Why 1984 Was Exactly Like 1984.
In the 2020 documentary, the Social Dilemna, filmmaker Jeff Orlowski, rips the mask from big tech, showing how the Silicon Valley of1984 ushered in a revolution that virtually guaranteed our world would become exactly like the one depicted in Orwell's 1984. Using a mixture of dramatic performance and interviews with some of tech's social media pioneers, Orlowski shows how the sophisticated machine learning of major social media platforms is expressly designed to manipulate us, turning people into a product.
The goal is to get us to spend as much time as possible on our screens, while serving up paid advertising. The business model is not unlike any other media; offer your audience content so you can intersperse it with paid ads. The difference, however, is striking. Social platforms are designed to learn how to manipulate your behavior far more efficiently. The algorithms that make this possible are created by humans, but they are immediately released to, and "improved" by the machines—enormous data centers. This is possible because of the massive computing power and data collection these platforms employ. That data is modeled by the machines to create a predictive portrait of you. The machines decide what you'll like and what you'll do. Not what you want but what the machine decides you need to want so it can maximize you as a commercial product.
Simply put, your attention and engagement go to the highest bidder.
For the most part, those who want to buy and sell you are commercial entities. However, as the 2016 election demonstrated, that isn't always the case. As the film points out, these platforms are available to anyone with sufficient resources, including state actors. The Russians didn't "hack" the election. They simply availed themselves of technology designed to manipulate you and me, sowing discord and division.
So what do we do? The film drives to that question, and the conclusion is chilling. The people who are interviewed all hold that humans created these platforms so humans can fix them. They are confident about what must be done, but when asked how to do it, they are nonplussed. During the film, some advise that we unplug, sounding almost like preppers. Others admit that "The Matrix" is seductive, and it's hard to pull the plug. They seem to be grasping for a third way. They also seem to despair of ever escaping the manipulation performed by the platforms they helped create.
It made me think of Jesus' words, "I am the truth," and the promised Spirit. The film offers no overt spirituality. It's entirely materialistic, but as a Christian, I can't help but reflect on how the Gospel offers a real third way for which these techies seem to be searching. Jesus provides a way to live that bisects the area between the Matrix and the preppers. If the machines are simply manipulating millions of years of evolution, we're toast. However, if we are continually being transformed into the image of the Son, we are in effect, a moving target. We are also on a trajectory promised and assured by God. Still, there is a game going on at present between our brains processing at human speed and a logarithmically improving machine intelligence whose speed of development far outstrips our own.
As the film points out, we appear overmatched.
But the documentary assumes a closed system where the material universe hosts a death match between human evolution and Moore's Law. That's not my plausibility grid. Mine includes an active, loving person who is both within AND outside the system because he created it. Despite the film's repeated and non-verbal endorsement of the Center for Humane Technology and its work to mitigate Big Tech's power, the tone of this documentary is pessimistic. It fears a dystopia driven by an amoral and immensely powerful AI in the hands of an oligarchy designed to extract maximum profit from the product, namely us.
The Gospel offers a different picture. It doesn't negate the difficulties we face. In fact, it anticipates them. However, it promises the Resurrection. That's not simply the resuscitation of Jesus, but an entirely remade physical reality within which the goodness, mercy, lovingkindness of God reign. As the Apostle Paul writes, if this is not a real promise, an assured future, then we Christians are fools, fit only to be pitied most of all. The subjects of this film seem to agree.
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