We talk about artificial intelligence as if it had its own personality and will. That apparently relieves humans of responsibility. Talking about AI is an abstraction, what actually exists is the “artificial intelligence + human factors system”. This is where we must focus our attention, if we do not want, as the old romance said, “among so much dust, we lost Don Roldán.” The important question for the future is not what artificial intelligence can do, but what those who finance, design, manage artificial intelligence want it to do. Who is going to take care of it? The answer is twofold: 1. Whoever has the power to do it. 2. Public opinion that can grant, limit or block that power. Unfortunately, new technologies have not produced the widespread democratization that their founding fathers hoped for, but rather have concentrated power and put more tools in the hands of power. ‘The Science of the Evolution of Cultures’ is largely the story of how all power tends to expand and how citizens have worked to limit it. Power—whether political, religious or economic—has no braking system. He goes as far as he can go. Democracy is the system that has worked best so far to control it, but without completely achieving it. It is true that power rests on public opinion. It is also true that power can greatly shape public opinion. And digital technology makes it easier.
In Centaur Project (Edelvives) I have analyzed the configuration of the current subject, which is already being influenced by new technologies. I have called it “Skinner’s triumph,” which requires an explanation. In almost all rankings One of the most influential psychologists of the 20th century is Skinner in first place. He explained human behavior through operant conditioning. If I manage rewards and punishments (positive or negative reinforcers), I can direct people’s behavior. The environment sculpts the subject. If I dominate the environment, the subject is mine. He proved this worked with animals in his famous “Skinner box.” He thought that, using this method, “social engineering” could end social problems. We would all behave appropriately if we were subjected to the appropriate reinforcement regimen. Skinner complained that such an efficient system could not have been applied due to the influence of two ideas—“freedom” and “dignity”—that he considered retarding and harmful to the human search for happiness. If what we want is a just and happy society, he concluded, we must do without the idea of freedom. People, he said, can behave well without having to do so freely. It is enough to reward kindness and punish perversity. Why do I talk about “Skinner’s triumph”? Two phenomena corroborate his triumph: the “network” as a way of life and the ideological influence of China. When talking about the network, the relational aspect is usually emphasized, the edges, links, that transmit information. On the other hand, little importance is given to the nodes. This is serious. What are these nodes? People. Insisting on connections and not on people is a way of weakening the subject, of making it easier for the network to impose itself on him. Every time more powers are transferred to the network, the autonomy of the nodes is decreasing. In the end, the subject cannot live without the network, everything is in it. The possibility of a node influencing the network is negligible, although the ease of uploading content, photographs, memes gives it the impression of being important, of intervening in the world, which is delicious and addictive. But the network is not homogeneous. There are powerful centers of power on the Internet that can have a decisive influence on the content that travels through it. Submission to the network is not done through coercion or threats, but rather through the pleasant acceptance of the comforts and satisfactions it produces for the user. No one has been forced to be on their cell phone for more than four hours a day. People do it because the screen is an inexhaustible source of small or large satisfactions. This is what makes it, according to Skinner’s theory, a gigantic, pleasantly accepted behavior modifier.
Technology provides us with great satisfaction and comfort. What difference does it make if we are hooked on those awards? We know that technology has become a persuasion industry, but we don’t care. [El experto en ética] Tristan Harris writes: “I can exercise control over my devices, but I have to remember that on the other side of the screen there are a thousand people whose job it is to eliminate any trace of responsibility I have left.” His testimony is relevant: he was part of that thousand people. He worked at Apple, Wikia, Apture and Google. [El historiador] Siva Vaidhyanathan says that Facebook hooks us like French fries: “It offers frequent and banal pleasures.” Yuval Noah Harari warns: “You could be happy giving all authority to algorithms and trusting them to decide for you and the rest of the world.” No wonder Evgeny Morozov, an expert in digital technologies, says: “The real patron saint of the Internet is BF Skinner.”
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I continue with the testimonies in an attempt (me too) to persuade them. Sean Parker, president of Facebook, is clear about the role of positive reinforcer in attracting the customer: “We need to give them a little shot of dopamine from time to time, because someone liked or commented on a photo, or a message, or whatever. . And that will get you to contribute more content, and have more likes and comments. It’s a social validation feedback loop, the kind of thing a hacker like me, because it is exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology.” It is worth underlining his reference to “human vulnerability.”
An influential character in this techno-Skinnerian world is BJ Fogg, founder of the Persuasive Tech Lab at Stanford University, who has invented “captology”, the science of persuasion through computers. He defines “persuasion” as “a noncoercive attempt to change attitudes or behaviors.” Fogg recommends his students read Skinner. The company created by neuroscientist Ramsay Brown, Dopamine Labs, announces: “Our technology predicts and shapes human behavior.” Nir Eyal, who worked with some of Silicon Valley’s most influential companies to devise ways to “hook” users, reveals his machinations in Hooked, where he says: “Let’s face it: we’re in the business of persuasion. Innovators create products designed to convince people to do what we want them to do. We call those people users and, although we don’t say it out loud, we secretly hope that everyone gets devilishly hooked on the things we make. He describes his methods as “mental manipulation” and also cites Skinner as a model for achieving it. (…) I will end with the summary that Johann Hari makes in The value of attention (Península, 2023): “Today we live in a world dominated by technologies that are based on Skinner’s vision of the functioning of the human mind. His idea—that we can train living creatures to desperately desire arbitrary rewards—has come to dominate our environment. Many of us are like those caged birds who are made to perform a strange dance for reward, and while this is happening we imagine that we are doing it by choice.
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