Thoughts on The Social Dilemma

I admit that hype makes me very suspicious. When I started seeing people talking about how scary or disturbing The Social Dilemma was, I raised an eyebrow. 

Where I really went in prejudiced against it was when someone who had just watched it responded "Fake news!" to a story that wasn't fake. I mean, there was room to argue the story's significance, but to dismiss it so quickly, and with such a parroted phrase... maybe it has the wrong message.

Having watched the movie now, it's a little more complicated. 

The unalloyed praise I will give it is that Vincent Kartheiser is a really good actor, and choosing him was great casting. He brought nuance to his three roles as Engagement, Growth, and Advertising AIs, and not everyone could pull it off as well. I have nothing bad to say about him.

I will say that the movie indicated a level of it being personal that doesn't ring as true for me. I won't really fight it though. If there is a level where if you realize that your brain is changing and that you are acting in ways that are not in your best interests because some various groups want your attention and so the social media company that you use is manipulating you to sell that attention... even if it's not personal for them, it may be reasonable to act as if it is personal for you.

I did roll my eyes a little at the older sister who raised the warning voice but was mostly ignored being named Cass. Subtle.

Otherwise, my concerns about it are a couple of minor ones that relate to a big one.

Let's start with the hype. I will never be able to read Dan Brown because of how much people like him. He may be a good author but I don't know and that's on me. However, I do have a friend who was excited to read him and got out some art history books, and found some easy errors, So maybe my feelings about hype have some basis in people getting excited about things that don't stand up to the scrutiny.

With the hype for this movie, people are finding it eye-opening and scary. I hope that doesn't lead to panic and poor decisions, like someone deciding to disconnect and losing a reliable source of human contact. Some interactions are toxic, but not all of them are. There were people raising alarm bells about girls finding pro-anorexia and bulimia sites back in 2004 at least, and there was definitely cyber-bullying happening then, but there have also been people finding support systems there. Internet has been a lifesaver for queer teens who have a hard time finding acceptance or role models close to home.

That leads to a reminder that a lot of this information is not new. I have been aware of Jaron Lanier's work for about a decade now. I'm not saying that there haven't been any changes, but if The Social Dilemma was a total surprise to you, then you should think about what news sources you are using, and if there might be ways you could be better informed. 

Is that a little concern or a big concern? Let's get to that other "little" thing: an absence of fact-checking on a statement accepted as fact.

Linguist Dr. Caitlin Moriah posted an awesome rebuttal to Tristan Harris' throwaway comment that people didn't panic when bicycles were new, because they did:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1310312499355422720.html

This is very worth reading. For me, the line jarred me because I remembered something about a "bicycle smile" that would have been seen as a corrupting element. Dr. Moriah knows a lot more, and she told it in a fun manner.

I would feel better about The Social Dilemma if they had fact-checked that comment. Maybe it seemed obviously true to them, so they let it pass, but that seems like it could disqualify them from being good guides for us.

You may also have noticed that they weren't really guides. Did you get an answer other than deleting your social media - either just from your phone or completely - and did it feel helpful? Once the youngest daughter grabbed a hammer to free her phone from the timer safe, sure her father was going to talk to her, but what was he going to say? 

Otherwise the answer is for the people in tech to get a conscience, or maybe some laws can get passed to save us from ourselves. Does that sound likely?

I have read some other pretty good things on what was missing from the movie, and I will link them at the end. 

On my own I noticed one glaring abyss of a crater or a lack, but that becomes a much bigger topic that even naming will cause some people to be offended, and yet ignoring it causes a perpetual cycle of trouble. 

I'll save that for tomorrow. For now, I recommend the following three links:

https://slate.com/technology/2020/09/social-dilemma-netflix-technology.html

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1308542908291661824.html

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1306341560548757505.html