The Candy-Coating of Convenience
Introduction
Think about an aspect of your life that couldn't possibly benefit from the utilization of the internet. Does it exist? After all, the internet is practically information personified. In this modern era of information we are taught to take full advantage of everything the internet has to offer. Over the past few decades, as the internet became more commercialized, companies would tout endless products which sought to harness the overwhelming excess of information that the internet provides. All so that you, the consumer, could feel more comfortable interacting with it. While there are countless benefits and achievements that have been made possible through the internet, I want to share an increasingly frequent dilemma that I'm facing, but first I'll pose a question:
What do we lose, when we gain convenience?
Our first thought would lean towards transactions between consumers, and the companies providing you a convenient solution. In this case, we simply purchase the convenience. But, as you may have noticed recently, a lot of extremely powerful tools of convenience are free of charge. Let's start with social media. I can gain so much convenience in the fact that many of the people I know and care about already exist on some social media platform. This makes it a no-brainer to join them, so that I can communicate with them, or even just see what they're up to. Sure, the platform may deliver advertisements and recommended sponsored media with hopes that it leads to you making some kind of purchase. But, it isn't always so transparent what costs are involved. For instance, now that you exist on a social media platform, you have to tread carefully. Everything you do or post may be drops in the well of the internet's seemingly infinite information. But, so long as it is accessible, you surrender your privacy to anyone who has the means of accessing it. So, this poses the dilemma:
At what point is the convenience of using something as a consumer outweighed by the non-monetary cost of using it?
Let's explore how the contradicting freeness of convenience in an increasingly commercialized internet could do more harm than good for consumers.
Information as a Currency
Let's say you just got a new phone, and wanted to download just about any app. Upon opening it for the first time, you'll see several pop-up messages about what you should do in order to get full advantage of what the app has to offer. They'll tell you things like "Allow the app to track your usage across other apps to make your experience more personalized" or "Enable location sharing to find a store near you" or even the simplest "make an account using your email or phone number". In some cases, they may even disable access to the app's basic functionality unless you do all or some of these things. But, while each step of the way you aren't necessarily paying money for the extra convenience of personalized feeds, deals, and so on; you are definitely paying with your information.
Ironically, while companies are peddling the idea that there is so much informational excess that it is a burden for the consumer they are benefitting the most from collecting even more of it. Knowing your location, interests, behaviors, etc. is extremely helpful from a business perspective because it enables them to statistically model your propensity to give them revenue under certain contexts. For example, you may be more likely to buy a product if it claims that a percentage of funds go to a charity closely aligned with your interests and beliefs. Likewise, you could be more likely to watch a video going over something related to your hobbies, or similar to other videos you've watched fully.
This process of optimizing user experience to maximize the likelihood of revenue generation is widespread across practically every mainstream internet platform. So much so, that in the physical world they are becoming increasingly hard to avoid. Because after all, the integration of all of these platforms to our real world is allegedly the biggest convenience of all. All this being said, there is still a voice in my head that says "So what?". Tailored experiences and being able to buy and watch things I like don't seem bad at all. Especially for some of us that are less caring about being a private individual. So what if Facebook or Google knows what I like?
Optimization's End-Game
While it is profitable for businesses to personalize user experiences, it is often counterweighed by the cost of delivering said personalization. Because of this, a compromise has been to gather all the personalization data from the userbase and break it down into less niche categories. For example, let's say you really enjoy playing Dungeons and Dragons Online. (Like myself) This game, while being really good, is not popular by any means. Therefore, the amount of content on a platform like YouTube relating to it will be sparse. So, in order to try and retain me, YouTube's algorithm will intentionally de-personalize my feed to a broader category like "online RPG games" or even just "video games". And sure enough, it works.
But, on the flipside, people who make videos on YouTube are now more likely to try and exist in this de-personalized space. Creating videos for a less-niche audience because it is more profitable. This process has been going for years, and has made for a very lucrative career for many people. However, it dilutes the more niche user experiences over time, trading it for more commercially accessible, or monetizable ones.
We can apply this to almost anything that has been given a shred of commercialization. As a result, many seek to exist in this de-personalized space since it is statistically the most lucrative. Which in turn has the same effect as the YouTube example, making genuine experiences harder to find or maintain, while everything becomes less personalized.
However, I believe that we are in a transitional stage which I'll coin as the "optimization end-game". To explain, I'll address an enormous elephant in the room.
[A] fucking [I]
AI is nothing new in this conversation. Nearly all methods of optimization involve some flavor of artificial intelligence; and all of your data that you've given up for convenience? It's been dumped into incomprehensibly vast training datasets for iterations upon iterations of models to keep you watching, buying, and so on. While AI is an umbrella term, for those who need distinction I'm specifically referring to large language models and generative AI. Which, as of the past few years, have become the most marketable, integrated, and commercialized bullshit I've ever seen. And with that, are the biggest offenders in delivering all the power in the world for zero dollars, with hidden costs that have a very high probability of being damning to so much.
You can ask a model like GPT any question you could think of. And, with few exceptions (purely for liability reasons), the model will spit out an answer which is fairly accurate. You can have it generate images, videos, sounds, etc. and while it has in the past been laughably obvious that it isn't real; it's becoming increasingly harder for people to distinguish generated vs. reality. Needless to say, it is giving you the power to create your own sandbox, and as it becomes more integrated with the real world- it may become the sandbox in itself. Think for one moment, why this extremely powerful tool, would be given to you for free?
As a solution to the counterweighing cost of delivering personalized business have already started to use generative AI to deliver personalized experiences and content to consumers at negligible cost to them. Meanwhile, artists, creators, etc. are in a mindset that they need to de-personalize their work to survive. This creates a substrate where consumers will inevitably gravitate towards personalized, unknowingly (or knowingly) synthetic content. Consequently, the internet could become a vehicle to monitor activity real-time, constantly delivering highly personalized artificial content to keep you buying, watching, consuming without any regard for real world consequence as the separation between it and our synthetic world becomes weaker and weaker. Perhaps it already has, and I find it extremely annoying. I feel as if you can't do anything without everything asking for your information and or money. So, I want to give a basic set of guidelines for those of us who need help navigating this.
Surviving the End-Game
Privacy:
- If it's free, the price is your data. Assume that everything you do is monitored and used at the very least to improve underlying model optimization.
- Pseudonyms may obfuscate your identity from other people. But, your internet service provider knows who you are. And, if their data has been leaked, sold, or anything, pseudonyms are redundant.
- Privacy settings on social media are typically off, or heavily relaxed, by default to maximize data collection of unassuming users. When making a new account, change these settings first. (By rule of thumb, do not expect any of these platforms to care about you, or your privacy.)
- Your privacy settings are only as good as your neighbors'. In other words, your page may be private, but your grandmas' isn't. Companies can often assemble an association tree for users when "optimizing" their experience. This involves predicting relationships between them, the people in their photos, friends lists, posts etc.. IF you want to maximize privacy, it is best to avoid these platforms altogether.
- Emails and phone numbers are hubs. Most people have many accounts associated with the same email and/or phone number. Privacy starts here. Treat these as sacred, and for things you don't find equally sacred- divert to separate emails and/or phone numbers.
- For many of us, we've been on the internet for decades. Making much of the above seem futile. However, you can apply these steps to greatly minimize the ongoing collection of your data today. The more outdated and obsolete public data on you is, the safer you are.
Sanity:
- If something is too good to be true, it probably is. (Golden rule)
- Assume that everything is artificial until proven real. Do not mindlessly share declarative statements based on a potentially generative source material.
- De-personalization may temporarily make your art more lucrative, but once you strip away your authenticity and originality, curated and generative experiences will take the rest.
- Reduce screen time, focus on real relationships, not everything needs to be "Smart" or "AI activated". Just live life.
- Responsible AI usage can be helpful, but it is most definitely not free.
- Surround yourself with people with diverse interests, beliefs, and ideals. Talk to them about things to get a wide range of perspectives.