We tend to see recommendation algorithms as convenient tools. They show us interesting videos, news, and ads. But in reality, they already analyze huge amounts of data about us: our searches, purchases, location, reactions, interests, and even our emotional state.
The more a system knows about a person, the more accurately it can predict their behavior and influence them.
Today, an algorithm chooses which ads we see. Tomorrow, it may choose our news, political messages, and “correct” explanations of what is happening in the world. It does not even need to ban anything. It can simply:
hide certain posts; promote others; change the order of information; show each person a different version of reality; bury uncomfortable ideas under a constant stream of distractions.
The most dangerous part is that we may not even realize we are being influenced. The propaganda of the future may not look like a poster with a slogan. It may look like a personal recommendation from an AI, a selection of the “most important news,” or a calm explanation designed specifically around our fears and beliefs.
One person can be persuaded through the idea of safety. Another through patriotism. Someone else through fear of chaos, or concern for their family. The message will be different for everyone, but the goal will be the same: to quietly shape how people think and behave.
This does not even require some massive evil conspiracy. All it takes is for a large company or government to gain control over a system that shapes the information feeds of millions of people. Today, that system may be optimized for sales and engagement. Tomorrow, its goals could become political.
If AI becomes the main filter between people and reality, whoever controls that AI may gain the power to decide what people consider important, true, or even worth knowing about.
So the question is not whether algorithms will influence us. They already do. The real question is whether we will notice the moment we stop choosing information for ourselves.
What do you think about this? How far should personalization be allowed to go before a “convenient feed” becomes a tool of control?
The propaganda of the future […]
Yeah, it’s more the propaganda of the present. All the societal issues, the radicalization, polarization, the manipulation out there and people fabricating their own truth instead of being able to see the real world and talk to other people… That’s a result of this very thing manifesting in social media about 10-15 years ago.
We’ve recently come to dig faster and deeper, though.
Also currently being used to influence politics. And this isn’t the first time by any means. MAGA do it, my country’s lunatics party do it. It’s been a big outcry during Brexit in the UK. Putin has bot armies to mess with other countries. The Chinese invent entire platforms for the west. Then the Americans buy them because they’d like to be in charge of the online propaganda. The richest man on earth bought a social media platform to do his political mischief… And there’s plenty more, this list isn’t exhaustive. Just saying we don’t need to wait for the future. We’re already living it.
Oh, if the Cambridge Analytica scandal showed one thing, it’s that the “convenient feed” is already a tool of control.
Avoiding the large social media sites is the best start.
The best way to inoculate yourself against ai is to ask them questions you already know the answer to. After a while you become so disgusted with their manipulative deceit that you intuitively understand everything they say is a manipulation and a lie.
Almighty AI, tell me something I already know!
I keep being reminded of the MGS2 final codec scenes. That game was talking about exactly this back in 2001. I didn’t get it at first, but playing it over the years at some point it was like an epiphany. I guess now I’ll be referencing MGS4 more.
It definitely went over my head for years back when I first played, and then we got into MGS3 “demanding answers” just to be disappointed when the game barely elaborated on the stuff with the Patriots and we were too dense to realize it was because “They have become War itself” was really all that needed to be said
MGS4 is a hazy memory of the past decade to me, but the themes of biometrics and information control are unsettling to think about, even if it’s only half remembered
I really ought to get into the remaster on Steam. Four definitely had its flaws but I feel like it was a much more satisfying conclusion to the story of the Snakes than what we had in 5
Yes. Matrix.
