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ACCORDING TO LIZ - When Mark Zuckerberg walked into a Los Angeles courtroom in February with his security entourage decked out in Meta Ray-Bans, it spoke of something more sinister than an inappropriate attempt at product placement.
Zuckerberg was about to testify before a jury in a landmark lawsuit seeking to show that Instagram and YouTube were consciously designed to be addictive and Mark Lanier, who led the prosecution team, went on the offense before the court could be seated.
“We had fought hard for an anonymous jury. We didn’t want the names disclosed in a way where Google could go pull up their Gmails, where Meta could go pull up their Facebook accounts.”
This was not product placement; it was digital surveillance. Just one more excruciatingly prejudicial example of Google and its social media brethren’s Big Brother attempts to manipulate society.
Meta glasses have the ability to do facial recognition and would give the defense team an unparalleled edge by identifying jurors so they could do a deep dive… the ultimate in jury selection.
In the wake of the publication of former Facebook executive Sarah Wynn-Williams’ tell-all tale Careless People about Zuckerberg and the tech-bro history of his company, some of the biggest names in social media were finally being called on the carpet.
And not just for the content hosted on their platforms, but their consciously structured algorithms which, as Wynn-Williams so articulately describes, were designed to suck viewers in and accelerate reposting by any means possible with no regard to disastrous consequences.
Whether the murder of ethnic minorities in foreign countries or injury to children here in the United States.
Cold-hearted eyeball counts to push up advertising revenue was all that mattered.
In a Big Tobacco moment for Big Tech, Meta through its Instagram and YouTube subsidiaries had been accused of maliciously constructing a product to deliberately keep children hooked no matter how the end results played out.
And lost.
Bereaved parents and psychologically-scarred victims won this round, but the power of the social media giants hold increasing sway over the White House and Supreme Court… and the decision for the little people may be reversed on appeal.
Social media has become inextricably interwoven with A.I. of the worst sort. The type that can encourage suicide and extol criminal activities.
This week, the New York Times ran a story calling out TikTok for reopening and rubbing salt in the wounds of people whose relationships have failed. Mental health experts criticize multiple platforms’ handling of breakups for fostering opportunistic and callous engagement with vulnerable users. Failing to protect them.
TikTok has an exceptionally deft knack with its algorithm’s interpretations of consumers’ subtle metadata, including time watching, speed of scrolling, likes, shares and comments and converting those painful feelings to increased engagement on its app, particularly during periods of personal vulnerability.
Such stressors are associated with self-criticism and suicidal ideation; TikTok itself acknowledges some content can “inadvertently reinforce a negative personal experience.”
No-one denies breakup content can be “totally addicting” and is specifically designed to force viewers to relive their pain again and again, prolonging grief… while increasing app use.
Even when people want to move on, they are frustrated by apps’ insistence on replaying video content that tears off the tender scabs of healing. And user attempts to block such emotionally-raw content are generally ineffective.
Money and access to powerful people is what creates this growing disparity between the profiteers and the ordinary Americans from whose suffering they stomp the wine of their profits.
In the judicial system, social media’s playbooks track those that have proved successful for Big Oil and the crypto industry to neuter regulatory efforts. Through electing industry-friendly and bribable politicians.
Leading the Future, an A.I. PAC, sucks in contributions from OpenAI, Perplexity, and the quasi-clandestine military and A.I. powerhouse, Palantir to take out candidates who call for effective A.I. regulation.
More insidiously, dependency on outside aegis to do everything via A.I.-supported apps that increasingly promise to make life easier but, instead, promote not-thinking, is taking over individual initiative and thoughtful consideration and deliberation.
But Americans are waking up.
People are starting to distrust the false feeling of efficiency A.I. brings and acknowledge its limitations.
While it may be great for aggregation and basic analysis of copious quantities of data and the ability to use natural conversation for improved exactitude in internet searches, it has proven not so hot for reliable editing. Including altering meaning through its spellchecker and grammar applications.
Is a 75 percent accuracy rate more acceptable than 70 percent? Can decision-makers live with 80 percent rate... while consumers trustingly expect 100%?
And letting A.I. actually make determinations and decisions that affect human lives?
Given bots’ propensity to lie, or at least fabricate justifications in order to please, is it sustainable to continue using a technology that leaves its users hanging out to dry?
The rise of the A.I. industry and the obvious advantages some of its products bring mankind now demands a national conversation about how to divert the trajectory away from maximum profits and focus on the greatest good for the greatest number.
And this must be with full transparency and involvement, so everyone is invested in a more positive future.
While these discussions must include experts – from unions, child safety advocates, civil rights organizations, economists and the A.I. companies themselves – it must also call on ordinary people from all walks of life – mothers and children, students and retirees, the technically gifted and the technically illiterate.
Right now, America and the world need politicians with feet in both camps, those of cutting-edge technology and respect for human social justice.
We already have legislators who are informed enough – the Ro Khannas and his ilk. But we need many more who can parse the needs of all participants and translate that into durable policy. If current politicians can’t get up to speed on such a crucial issue, we need to elect those who can.
Tech industry leaders must expeditiously reach across political divides to engage in ensuring guardrails on A.I. work for all, or risk another Luddite rebellion with all their positive progress trampled into bits of bytes.
Americans are smart. Increasingly, they are verbalizing their concerns about A.I. and its impact on their lives on multiple fronts.
To avoid throwing constructive benefits of the technology out with its perceived dangers, everyone must work together.
The regulations we need could be structured as a licensing system with minimum safety standards before any tech product can be built and released. Not so different from how we handle airplanes, elevators, pharmaceuticals, and… nuclear power.
Is that too much to demand of the trillion-dollar A.I. and social media industries that are meddling with such addictive and dangerous technologies?
Hopefully Americans won’t need a Chernobyl to inspire change and spur real regulation, but even a Three Mile Island would create chaos and further reduce faith in government.
So governments, here and abroad (since the flow of technology and expertise tends to subvert attempts at trade restrictions), need to initiate transformative guidelines immediately or lose all control over the situation.
(Liz Amsden is a former Angeleno now living in Vermont and a regular CityWatch contributor. She writes on issues she’s passionate about, including social justice, government accountability, and community empowerment. Liz brings a sharp, activist voice to her commentary and continues to engage with Los Angeles civic affairs from afar. She can be reached at [email protected].)
