Recently released Netflix documentary-'The Social Dilemma' has left a mind-boggling effect upon many out there. The film has kept me busy thinking about it deeply for the last quite a number of days. After intensely introspecting its contents, I finally got the courage to ventilate my thoughts regarding the movie. Basically, this is a review of the documentary which through my writing I feel shall encourage millions of youngsters out there to watch the film and analyse the threats lying in front of us. To begin with, what is a social dilemma or as we say confusion regarding social media? Social media is among the most brightest and superior developments of the 21st century. Almost 90percent of the population at present is linked with social media and the virtual audience, above all the AI- directly or indirectly. While being a part of the process and involving with the virtual audience, certain discrepancies or confusion often crossover our minds. It is normal, trust me, it even happens to tech advisors at Google, Facebook, etc. The social dilemma itself leads to the possibilities of having three other dilemma's:- •The Discrimination Dilemma According to the Internal Facebook Report of 2018, 64% of the people who joined extremist groups on Facebook did so because of the algorithms that steered them there.
•The Democracy Dilemma The New York Times 2019 says that the # (hashtags) of countries with political disinformation campaigns on social media doubled in the past couple of years. •The Mental Health Dilemma A 5,000 person study has found that higher social media use correlates with self-reported declines in mental and physical health as well as life satisfaction. _American Journal Of Epidemiology, 2017
(A message conveyed through the documentary: The Social Dilemma)
It is evident to millions out there that AI's or the Artificial Intelligence is the ultimate future that we are looking towards. By 2065, we humans shall look back at the beginning of the 21st century, the way people then looked back at the 18th century, where children and loved ones were swept away by diseases. Cholera, lung cancer shall no longer threaten us. By 2065, we shall be on the 'verse of freeing ourselves' from the biology that created us.
If there is one thing that hives me pause, is that when human beings are presented with two doors- some new thing, or no new thing- we invariably walk through the first one. Every single time! We were asked, nuclear bombs or no nuclear bombs, and we went with choice A. We always possess a need to know what is on the other side. But once we walked through this particular door, there's a good chance that we won't be able to come back. Even without running into the apocalypse, we'll be changed in so many ways that every previous generation of humans would not recognise us. And once it comes artificial general intelligence will be so smart and so widely dispersed- on thousands of computers- that it's not going to leave. That shall be a good thing, probably, or even a wonderful thing. It is quite possible that humans, just before the singularity, shall hedge their bets, and Elon Musk or some other tech billionaire shall dream up a plan B, perhaps a secret colony under the surface of Mars, 200 men and women with 20,000 fertilised embryos so that humanity gets a chance of surviving if the AIs go awry. (Of course, by penning these words, the AIs will know about such a possibility, sorry Elon!) RESISTANCE IS COSTLY! Yes, while reading this you might think of the fact that livelihood without social media is next to impossible during these times. Social media is stuck to our bodies so firmly that resisting it or not using it has become almost a matter of existential crisis. The mere thought of getting devoid of using WhatsApp after we wake up every morning surely sends a shiver into each of us's spines! It is thus difficult to live a life without social media in order to cope up with the advancing world itself. But it is not completely futile to try and resist or at least limit the uses of social media in our daily life. We can make an effort to reduce our daily usage of Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, or Google to a minimum of our requirements. Lastest android mobile phones do have the option of limiting certain app usage, therefore we can use that if we really want to resist using social media. Above all is the will power and the sense of
the responsibility that shall enable us to do so. Spend more time with real-life associates, family, friends, and the near and dear ones through real communication procedures- in person. The documentary though explains this way better than me! If you haven't watched it yet, just try to manage a couple of hours from your individual schedule and view the documentary, exclusively on Netflix.
(A dialogue from the documentary, The Social Dilemma)
"The Social Dilemma may finally convince you that we are being watched, manipulated, and mislead by unscrupulous platforms and
attention-harvesting algorithms." -VANITY FAIR
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