At a preliminary Senate hearing today on the subject of potentially putting legislative limits on the persuasiveness of technology—a diplomatic way of saying the addiction model the internet uses to keep people engaged and clicking—Tristan Harris, the executive director of the Center for Humane Technology, told lawmakers that while rules are important, what needs to come first is public awareness. Not an easy task. Algorithms and machine learning are terrifying, confusing, and somehow also boring to think about. However, “one thing I have learned is that if you tell people ‘this is bad for you’, they won’t listen,” Harris stated, “if you tell people ‘this is how you’re being manipulated,’ no one wants to feel manipulated.”
Source: Gizmodo
