diff --git a/blogContent/posts/other/media/thompson-talk.jpg b/blogContent/posts/other/media/thompson-talk.jpg new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b8efbfe Binary files /dev/null and b/blogContent/posts/other/media/thompson-talk.jpg differ diff --git a/blogContent/posts/other/responsible-optimization.md b/blogContent/posts/other/responsible-optimization.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..926f94a --- /dev/null +++ b/blogContent/posts/other/responsible-optimization.md @@ -0,0 +1,78 @@ +Clive Thompson a very prominent technical author came to Rochester on +November fifteenth to talk about the “Problems of Efficient Coding”. +Going into this talk, I expected it to go along the lines of how +making super “efficient” code often results in code that nobody +understands and is hard to maintain. To my pleasant surprise, Clive +Thompson provided a nuanced discussion around the cultural problems +created when we try to optimize every problem using technology. + +![Clive Thompson](media/thompson-talk.jpg) + +To understand Clive’s point, he used Facebook as a prime example of +this problem. Before the Facebook feed system, the web largely acted +like a blog where people had to actively reach out to everyone’s page +to get content. Right after Facebook implemented the feed system there +was a big debacle where nearly 20% of Facebook users entered a +Facebook group opposed the new feed system. For nearly a week there +were student protesters outside of the Facebook office. People +initially found the feed system creepy because it gave everyone +ambient awareness of everything happening in their network; this in +some regards decreased “anonymity”. You no longer had to go out to +every one’s page, Facebook created a tailored newspaper for you to +consume. As a result of the new feed system, people started producing +a lot more content to put on social media sites since people consumed +it immediately. To filter content and only provide people with +“important” posts, Facebook employed machine learning algorithms which +favored posts that get more clicks. It turns out that people are very +likely to click on things that are highly emotional or +controversial--machine learning algorithms were quick to learn this +and favor controversial content. People started to play the algorithm +and turn Facebook into a hot take tire fire as it get littered with +absurd conspiracy theories like #Pizzagate. Facebook’s motto used to +be “move fast and break things”, however, after Zuckerburg was +lambasted in front of congress, that motto is slowly changing. + + +Facebook like many tech companies creddits it’s major success to +optimizing a sometimes niche problem -- this is something that +programmers love to do and computers are perfect at. Facebook +optimized how people consume media, but they did it at the detriment +of quality content. Youtube tremendously optimized how we view videos +by suggesting us recommended videos to watch, but, if often suggests +repulsive content. Uber optimized how people found rides, but it +resulted in an influx of part time drivers that are slowly pushing out +full time drivers. This is not to say that optimization is a bad +thing. As a result of optimizing tasks we can save a tremendous amount +of time and be more productive members of society. Thompson suggests +that there are certain cases where we should slow down and add +friction to cases that we initially see the need to optimize. +Reflection and deliberation are important things that are often thrown +to the wind when we optimize things. + + +This now begs the question: how do we do we solve these issues? This +is something that Thompson didn’t discuss in depth nor had a great +answer for. We could point our fingers at governments, companies, or +consumers and tell them to solve the problem. Surely having the +government enact some well constructed public policy based on the +current policy environment would solve the issues… right? The problem +in the age of big data is that things are changing at a rapid pace and +by the time we realize the dangers of a particular issue, it may have +already caused grave damages or morphed into another form. Look at +gambling for example, we have had decades of laws and regulations +surrounding underage gambling, however, online gambling issues has +been consistently creeping its way into policy discussion over the +last five. It is fascinating that most public policy generated in the +technology field is actually created in the court systems. This is +good in the sense that the court system is often faster than passing a +new law, but, it is also very problematic. Old laws when used to +interpret a nuanced technological problem often yields outcomes that +the original authors of the law would possibly disagree with. + + +Although Thompson’s talk raises more questions and problems than +tangible easy to implement solutions, we must start having discussions +like this so we can enact a cultural change around how we approach +optimization tasks. Adding back careful reflection and deliberation +back to currently optimized tasks on the internet could give us more +freedom over how we consume content and interact with the world.