A lot of people are worried that AI will take over the world, but Auerbach’s new book raises the specter of a different threat: what if we’ve already been conquered by an autonomous intelligence?
What were the specific steps for slowing down the exponential growth? Making it non-realtime or limiting the number of followers who can see something?
Limiting the number of forwards for messages/links. I'm not sure if Auerbach mentioned this, but I think maybe finding structural ways so that the users with the most friends aren't in a "rich get richer" situation. Right now when you join a new platform you're very quickly introduced to the largest users on the platform. This is called preferential attachment. When those users send out a message it very quickly saturates the network.
As for the realtime component, if there was a waiting period so that a post of message took an hour or so to actually post then you'd probably have a mental health improvement as well. A lot of the addictive nature and negative mental health consequences come from the instant but random nature of social media. In psychology experiments, when monkeys get a random hit of cocaine from opening a door they get more addicted than the monkeys with deterministic rewards or delayed rewards.
What were the specific steps for slowing down the exponential growth? Making it non-realtime or limiting the number of followers who can see something?
Limiting the number of forwards for messages/links. I'm not sure if Auerbach mentioned this, but I think maybe finding structural ways so that the users with the most friends aren't in a "rich get richer" situation. Right now when you join a new platform you're very quickly introduced to the largest users on the platform. This is called preferential attachment. When those users send out a message it very quickly saturates the network.
As for the realtime component, if there was a waiting period so that a post of message took an hour or so to actually post then you'd probably have a mental health improvement as well. A lot of the addictive nature and negative mental health consequences come from the instant but random nature of social media. In psychology experiments, when monkeys get a random hit of cocaine from opening a door they get more addicted than the monkeys with deterministic rewards or delayed rewards.