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Whilst I largely agree (and follow) the suggestions here, I take extreme exception to providing this sort of response as a solution to the problem. We're living in a world in which, individually and atomically, our willpower is being tested against AI-driven, algorithmic, electronic colossi whose own goal-seeking behaviour is to maximise demands on our attention. And the systems mentioned -- smartphones, the Internet, email, messaging systems, even specific platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, are increasing less optional luxury choices and far more necessary, if not for transacting all life, then at least significant portions of it. The bottom-up response doesn't scale or work, and it fails to address the consequences of the behaviours of others who do not, or can not, follow the advice. I've spent much of the past year occupied with studying the history of media, communications, and the interactions they have with society. And those impacts are absolutely massive. The printing press, cheap paper, mass literacy, high-speed printing, telegraph, radio (and its very strong co-evolution with fascism and Nazism, as well as other populist political cults), had absolutely disruptive effects, and not at all uniformly in a good way. Which is to say that the Internet giants, and Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon specifically, are toying with our fundamental social and cultural infrastructure whilst externalising massive costs and risks. One school of thought, and it's gaining credible voices by the day, demands regulation. A growing question I'm developing is whether, or what, changes are absolutely inevitable, and how our tomorrows won't look in the least like our yesterdays. Professor Stuart's "Slaughterbots" video plays on a similar, and very closely related theme, and suggests a level of potential impact I suspect is of roughly similar magnitude. |