Content, AI, and… Facebook?

This week we read and discussed the works from Eichhorn, Crawford, and Doctorow. Each scholar had something to say about the digital age in which we live. Eichhorn focused on content, Crawford emphasized AI, while Doctorow used Facebook as an example of evil within the internet.

Content

Eichhorn easily describes the basic definition of content, stating it points to “digital, not physical, materials.” This can of course lead to content being limitless and having no bounds nor restraints.

This makes anything and everything on the internet content. Even if you consider the picture you share on Instagram “just a picture,” it has now become a form of content for other people to view. Which unless you are an influencer or content creator, I doubt you call what you post on social media your content. (Or at least I don’t, I call them my posts or my pictures, but I never call my feed content.)

To add to this ongoing definition of content, content does not need to have significant meaning. Content can exist for the sole purpose to circulate, regardless of if it has a goal in mind (to entertain, to call for action, etc.).

AI

Crawford defines AI as:

… both embodied and material, made from natural resources, fuel, human labor, infrastructures, logistics, histories, and classifications. AI systems are not autonomous, rational, or able to discern anything without extensive, computationally intensive training with large datasets or predefined rules and rewards.

I think this is a complicated way to say AI is an extensive tool to compute answers based on predetermined rules. AI is trained by humans and Crawford even goes to make the claim that AI has the capability of learning like a child.

To Crawford AI and human learning aren’t that different. She even goes to support this by claiming humans are “meat machines.” I personally don’t like this claim…  I see humans more as individual souls in a vessel of flesh and blood, and our brain and body work from the commands of our soul, not because we are a machine being told what to compute and do.

I see humans and AI as two separate entities, and I don’t think AI will ever be capable of becoming anywhere near human-like.

Facebook?

Ah, yes. Facebook, which according to Doctorow is the root of all evil in the digital age. All jokes aside, Doctorow’s claim is not for unjust reasons. With the complete lack of trust Facebook has created, and the unethical practices it does to not only it’s users, but also the workers, Doctorow is onto something bigger than just Facebook being evil.

What I believe Doctorow is truly getting at is that the internet is not for the users. The shady things apps do to make it impossible for users to leave the platform is completely unethical, and makes you wonder where our future with technology is heading.

To put it in context, Doctorow states:

Networked tools were supposed to give us more control over our lives. Instead, we find ourselves manipulated, controlled, corralled and milked dry.

So, if as a society we have shifted into a world of technology becoming the controller, and we have become the controlled, what can we do? Are we okay with this?

I ask these questions, because in today’s world it seems that no one truly cares about what happens to our personal information or data. As a society, we have to rise together against this problem before it becomes too late. I personally do not want to live in a dystopian world, where everything is controlled by technology and we are always being watched.

So, I ask again, what do we do?