Social media has been around now for about 20 years. Facebook came in with promises of connecting the world. And well… it did. But it, also, led to a loooot of negative effects.
20 years ago, it was hard to foresee what was ahead. There’s a general consensus that we’d probably be better off today had done some things differently, back 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago. And I think those lessons can be applied to what we’re going through today, with AI. Almost like, with the power of hindsight, maybe we could make better decisions.
Purpose-washing is a really powerful and manipulative tool. Just like Facebook's mission was to bring the world closer together, people tout the power and potential of AI… to bring jobs to communities, cure diseases, make life easier… and that all may be true at some point but these claims are often used as justifications to reject criticism. But we must not go silent and trust, because we’ve seen that purpose is not business model. People will lie and do what’s best for the business, even at the risk of contradicting their stated purpose.
Regulation is always a choice. For two decades we heard the same excuses: social media just moves too fast, it's just a platform, regulation kills innovation, we don’t want anyone to beat us. Laws that shielded social media platforms from regulation were written before social media existed. And we just all kind of accepted these lazy excused and moved on. Until recently, of course, where lack of regulation and nefarious decisions are actually coming at a cost. But the potential costs of AI are even bigger and more foreseeable than with social media, and there are no laws on the books that stifle AI regulation… meaning why AREN’T we doing more. Because of competition and innovation?
Most of our leaders are not ready for the moment… hell, many of them don’t even get what it is. Their old, out of touch, understanding that any negative impacts will likely not impact them. We must push, pressure, and vote like AI is a big deal that must be contended with. Making sure that the folks that make the rules know that waiting 20 years to start holding folks accountable isn’t sustainable.
We’ve seen this movie. We should not be playing it back.
