“Tristan Harris, fondatore del Center for Humane Technology, ha messo in moto il movimento Time Well Spent; un risveglio culturale alla subdola manipolazione della nostra consapevolezza collettiva attraverso le piattaforme di social media e la tecnologia interattiva. Sta guidando il dibattito in merito all’etica nel design della tecnologia, in particolare della tecnologia che pervade ogni nostro momento di consapevolezza. Avendo precedentemente lavorato dietro le quinte di questa industria che massimizza l’attenzione del consumatore, Tristan mette in luce i meccanismi interni inappropriati dell’economia dell’attenzione e mostra al pubblico come le nostre menti sono state dirottate per ottenere un guadagno finanziario, senza responsabilità verso il benessere effettivo degli utenti.
Il cervello umano non può competere con le applicazioni lampeggianti, accattivanti e seducenti che lottano tra loro per la nostra attenzione e divorano una percentuale incredibile dell’energia consapevole del mondo. Il suo lavoro è unico e controverso, in quanto sfida l’etica di molte delle più potenti entità del mondo. È tempo di prendere coscienza dell’uso dell’intelligenza artificiale e dei molti intelligenti trucchi psicologici che queste piattaforme usano per agganciare le nostre menti allo schermo e placare i nostri impulsi per tenerci lì. Tristan sta aiutando così tante persone in tutto il mondo a risvegliare la nostra vulnerabilità a queste forze digitali e alla minaccia che ciò rappresenta per il nostro processo decisionale e di creazione di senso”. (fonte con altre risorse in inglese)
“A decade after he stayed up all night coding a prototype of what was then called an “awesome” button, Rosenstein belongs to a small but growing band of Silicon Valley heretics who complain about the rise of the so-called “attention economy”: an internet shaped around the demands of an advertising economy. […] There is growing concern that as well as addicting users, technology is contributing toward so-called “continuous partial attention”, severely limiting people’s ability to focus, and possibly lowering IQ. […] Drawing a straight line between addiction to social media and political earthquakes like Brexit and the rise of Donald Trump, they contend that digital forces have completely upended the political system and, left unchecked, could even render democracy as we know it obsolete. […] It is revealing that many of these younger technologists are weaning themselves off their own products, sending their children to elite Silicon Valley schools where iPhones, iPads and even laptops are banned. […] Attendees of the 2017 Habit Summit might have been surprised when Eyal walked on stage to announce that this year’s keynote speech was about “something a little different”. He wanted to address the growing concern that technological manipulation was somehow harmful or immoral. He told his audience that they should be careful not to abuse persuasive design, and wary of crossing a line into coercion. […] Harris, who has been branded “the closest thing Silicon Valley has to a conscience”, insists that billions of people have little choice over whether they use these now ubiquitous technologies, and are largely unaware of the invisible ways in which a small number of people in Silicon Valley are shaping their lives”. “The dynamics of the attention economy are structurally set up to undermine the human will,” he says. “If politics is an expression of our human will, on individual and collective levels, then the attention economy is directly undermining the assumptions that democracy rests on.” (The Guardian).
Parole chiavi: addictive technologies, attention economy, [transhuman], ethics of persuasive design