#88 – Tristan Harris on the need to change the incentives of social media companies

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Dec 3, 2020

Tristan Harris, a prominent computer scientist and founder of the Center for Humane Technology, discusses the urgent need to rethink social media's impact on society. He highlights how platforms are designed to be addictive, fostering polarization and misinformation. Harris emphasizes the necessity for systemic changes in technology and the importance of shifting public perception. The dialogue explores how social media can influence mental health, particularly among youth, while advocating for reforms that prioritize user well-being over profit.

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INSIGHT

Climate Change of Culture

Technology is creating a "climate change of culture", eroding trust and attention.
Social media distorts reality, impacting our shared understanding of the world.

INSIGHT

Extractive Attention Economy

Social media's extractive business model, focused on attention, has negative consequences.
This includes shorter attention spans, isolation, addiction, distraction, and polarization.

ANECDOTE

Mom's Baby Food Group to Anti-Vax

A mom joined a Facebook group for baby food and was recommended anti-vaccine groups.
This highlights the slippery slope of Facebook's recommendation system towards extremism.

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Social Dilemma

Jonathan

Sapiens

A Brief History of Humankind

Yuval Noah Harari

This book surveys the history of humankind from the Stone Age to the 21st century, focusing on Homo sapiens. It divides human history into four major parts: the Cognitive Revolution, the Agricultural Revolution, the Unification of Humankind, and the Scientific Revolution. Harari argues that Homo sapiens dominate the world due to their unique ability to cooperate in large numbers through beliefs in imagined realities such as gods, nations, money, and human rights. The book also examines the impact of human activities on the global ecosystem and speculates on the future of humanity, including the potential for genetic engineering and non-organic life.

BOWLING ALONE

The Collapse and Revival of American Community

Robert Putnam

In 'Bowling Alone', Robert D. Putnam presents extensive data showing how Americans have become disconnected from family, friends, neighbors, and democratic structures. He argues that this decline in social capital has significant negative impacts on physical and civic health. The book explores various factors contributing to this decline, including changes in work, family structure, suburbanization, and the influence of technology such as television and the internet. Putnam also discusses historical precedents and potential solutions for reviving civic engagement and social connections.

Drawdown

The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming

Blaffert & Wamhof (Artist group)

Drawdown is a seminal text on climate solutions, compiled by an international coalition of researchers, professionals, and scientists. The book presents 100 substantive, existing solutions to address climate change, ranging from clean energy and educating girls in lower-income countries to land use practices that pull carbon out of the air. It provides a roadmap to drawing down greenhouse gas emissions and emphasizes the importance of sustainable development and collective action to combat climate change[1][4][5].

The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority

In the New Millennium

Martin Gurri

The book explores how the internet and social media have reversed the balance of power between the public and elite institutions, enabling insurgencies and mobilizing millions of ordinary people. Gurri argues that this shift has led to a breakdown in information hierarchies and the legitimacy of governing institutions. The book examines various movements such as the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, and the Indignados protests, highlighting their leaderless and nihilistic nature. It also discusses the implications of these changes for liberal representative democracy and the need for new organizing principles adapted to the digital age[3][4][5].

Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System

Donella Meadows

Donella Meadows' essay 'Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System' provides a framework for understanding where interventions in complex systems can lead to substantial changes. The essay is part of her broader work on systems thinking, which is also reflected in her book 'Thinking in Systems: A Primer'.

In its first 28 days on Netflix, the documentary The Social Dilemma — about the possible harms being caused by social media and other technology products — was seen by 38 million households in about 190 countries and in 30 languages.

Over the last ten years, the idea that Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are degrading political discourse and grabbing and monetizing our attention in an alarming way has gone mainstream to such an extent that it's hard to remember how recently it was a fringe view.

It feels intuitively true that our attention spans are shortening, we’re spending more time alone, we’re less productive, there’s more polarization and radicalization, and that we have less trust in our fellow citizens, due to having less of a shared basis of reality.

But while it all feels plausible, how strong is the evidence that it's true? In the past, people have worried about every new technological development — often in ways that seem foolish in retrospect. Socrates famously feared that being able to write things down would ruin our memory.

At the same time, historians think that the printing press probably generated religious wars across Europe, and that the radio helped Hitler and Stalin maintain power by giving them and them alone the ability to spread propaganda across the whole of Germany and the USSR. Fears about new technologies aren't always misguided.

Tristan Harris, leader of the Center for Humane Technology, and co-host of the Your Undivided Attention podcast, is arguably the most prominent person working on reducing the harms of social media, and he was happy to engage with Rob’s good-faith critiques.

• Links to learn more, summary and full transcript.
• FYI, the 2020 Effective Altruism Survey is closing soon: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/EAS80K2

Tristan and Rob provide a thorough exploration of the merits of possible concrete solutions – something The Social Dilemma didn’t really address.

Given that these companies are mostly trying to design their products in the way that makes them the most money, how can we get that incentive to align with what's in our interests as users and citizens?

One way is to encourage a shift to a subscription model.

One claim in The Social Dilemma is that the machine learning algorithms on these sites try to shift what you believe and what you enjoy in order to make it easier to predict what content recommendations will keep you on the site.

But if you paid a yearly fee to Facebook in lieu of seeing ads, their incentive would shift towards making you as satisfied as possible with their service — even if that meant using it for five minutes a day rather than 50.

Despite all the negatives, Tristan doesn’t want us to abandon the technologies he's concerned about. He asks us to imagine a social media environment designed to regularly bring our attention back to what each of us can do to improve our lives and the world.

Just as we can focus on the positives of nuclear power while remaining vigilant about the threat of nuclear weapons, we could embrace social media and recommendation algorithms as the largest mass-coordination engine we've ever had — tools that could educate and organise people better than anything that has come before.

The tricky and open question is how to get there.

Rob and Tristan also discuss:

• Justified concerns vs. moral panics
• The effect of social media on politics in the US and developing countries
• Tips for individuals

Chapters:

Rob’s intro (00:00:00)
The interview begins (00:01:36)
Center for Humane Technology (00:04:53)
Critics (00:08:19)
The Social Dilemma (00:13:20)
Three categories of harm (00:20:31)
Justified concerns vs. moral panics (00:30:23)
The messy real world vs. an imagined idealised world (00:38:20)
The persuasion apocalypse (00:47:46)
Revolt of the Public (00:56:48)
Global effects (01:02:44)
US politics (01:13:32)
Potential solutions (01:20:59)
Unintended consequences (01:42:57)
Win-win changes (01:50:47)
Big wins over the last 5 or 10 years (01:59:10)
The subscription model (02:02:28)
Tips for individuals (02:14:05)
The current state of the research (02:22:37)
Careers (02:26:36)

Producer: Keiran Harris.
Audio mastering: Ben Cordell.
Transcriptions: Sofia Davis-Fogel.