What needs to be explained is why throwing technology at power generation problems, economic problems, healthcare problems, or warfare problems is seemingly ok, but social problems are a no-go zone.
Not all social problems, just those where the people involved have opposing goals. And even then, it's not so much a no-go as unlikely to work. We can tackle problems like advertising and recruiting for local hobby groups. But people will actively subvert, exploit, or ignore software meant to enforce social norms. Anti-cheating software restricts what honest users can do, and cheaters will find a way around it if they like the game enough. DRM is a ham-fisted attempt to force digital media, an industry with virtually no distribution costs, into existing financial models. Solving the problem of encouraging artists to produce work with the promise of money is hard, but DRM isn't solving it.
Social problems are just very hard to solve, and they're rarely made simpler by automation or algorithms. They often require trust in another person's intent.
> just those where the people involved have opposing goals.
This describes every competition ever; person A wants the winner to be A, but person B wants the winner to be B. Should we stop doing doping tests at Olympic games, as it's an application of (non-free) technology to a social problem?
Medical tests are only part of the solution there. They would be worthless without the more important component: a trusted third-party tester. As we've seen with DMCA takedowns on YouTube, an automatic third-party arbiter ends up favoring one side. Usually the one who learns to game it.
That dynamic is exactly why so many people oppose electronic voting, electronic court "guidence" and other similar things.
People are super messy, complicated and the strength of automation coupled with the allure of doing less work is the root cause for an awful lot of unnecessary grief, despite let's say for discussion, the best of intent.
The imaginary solution works reliably in 100% cases, but the available solution works only in 99%. Should we accept that practical solution in the interim, or should we dismiss it and fall to a "perfect solution fallacy"?
The available solution coupled with time tested, production proven ways and means is about as good as we can get. And that is not very good, but it is livable and people value that a whole lot more than is given credit for.
Bad things are gonna happen no matter what, right?
Humans doing the messy human works are important. It ain't cheap. Never was, and for sure isn't now. But when we do that work, people do get options and overall harm is reduced, but more importantly, consent, acceptance, compliance all go up.
Because using technology to solve social problems leads to restraining people's personal freedom, choices, and expression in a much more direct manner than other domains of problem solving.
Furthermore, this restraint tends to impact people unevenly. As ineffective as the government may or may not be, at least the goal is for all people to be considered equal in the eyes of the law. With technology the power lives with those who own and create the technology, who have even less oversight and accountability than those who make the laws.
The inequality issue exists as well with Covid vaccines and with weapons — other applications of technology, so societal problems are not standing alone there. The unequal access to nuclear weapons is... a good thing I guess? What still needs to be explained is why throwing technology at power generation problems, economic problems, healthcare problems, or warfare problems is seemingly ok regardless of inequality, but social problems are a no-go zone.
It is about technology alignment, and the nature of people.
Right now, our tech is not capable of understanding meaning a mere child does easily. This makes it very poorly aligned with the problem domain in that applying it will create at least as many and probably more problems than it will solve.
Other problem domains have seen better tech alignment and have also seen greater success, though one could argue we also poorly understand the new problems created in some cases. (Global warming makes burning fuels a much worse deal than initially believed)
The side effects inherent with such blunt instruments as appear to be required to apply tech to social, human problems warrant consideration well beyond, "just because we can."
In the future, when our tech is much better, perhaps it can address human, social problems with far fewer costs to those subjected to the solutions.
Just how much control over your life and expression do you feel is necessary?
Right now it is well beyond anything I feel good about and it has just gotten started!
This thread has started with a problem of cheating in online games (like head-aiming bots in first-person shooters) and (non-free) anti-cheating software as a solution to that (not ideal, but closing that gap somewhat). GGP pointed out it's "a social problem" and suggested we shouldn't attack it with technology (anti-cheating software). I still stand unconvinced with regards to that.
Otherwise, I had been denied boarding in the Covid era because the software had had a bug, so I tend to generally agree with your sentiment that the technology has too much control over my life already.
Oh, and while we wait. I thought of a much better way to express this. So I'm going to drop it here, and then wait for your response and then proceed.
One area where technology is not a good idea is civics. Our votes the law things like that. At the present time, humans are best at managing human Affairs. That includes things like cheating crime who will be the leader oh, what's socially acceptable downtown, all that kind of stuff.
With voting in particular, we are in a position of forced trust with technology. It is going to be cheated, exploited, and has multiple times, and we really don't have options. We need people to physically vote and deal with the votes, or we're going to be under the thumb of the people that own the machines. That's pretty clear.
I am open to the idea of cheating not being in that collection of stuff that humans are best at dealing with. I also think we should have more options like we used to, setting up her own servers and what not like what used to be possible. And frankly still is possible. From time to time I like to play a little Q3A, and I just set up a server and run with friends. I don't think that game will ever die for us.
I want a lot of us, myself included, oppose is the very blunt instrument currently being used to manage cheating. It affects us in ways that really hurt the open Libre software causes. We can't know what's running on our machines, we can't run what we want on our machines, and so forth.
I did this on voice fall in the car, so please forgive typos, but perhaps this puts the chat in a better place. We shall see.
Now, are you unconvinced that the act of cheating itself is a social problem?
I did use course terminology, it could be a moral failing as well. I lump a lot of those under social. And that's to my detriment obviously. But let's sort that out.
And then there's the part I'm convinced that I understand you on, and that is I believe our current state of technology is not a good fit for social problems, and you believe that it is. Or maybe more accurately, the solutions work and you're happy with that I'm concerned about costs and risks associated with said solutions.
I think once we understand one another there let's have a short chat.
I don't disagree with your classification of cheating. I don't believe that technology is necessarily always a good fit for social problems. What I take issue with is a blunt dismissal of technology as a practical solution for social problems. Sometimes it's a good fit, sometimes it's a bad fit, sometimes it's the only solution we've got and the other solutions are either imaginary or worse ones.
Social problems are just very hard to solve, and they're rarely made simpler by automation or algorithms. They often require trust in another person's intent.