With the recent developments in AI technology, we are entering a new era of manipulation through captology. Mainstream websites/apps are well known to utilize captology to manipulate its users. But now captology is AI driven and will reach a new dimension of manipulation. In the very near future, every mainstream OS will be AI infested. This means, manipulation will start as soon you turn on your PC/smartphone.
The internet and computing in general is no longer a harmless activity. Now it is objectively a great danger for the users mental self-determination to use mainstream websites/OS/software. Because I honestly don’t believe, that anyone can outsmart AI driven Captology. People who claim this, probably also believe they can consume heroin without becoming addicted.
This is why I believe, that now is the last chance to escape from this pernicious trend. This means, now is the time to fundamentally rethink and reorganize our habits of using the internet and computer technology.
I don’t claim to know the perfect way out, but I can only share what I am doing. I believe that some kind of off grid computing is the solution.
-My tech: Laptop with Linux Mint, Nokia Dumbphone, FM tuner -No home internet connection. I only use public wifi. (Psychological reason, to keep me from mindless surfing)
A few years ago, I would have called someone with this lifestyle an insane luddite. But today, I prefer to be an insane luddite, than to be a dopamine addicted consoomer who is being controlled by AI driven captology.
You make some good points, but you’re also overstating the power of captology to the point of sounding paranoid tbh. Pretending that someone who’s aware of it, how it works and its goals is still completely powerless to resist is some misanthropic bullshit that gives some people (aware “consoomers” 🙄) far too little credit and others (the people developing captology and other disgustingly manipulative marketing strategies) far too much.
Is gaslighting and other propaganda, whether by human or technology, much more effective than most people know or are willing to admit? Definitely. Is it the Borg, though? Absolutely not.
“A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.” - Shakespeare
You Are Not Immune to Propaganda. You are not immune to ideology. You are not immune to manipulation. Being aware that propaganda exists—nor even knowing what it generally looks like and who generally uses it for what general purpose—will not stop every last bit of it from ever working on you—anymore than being aware of ideology will stop you from having one, anymore than being aware of manipulation and abuse will save you from ever being manipulated and abused.
That is not misanthropy, that is acknowledgement that we are imperfect and occasionally need to let our guards down so we’re not stressed and alienated 24/7. If anything it’s incredibly awe-inspiring that we, as a species, are so smart that we can develop abstract systems that outsmart us. If anything, it’s misanthropic to be so disgusted by vulnerability and imperfection that one finds acknowledgement of such detestable.
Captology isn’t the Borg, sure, because it’s not one single group with one unified goal using it. It’s everyone who vies for your attention/support and benefits from having it; specifically, it’s the techniques they employ to get your engagement. Many will only use a little, consciously or not, to get you engaged because theirs is already a cause worth caring about; many more will use a lot, unreflectively—not considering the long-term impact nor moral implications—because it’s just the mainstream design trends of the time.
E.g. i am trying to persuade you of something right now, using a computer to communicate my views. Am I using Computers As Persuasive Technology? If you agree with the adage “The Medium is The Message,” then using lemmy necessarily has some impact on the way we communicate and behave online; by that token, the same can be said of the hardware and networks we’re taking for granted.
This must be true to some degree, because i’m not talking to you as I would someone in person, I’m typing this all out; i have already augmented my behavior to fit the medium. What other ways has this tech molded my behavior without me giving it a second thought?
Just because i don’t consider it evil or wrong doesn’t make it not manipulation, not propaganda, not ideology, not captology.
For those out of the loop, like me, from Wikipedia:
Captology is the study of computers as persuasive technologies.[1] This area of inquiry explores the overlapping space between persuasion in general (influence, motivation, behavior change, etc.) and computing technology.[2] This includes the design, research, and program analysis of interactive computing products (such as the Web, desktop software, specialized devices, etc.) created for the purpose of changing people’s attitudes or behaviors.[3]
B. J. Fogg in 1996 derived the term captology from an acronym: Computers As Persuasive Technologies. In 2003, he published the first book on captology, entitled Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do.[4]
Captology is not the same thing as Behavior Design, according to BJ Fogg who is the person who coined both terms and created the foundation for both areas.
No home internet connection. I only use public wifi.
Please never do anything important online. It’s way too easy for someone to have their Access Point broadcast the same SSID as starbucks (or whatever network) and then just sit and watch people connect, and MITM everything.
MITM isn’t as much of an issue as it was back in 2010. Every site uses HTTPS now. As long as you don’t ignore the warnings, you’ll be fine.
Not every site uses HTTPS. Even when they do, it’s not a silver bullet to stop all attacks.
haven’t Timeline Algorithms, Google Search Results, AdSense, Google Maps and many more things been ML driven for a close to a decade now and also heavily influenced the information that we base our decision making on? Why do people think this stuff is new because it can generate better text now?
While I somewhat agree with your point about the upcoming wave of invasive AI, I don’t think adopting a digital hermit lifestyle is the best way through this. Think of it as the wave of PCs and smartphones: did a lot of people get negatively impacted by it? Sure, but did all (or even most) people who completely shunned the technology come out any better? Not necessarily. As this new technology became a central part of society in the past decades, the people who did the best were the ones who actively used it while simultaneously preventing themselves from…idk, developing a sort of mental dependence on it (though the degree to which most have succeeded in doing the latter is variable, the point still stays).
Now, is the upcoming AI wave the same as the smartphone wave? Well, not really. But are our options of tackling it the same? I’d say, basically yes. And that’s my point: it’s better to make use of this technology in ways that are less likely to backfire. Since the premise of your captology argument is that more invasive AI will be better in convincing us to buy products, this is, I’d argue, one of the perfect spots for FOSS alternatives. What if we do end up becoming addicted to some new AI app(s) that we know is (/are) manipulative? Look for alternatives not controlled by a corporation. It’s not the perfect option, but in my opinion it’s certainly better than completely boycotting the technology.
I think it will be exactly the same as with current web in general. 99% of people mindlessly consume YT influencers, disinformation on facebook, watch all the adds and buy everything they see in them. What percentage of Americans believed in QAnon? 25%? These people stopped thinking for themselves years ago. It’s hard to believe AI will make it worse. At the same time everyone who avoids all this shit will also find it easy to avoid AI generated content. It’s not like AI will start posting on lemmy and turn all or us into Trump supporters.
The internet and computing in general is no longer a harmless activity.
Woa, did you start to write that essay in 1981? 🤣
Just kidding, reasonable thoughts there. But I’m way more optimistic; in the future I see whole generations rejecting any communicative online activities, if its not work related. Idk when but at some point people will sinply go outside to be sure to interact with real humans.
But yea, good that you found a way out now already, can’t say the same for myself 🥲
I think that’s bit extreme. I prefer to instead look for where I’m dependent/addicted and make corrections instead of avoid anything that could be addicting. For example:
- I found I spent way too much time on Facebook, so I deleted my account and switched to Reddit as a lurker (eventually made an account)
- I didn’t like how much I depended on Windows, so I switched to Linux
- I found I was too emotionally attached to the news, so I stopped reading/watching it; Reddit helped because I was about to subscribe to only the types of news stories I was interested in (mostly tech)
- I found I used Reddit too much and didn’t like the changes they were making, so I switched to lemmy
And so on. Here’s my tech stack:
- laptop and gaming desktop - openSUSE Tumbleweed
- phone - cheap moto phone, will switch to Pixel soon to switch to GrapheneOS
- home Internet - 50/10 Internet that’s reasonably inexpensive; I’ve largely solved the endless searching problem by getting into hobbies (reading, writing, video games, cycling)
- TVs - one smart TV and another “dumb” TV; I kinda hate the smart TV and use a raspberry pi for the “dumb” TV for streaming services
- streaming services - Disney+ (kids) and Netflix (wife and kids); I used to be kinda addicted to Netflix, but I did some introspection and decided I don’t really like their shows anyway, so I’ll only watch like 1-2 series in a given year
- consoles - switch and steam deck
In other words, I’ve found I can effectively detect and control my behavior. I still spend way too much time on things that don’t matter, but I did that as well as a kid without a phone or consistent Internet access (we had dialup), so I don’t think cutting things out is the solution.
My process is to set aside time to review how I spend my time at least once each year, and I’ll review my phone apps more frequently (about every other month). My phone’s launcher only shows 8 apps:
- text messaging (no phone app, I rarely make calls)
- bank app
- browser
- lemmy app - by far my biggest time suck these days, I may need to remove it from the list
- maps
- calculator
- YouTube app - actually newpipe; only shows updates from subscriptions, so no recommendations
- Libby for audiobooks
That’s it. If I want something else, I have to go look for it, and I rarely do that.
When it comes to AI, I really don’t have much exposure to it. I buy video games based on recommendations from people, not web services, and I generally only play single player games without microtransactions. I only open a streaming service if I already know what I want to watch. And so on.
This works for me, so I remain pretty connected, but in a controlled way. If you want to try it, set aside time to do some introspection on why you’re doing the things you do. Are you mindlessly scrolling because you’re bored? Try a hobby so you have something you’re excited about! Do you find yourself in stupid arguments on SM? Set aside a fixed time each day to use SM (there are apps that disable apps after a certain amount of time spent).
I don’t go that far yet, but I did uninstall the Reddit, Meta/Facebook and X/Twitter apps off my phone. Whenever I need to check those I just use the browser. Been using federated services more often as a result, and I lose less time procrastinating. (My watch list on YouTube is still at the verge of reaching the maximum size allowed, but hey, baby steps)
For the umpteen-thousandth time, Stallman was right, LOL.
Yup. I wanna do a Librebooted thinkpad with Guix, a dumbphone or a linux phone, and FOSS only at this point. Too bad I can’t afford to get any new hardware rn, and I can’t sell my current hardware because it’s not entirely mine (though I use Linux on it)
Counterpoint. You could launder all incoming content through an LLM running locally with the task to detoxify content. the technology cuts both ways.
I guess most people can’t afford (both time and money) to run an LLM just to have a saner browsing experience. So i suspect the key to adoption would be for the community to band together and spawn some LLM servers for the community backed by donations or other sustainable practices.
The future is probably once again crowd computing. We could probably use the federated network to distribute LLM requests from the community and load balance among those that are running LLM endpoints.
For anyone who is interested, I highly recommend to read this article: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frai.2023.1216340/full
I agree that generative AI is polluting the wider mainstream internet, turn every corner and you will see AI being mentioned or used ad nauseum. I also agree that captologist algorithms are addictive. But to disagree, I think you should still have faith in the wider population. The dopamine addicts are a fraction of the total population. I believe it is possible to outsmart AI driven captology. To give this up means giving into fatalism that AI technology is somehow “stronger than us” and will “enslave us”. I think this is x-risk speak and it’s being utilized by big AI to fear-monger and control public sentiment (which seems to be effective given the numerous articles from mainstream tech outlet).
That being said, I also don’t have a perfect way out for those who have fully embraced mainstream tech and services. Seems like they don’t care about their privacy because they have “nothing to hide”, are easily sold “privacy-friendly” solutions that are still shady (ahem Brave) and part of the problem, maybe they will care when their own bubble bursts. It’s hard to tell an addict to quit cold turkey.
I’ll share what I’m doing: stick to FOSS, use the Fediverse, run Linux and GrapheneOS, I also self-host a lot of services I rely on, don’t use any social media besides pseudo-anonymous forums, and only using second hand devices and parts. I’m exposed to the internet daily and have managed to avoid the generative AI plague and captology algorithms. I don’t view my relationship with technology as parasitic or unhealthy.
Also, you might be interested in this: https://permacomputing.net/
