Jaron Lanier Fixes the Internet | NYT Opinion

what is data mmm yes what is data imagine two of your old college friends just had a baby they post a selfie and of course it's adorable and of course you like it but soon you notice that your newsfeed starts to change you see promotions for a baby sling that would be perfect for new parents and it's even got a logo of your old college and look there's a discount so so so you buy it you've got a gift for your friends stores made a sale and somewhere there's a giant tech company that just earned a little Commission on the whole thing an incredible cloud of transactions like this is the value that makes the digital economy as it is today I'm here to tell you that you're being shortchanged [Music] I came up with a few crazy scenes in Minority Report the one where our hero is trying to run away from the police but he's being grabbed by each billboard into advertising so the hint see where he is it was supposed to be cautionary but instead people just think it looks cool and in Silicon Valley to this day decades later people say oh that new thing you're designing it looks like it came out of Minority Report that's so cool and I'm like oh God like what does it take what does it take for people to recognize the dystopia I kind of feel like it backfired what has happened is heartbreaking the whole world has become darker the way humans respond the most intensely is with fear or anger people who are afraid people who are angry they pay attention we've created a whole civilization based on tricking each other let me show you what I mean in order to sell you that baby sling a social media company used data they know a world of things about you and your friends the least of which are that your friends just had a baby that you all went to the same college but there's even more the algorithms that run the whole thing they're always adjusting doing little micro experiments to try to find that little variation that'll keep you clicking that'll get you to click on by you don't just see your own friends you see these other people who are selected because the algorithm thinks they'll get you they might look a little richer a little thinner a little cuter or something like that the algorithm doesn't even know it just knows that these images getcha even in this video right now there are algorithms snatching your data with a plan to trick you in the future so look here's the thing this whole shadow economy that runs our world now and concentrates all the wealth and reduces your future would not be possible without the data that's coming from you and your friends you are the fuel for it [Music] you're giving away all your data for free you don't know what data has been taken from you you don't know how its ultimate ly used you don't have any opportunity to take pride in it you don't have any opportunity to make it better to you it's a mystery so you pretend it's nothing but it isn't nothing when you realize that data is the new oil when you realize that this thing being taken from you that you don't think about is the future economic value is your future economic value it's your future economic power the biggest Internet IPO ever values the company at more than 31 bit all-time billionaire today all of a sudden I hope you can see you're giving away everything in exchange for almost nothing we need to affirmatively positively invent a different system that doesn't secure everybody up in the first place and you know what I think we have a solution I think we have charted a way out of this mess and I really can't wait to tell you about it [Music] we made a very particular and gargantuan mistake around the turn of the century we had these two incredible drives one was everything should be free no more paying for music or newspapers everything should be owned by the people shared by the people but we love tech entrepreneurs we loved Steve Jobs the hero hacker who became a millionaire and a billionaire so how do you combine I'm gonna make a Venn diagram with my fingers socialism everything must be free capitalism we have to have tech heroes there's one little space in the middle in that little space you know the advertising model started out really kid but the computers got more and more powerful the algorithms got more sophisticated everything built up built up built up until it turned into this crazy behavioral manipulation scheme so how do we fix this the simplest way to get this idea is you'll get paid for your data and more than you think plus you'll pay for services that are free now but in the balance you'll do better my colleague Glen while and I are charting out how to make a better future how to make a future where people feel their value earn their value and have dignity all right what's our banner what do we call this thing we call this body of ideas data dignity you should have the moral rights to every bit of data that exists because you exist now and forever in a dignified data future when your friends have that baby they might still post about it but they're gonna potentially make money from that data they'll be able to understand decide and earn if they want to and you'll be able to as well let's say you do buy a baby sling your data might have been used to help promote that thing to you in a dignified data future you're gonna get paid and you're gonna get a royalty over time as that system is used okay so how does this work we'll have to invent a lot of things so we need to keep track of where somebody's data ends up we need to have a universe way of people getting paid and paying and it's all totally doable we have to invent a new kind of entity that is an entity that would look out for your interests would deal with all the technical and complicated stuff for you that you would be able to trust by law so this new kind of mediator is called amid it stands for a mediator of individual data amid is an organization that's bigger than an individual but smaller than a whole nation amid is a little like a labor union where they're still enjoying some strength in numbers some mids will be easy to get into they'll be tens of millions of people in them for certain kinds of sort of ordinary data let's say there'll be other means they'll get hard to get into every mid will set its own terms millions of people will join the same mid it'll be like getting car insurance or something that's very routine some mids might pay you incrementally in little micro payments others might pay you every month or every year or averaged out over a year so it's really predictable and that means you're not just gonna earn in the moment but you'll build up a stream of income from your data that will become like a pension in a new world that's actually a compelling world it's a world that can exist when people hear about these ideas of data dignity they often push back it doesn't sound possible it sounds weird well I'm gonna answer all those concerns full criticisms of data dignity my data earnings will be too small to be worth it not true the whole world of Silicon Valley is powered by your data these are trillion dollar companies and the value comes from your data it's absurd to say it's not worth anything it's absurd to say that you would make any money from it if you could we make an estimate that a small family could in the very near term earn something like twenty thousand dollars a year from the value of their data people will never pay for Facebook people used to think that paying for video would be horrible and then Netflix happened and we got peak TV like when you pay for stuff it gets better poor people will be priced out of the Internet the Public Library gave everyone access to printed literature so if that creative solution was available before the internet I'm absolutely convinced that we can rise to the occasion to come up with new solutions that are at least that good it would benefit everybody ultimately but would also guarantee that nobody was left out the tech giants will never go for this we might see an absolute decrease in the relative dominance of the tech companies but the overall economy will grow so much that the tech companies will grow more than they would have otherwise because using your own data against you will cost money any company that wants to will be dissuaded from doing that instead they'll have to come up with productive creative things to do where they add value and people want to pay for that value value yes manipulation no that is a dignified future in a world where the manipulation machine is shut down there will still be people who are paranoid there will still be conspiracy theories but but there will not be a commercial incentive to incite these constantly all the time 24 hours a day our downward spiral we can stop it simply by stopping the amplification of it that is the way you make a working democracy that's the way you make a humane culture it's even worse if you think about the future where your whatever it is you do whether you're a nurse or a bricklayer or a writer anything ai's and robots will probably come for your job the little twist that we don't want anybody to know is that in order for the AI and the robots to work we need everybody's data let me tell you a story I had an experience that moved me terribly I met with a group of elite brilliant high school students they collaborated on the questions and the first one was if we're gonna be surpassed by artificial intelligence if we won't be needed why are we here [Music] I just realized that what we're doing now with our current culture of technology that's so tech centric and just pretends that all the people out there giving us the data don't matter that culture is sending a message of human obsolescence we hear this so often and so much and it breaks my heart if you can't see that try for God's sakes it's so important don't believe that you're worthless it's a lie don't believe it I'm certain that a dignified data economy is not an option but a necessity [Music]

Channel: The New York Times

Views: 197,570

Rating: 4.9244471 out of 5

Keywords: opinion, what is data dignity?, what is data privacy, how does facebook make money off my data?, how do social media companies make money?, how do websites make money?, what does the internet know about me?, why am I getting this ad?, why do I get specific ads?, what is data?, what is wrong with the internet?, who is jaron lanier?

Id: Np5ri-KktNs

Length: 13min 11sec (791 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 30 2019

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[u/bahnmibro]

I'm all for the idea the video is trying to convey, but we have to consider how this looks to non-Yang supporter. The video gives off major conspiracy theory vibes, presented by a man who looks like a hippie. I'm not trying to hate on this video, but realistically I can't imagine non-Yang supporters watching more than 30 seconds. Hope someone can make a more polished video.

[u/ghoztz]

this is great. we need to inform people with videos like this outside of yang's campaign so that they can start to understand why he's pushing for his FD to create human-centered capitalism.

[u/TARTLE_official]

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