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@ -33,12 +33,12 @@ be “move fast and break things”, however, after Zuckerburg was |
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lambasted in front of congress, that motto is slowly changing. |
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Facebook like many tech companies creddits it’s major success to |
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Facebook like many tech companies credits its major success to |
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optimizing a sometimes niche problem -- this is something that |
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programmers love to do and computers are perfect at. Facebook |
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optimized how people consume media, but they did it at the detriment |
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optimized how people consume media, but they did it to the detriment |
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of quality content. Youtube tremendously optimized how we view videos |
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by suggesting us recommended videos to watch, but, if often suggests |
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by suggesting us recommended videos to watch, but, it often suggests |
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repulsive content. Uber optimized how people found rides, but it |
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resulted in an influx of part time drivers that are slowly pushing out |
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full time drivers. This is not to say that optimization is a bad |
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@ -54,24 +54,24 @@ This now begs the question: how do we do we solve these issues? This |
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is something that Thompson didn’t discuss in depth nor had a great |
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answer for. We could point our fingers at governments, companies, or |
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consumers and tell them to solve the problem. Surely having the |
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government enact some well constructed public policy based on the |
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government enact some well-constructed public policy based on the |
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current policy environment would solve the issues… right? The problem |
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in the age of big data is that things are changing at a rapid pace and |
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by the time we realize the dangers of a particular issue, it may have |
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already caused grave damages or morphed into another form. Look at |
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gambling for example, we have had decades of laws and regulations |
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surrounding underage gambling, however, online gambling issues has |
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been consistently creeping its way into policy discussion over the |
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last five. It is fascinating that most public policy generated in the |
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surrounding underage gambling, however, online gambling issues have |
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been consistently creeping their way into policy discussion over the |
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last five years. It is fascinating that most public policy generated in the |
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technology field is actually created in the court systems. This is |
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good in the sense that the court system is often faster than passing a |
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new law, but, it is also very problematic. Old laws when used to |
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interpret a nuanced technological problem often yields outcomes that |
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interpret a nuanced technological problem often yield outcomes that |
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the original authors of the law would possibly disagree with. |
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Although Thompson’s talk raises more questions and problems than |
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tangible easy to implement solutions, we must start having discussions |
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tangible easy-to-implement solutions, we must start having discussions |
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like this so we can enact a cultural change around how we approach |
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optimization tasks. Adding back careful reflection and deliberation |
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back to currently optimized tasks on the internet could give us more |
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