didn't care about truth and divisiveness.
I tried to care, and got fired.
Now, people realize that social media is wasting our time, spreading lies and divisiveness.
It's not a bug, it's a feature.
Zuckerberg's comments on CNN tonight were frighteningly out of touch. Dodging that Fbook's core business model (automation of ads/feeds) continues to pose a threat to societies around the world. Signing off for tonight, but leaving this Upton Sinclair quote that says it all.
Our new
@HumaneTech_
podcast "Your Undivided Attention" is available to subscribe! We'll be interviewing experts on humanity's psycho-social sensitivities and how Silicon Valley can better design for them.
Episodes starting June 10th – subscribe here:
😔 Sad to read. Facebook news feed remains an uncontrollable digital frankenstein that appears to sort 2 billion people's view of reality by "outrage first." "One year in, Facebook’s big algorithm change has spurred an angry, Fox News-dominated audience"
Selling fake attention (views) to fake users (bots) with fake metrics (reporting to advertisers)? "The average viewership metrics were not inflated by only 60%-80%; they were inflated by some 150 to 900%," stated an amended complaint.
Brands that announced Monday they will pause advertising on Facebook: Denny's, Patreon, Adidas, Clorox, HP, Puma, and Ford (which is halting all social media advertising for next 30 days).
The list of social harms and externalities from automated attention-maximizing systems (Fb, YouTube) keeps growing and growing. Asking "what video will most engage this person?" is very different than asking "how does this person want to live?"
Recommendation algorithms pushing suicidal ideation to people with eating disorders.😡"..after viewing pro-ED posts on Pinterest, the site suggested she might “love” other “ideas” that were all “connected to death and suicide, such as ’how to die’ and ’wanting to die quotes.’” "
Gave this TED talk in Vancouver nearly 1 yr ago: a "Control Room" that invisibly steers 2bil people's thoughts/feelings daily, and how the ad-model dangerously lets anyone pay to walk into the control room & target lies to susceptible minds. Before Russia, Cambridge Analytica.
YouTube is tilting the world towards crazier and crazier beliefs in dozens if not hundreds of languages that their engineers don't even speak. Ex-YT recommendations engineer
@gchaslot
has endlessly raised awareness about it yet YT has barely taken steps to do anything about it.
The YouTube algorithm that I helped build in 2011 still recommends the flat earth theory by the *hundreds of millions*. This investigation by
@RawStory
shows some of the real-life consequences of this badly designed AI.
Apparently Fbook didn't get the memo that Streaks are manipulative and wrong. Let's be clear: Fbook is an attention-extraction company. They do whatever it takes to *extract* behavior & addiction from human beings. Whats most sad is that their capacity to do good is so immense.
It's almost like there's a race to the bottom of the brain stem to entice people's attention, and it trends towards shorter and more "bursty" uses of attention, counter-training human animals against sustained mono-tasking and long-form uses of attention.
.
@axios
founder says advertisers moving toward shorter ads. Long-form native ads are proving to be unsuccessful. Regardless of article length, readers still skimming.
#ONA18
In an hypothetical world, if Facebook were re-designed *entirely* into a global coordination tool for billions of people to take the most meaningful and significant steps to fight climate change -- what would it look like?
Even if Snap/OpenAI fix this specific problem, they can’t screen for the infinite range of unpredictable conversations a 13 year old can have with ChatGPT. Last week, Bing threatened
@kevinroose
of NYT with blackmail and extortion and trying to get him to divorce his wife.
The new film
#CodedBias
by our brilliant friend
@shalinikantayya
investigates the discrimination embedded in technology, showing how technology is never neutral.
Get tickets to this powerful film and join the movement to protect civil rights:
She left Facebook concerned, and with copies of thousands of pages of research. Meet the Facebook whistleblower.
Scott Pelley reports, 60 Minutes Sunday.
Last week I testified for a U.S. Senate hearing on "Persuasive Technology and Optimizing for Engagement." Watch the highlight reel of my opening statement & answers to Senators' questions on dangers of increasingly asymmetric, extractive motives in tech:
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.
Climate change will be the only story that matters if we don't act in time. This is why tech needs to stop messing up society's attention. Humans' ability to collectively sustain attn on *anything* is limited – so either tech supports us (& we have chance) or it doesn't (we lose)
"Persuasive technology? What a conspiracy."
"It's a shame all those gullible people fall for fake news, Russian bots."
"Viral FaceApp Now Owns Access To More Than 150 Million People's Faces And Names"
Oh. Right. 🤦♀️
Vanity + validation. Works every time.
(THREAD) Yesterday marked the 1 year anniversary of being on 60 Minutes w/
@andersoncooper
to warn about “Brain Hacking”: how technology invisibly manipulates the thoughts, behaviors and feelings of minds and society.
🌎 What would technology platforms look like if they helped us FOCUS our collective attention on existential threats?
What if Facebook was a mass coordination platform for community resilience & adaptation? Not news feeds, but a router to face-to-face groups for taking action.
#TheSocialDilemma
opened up >100M people’s eyes to the warping of democracies and 'truth' by social media– influencing global regulation, policy, and consumer demand.
Today, it’s free on YouTube through Sept 30!
Watch & share it with a loved one here:
#TheSocialDilemma
is now free on YouTube to over 2.3 billion people!
Help us build on the momentum that's driving global leaders, technologists, parents, and educators to take action.
Tell your friends and loved ones — and watch here:
Commodifying attention platforms have warped our collective psyche…
The world has turned these issues on their heads many times since writing this essay for the forthcoming
@OneProject
book 'The New Possible' but the fundamentals remain the same. 1/5
Spot on.
And social media is a video game 🎮 in which we gain points by adding inflammation (mob accountability) to trivial transgressions.
What if it was a game that incentivized focusing our collective attention on how we can solve deeper systemic root causes?
I don’t wish to sound apocalyptic about this, but one has the sense that at present our society is simultaneously characterized by wildly disproportionate accountability for trivial transgressions and zero accountability for profound institutional failure.
Brilliant. As Reid Hoffman famously once said, the most successful startups tap into one or more of the 7 deadly sins. Proof in point— the problem of the Attention Economy.
Free speech ≠ Free reach
The real harm of digital platforms' is granting Hitler-sized broadcasting powers, or BBC-sized publishing powers without any degree of responsibility (truth in advertising, corrections, fact-checking).
Broadcast-level reach with no skin-in-the-game.
Behold this dizzying list of GPT-4 capabilities -- from writing code, to making money, to inventing workarounds for CAPTCHAs and more.
For anyone who thought GPT-4 was just a "stochastic parrot" or merely a mirror of what humanity has already thought/written -> think again.
Kids are on the front lines dealing with the harms described in
#TheSocialDilemma
every day.
Share & listen to our new interview w/
@JonHaidt
and join the movement of parents & teens who want to address this problem. Hopefully w/ the help of a new Biden administration! 🇺🇸
In this episode of
#YourUndividedAttention
with NYU social psychologist
@JonHaidt
, we examine the mechanics of manipulation that have led to a generation wide shift in mental health harms. Listen, share, and start a conversation with your family.
When Facebook says "We don't want to be the Ministry of Truth" they distract from fact that they are already the Ministry of Attention – they choose what people do and do not see – like a magician.
Attention consumes information, and is the *most* important resource to protect.
I hope policymakers at all levels and from all sides of the political spectrum will pay close attention to these policies and the ideas
@AndrewYang
is proposing and commit to bringing real reforms to the attention economy. 🙏(7/7) 🇺🇸
Countering claims by those who shrug off Fbook/CA by saying “we’ve always had propaganda, what’s the big deal?” These co’s have enabled a whole new *SPECIES* of persuasion - 1) civilization-scale, 2) hyper-personalized/targeted, 3) social-enhanced, 4) self-optimizing with AI.
Tomorrow, we'll take you inside the world of Cambridge Analytica after our reporters went undercover as prospective clients.
The full story tomorrow night at 19:00 GMT - on Channel 4 News.
Went on
@joerogan
to discuss both the immense potential & range of risks arising from the race to scale AI, and the lessons we can learn from the race for engagement in social media – which we call "1st contact" btwn humanity + AI.
[If you know the risks, jump to the last 45
CHT co-founders
@TristanHarris
and
@Aza
joined
@JoeRogan
for a deep dive on
#AI
- discussing the immense potential and significant challenges that this technology presents.
📲 To join the movement & learn more text "AI" to 55444
🎧 Listen now
Today for a LIMITED TIME,
#TheSocialDilemma
is now available for free on YouTube til Sept 30th.
Now is the time to spread the message to anyone you know who didn't see it the first time around.
Please retweet & spread the word.
Watch it on YouTube here:
WSJ also shared how FB *knows* Instagram's design drives a downward spiral in teen mental health– worse than Snapchat, TikTok.
Facebook is worse than Big Tobacco.
A single person can quit cigarettes.
Instagram *preys* on social exclusion.
Kids feel ostracized if they quit.
Our
@HumaneTech_
Co-Founder & ED Randy Fernando went on
@DanBHarris
'
@10Percent
Happier podcast, to share how mindfulness, and his lifelong connection to meditation informs our work on humane technology.
Listen here:
Glad to see momentum on banning TikTok via threat to national security. More than data collection, real issue is vertically integrated psychological influence.
Only two options are either 1) Ban it or 2) Forced sale of forked US operations as happened with Grindr.
FBI director Robert Wray outlines his concerns about TikTok to Congress.
As many have long pointed out, it’s not just about data collection.
The use of the recommendation algorithm for influence operations is an equal if not greater concern.
I went on
@JoeRogan
w/
@danielkenobe
to talk about avoiding the twin attractors of centralized god-like power (Dystopia) and decentralized god-like powers (Catastrophe), highlighting a 3rd way – exemplified by the work
@audreyt
, Taiwan,
@RadxChange
and 21st century democracy. ⬇️
It's too bad to see Facebook co-opt the term without taking its meaning seriously beyond asking what are "meaningful interactions." I'm surprised bc
@pkafka
is a long-time follower of our work on time well spent yet he did not link it back to its source.
#CodeMedia
the fact Zuckerberg and Facebook have co-opt "Time Well Spent" from
@tristanharris
annoys me every time they use it. I've heard it 20+ times in this fireside chat. It's PR spin to cover their decline in trust and engagement.
#codemedia
France bans smartphones from schools, with 75-85% public approval rating – tide turning around recognition that bursty slot machine rewards negatively impacts children & the classroom. (via
@CNNI
)
Exciting that
@AndrewYang
has put out a climate plan. More and more candidates are finally acknowledging the urgency of the issue and making it part of their official platform.
#YangsClimatePlan
The major problem in technology isn't privacy, it's misalignment with our innate psychological vulnerabilities:
As E.O. Wilson said, "The problem of humanity is… We have paleolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and god-like technology."
We are worth more when we are addicted, distracted, outraged, polarized and disinformed.
Our children are worth more when they're comparing themselves to others and addicted.
Our politics are worth more when they're performative. 4/5
One AI – YouTube's recommendation algorithm – determines >25% of ALL internet traffic on mobile by picking what videos we watch… and steering the daily thoughts, feelings and beliefs of two billion people.
YouTube makes 37% of internet traffic on mobile. Its AI is responsible of 70% of views, by computing recommendations
So *one* AI is responsible for >25% of ALL internet traffic on mobile
We must fundamentally shift the platforms to stop rewarding and profiting off the unchecked virality of extreme emotions.
This seismic reform won’t be easy but it's essential.
I still believe change is humanly possible. 5/5
We’ve made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally. We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought. Why? A few reasons…🧵
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?
Facebook actually put *fake red dots* to try and make you think you have messages even if you don't, so you agree to their tracking more hastily. Read full complaint against Facebook: - with tricks like that, sorry Facebook, you deserve to be hit hard.
Great thread from
@JonHaidt
&
@Jean_Twenge
research.
Disentangles the naïve moral panic of 😳"screen time" from 🤔*real* evidence of tech harming teen girls mental health.
Why? Hijacking 'social approval' was more effective in the race to bottom for attention (powered by ads).
Thread:
1. I join emerging consensus that “screen time” is not well-linked to mental health problems for teens. Yet
@jean_twenge
and I find that most studies that clear “screen time” do not clear social media for girls. Great summary by Markham Heid:
If a tech platform is recommending (publishing) malicious content with consequences known to harm people at scales that far exceed the reach of NYT, WaPo, Guardian, Economist, Reuters **combined** (each of whom are held to higher reporting standards)- shouldnt we draw a new line?
Platforms like YouTube aren't legally responsible for the statements made on the platforms. Tristan Harris argues that this concept should no longer apply to platforms that are serving users recommendations.
More from columnist
@hiltzikm
here:
Congratulations
@mariaressa
on making Sundance 2020! This looks like an incredible documentary about your urgent work, battling the forces of authoritarianism and hate amplified by social media in the Philippines.
For more, 🎧 to CHT's podcast w/ Maria.
Do we want 2020 to be another election determined by "who's better at manipulating, micro-targeting, and out-spending on Facebook?" Or do we want to take back the pen of history from technology's hands?
We don't want private incentives gobbling up the public sphere.