Multiple times a day now, a friend or relative asks "did you see that story/meme/video about..?" and almost always my answer is "saw it this morning." A year ago it was occasional and funny. Now I often recognize the content before they finish describing it. It has become deeply troubling, the uniform thought bubble that this routine implies. And most of us know it.
Our newest technologies sometimes seem like powerful weapons against individual thought. They lean into our bias, season with "fitting" notions they've learned from others, and build a feedback loop with growing gravity. They map our contacts, and curate a collective hall of mirrors.
Ironically, individual competition is essential to AI's development. Games like Go, Chess and StarCraft, keys to AI development, hinge on the interaction of individuals. (Team up, if you like, but that's an individual choice.)
But in practice, we're now losing balance. It's simple to see individualism and competition as an antidote - but they too can be corrosive at their extremes.
We must step forward quickly to build and refine tools that defy today's creeping collectivism. If the right overall balance stems from each person choosing their own boundaries, then your ability to choose must be defended. Yet, if we don't work for privacy and individualism as swiftly and powerfully as the technologies that threaten them, that may not soon be possible.
(Of course, those who wish to slowly dissolve into the cozy echo chamber of AI slop memes, dad jokes, and rage-baited self-certainty, do have that right - and it isn't anyone's place to stop them.)
The Threat Today
If you're with me so far, here's how the threat looks today: A rapid convergence in our thought patterns and interests is oozing from the spread of network technologies and applications. AI has dropped into this brew like pop rocks into Pepsi. The backwash from these shared tastes is rewiring our desires, principles and values. We're well-into groupthink, polishing up new near-religious defenses for our recently-downloaded core beliefs. Tribalism is rising. Individualism and competition are falling further and further behind.
This is not for debating over beer and pizza at the Student Union before tomorrow's philosophy exam - it is big, fast and here now. If not passionately resisted, this loss of balance will slow our progress as a species. Feudalism and central planning lie somewhere on this path. But at the end sits something worse. The withering of diverse thought will hollow out Oliver Wendell Holmes' "marketplace of ideas", and that will not go well for us.
What happens when we face an unprecedented, perhaps existential, threat - but we're in an echo chamber because everyone has the same three thoughts? If we've de facto outsourced thought leadership to a handful of influencers, amplified by off-the-charts marketing?
We Can Build the Tools We Need
We can make the tools we will need to preserve balance. It will take courage and determination.
Before the technicalities, what are the principles? Protecting your individual thought is fundamental. More human brains in any group are not just "more compute" — they should mean more ideas. Contrast sparks creativity. We're best when we connect, collaborate AND compete. So our tools must empower each to strike this balance for themself. They must preserve space for private thought, and control over what is shared.
In round one, Strongwall will offer each of us the ability to use some of today's most-powerful tools for thought, without allowing our thoughts to be harvested. That is the beginning of the experiment.
We Feel Used
I believe many of us feel used. We know a helpful ad in our feed MAY address the question our child asked in the car (within earshot of a smartphone) — but DEFINITELY feels like a violation.
We have important questions. Technology can help. But removing our suspicion is critical to letting us ask them. When we can, we will all move forward faster together.
The Mission Ahead
If the first experiment validates this belief, many more tools are soon to come. All based on your right to be you, and share only what you choose. Creating them, and empowering you, looks like a very important mission for us all to pursue.
— The Wall Watcher