Why does anybody want algorithms? I want to spend all my time on social media interacting with a set of people I, personally, curated. It's not exactly rocket science.
This is so maddening to see: “AI, defined as technology that can think humanly, act humanly, think rationally, or act rationally, is also close to being used to simplify the political and bureaucratic business of policymaking.”
The amount of people who believe #algorithms are run by #God is more than people who believe #politics is run by God. All are delusional. Why do so many #worship a God of #predation?
Those who believe in no higher #power but self are fewer but more #deviant.
THE WEST is brainwashed. I remember #Rumsfeld laughing about this outcome when testing models at #darpanet in 1980. The fall of #civilization isn't funny. He intended only those he chose to survive. They now have all the #money & #power.
TITLE: YouTube Pseudo-Psychology, Algorithm Traps, and How I Got Set-Up
to Look Like I Cheat
My wife and I share a YouTube Premium subscription. A few weeks ago I
was scrolling through YouTube recommendations when I came across a video
on different male personality types.
"Sure", I thought, "I'm a therapist -- why not check it out". So I
watched the video as it invited me to try and decide which type of male
I was as they described them. I noticed they made the "Sigma Male"
sound the most attractive -- which was a bit odd -- but I thought little
more about it.
A few weeks later (tonight), up popped a video on 10 characteristics of
a "Sigma Male". I was curious, so I watched it. They spent the whole
video making "Sigma Males" seem like super heroes. Suspicious now, I
went to the channel these videos were coming from to look around.
I was displeased to see that 10% of the videos were on male personality
characteristics, and 90% of the videos were dedicated to how Sigma
Males Get Women. Video after video of how to bag yourself a blonde or
brunette. Yuck.
You can guess where this is going -- now our shared YouTube
recommendations list is full of how-to videos on attracting hot women.
The uncool thing is I have never watched any such video to deserve
this. The really uncool thing is my wife will be spotting this
tomorrow. Happily -- she is very understanding and not the jealous type.
Besides -- she can always look at my view history. I'll also be sending
her this message. :)
Is there actually a valid psychological theory outside pop psychology
including "Sigma Males"? When I Google it, I get lots of pop psychology
websites, including something called the "Incel Wiki".
Now I do feel slightly ill.
-- Michael
APPENDED NOTE:
I sent the original note above out a few days ago on a national psych
listserv and it engendered some relevant psychological discussion on how
AI and algorithms effect the mental health of our clients.
Happily my wife thought the note and situation above hilarious (I
thought she might).
Part of what was so troubling to me here was the clear funneling process
being executed on vulnerable young men on YouTube:
STEP 1: Grab guys just interested in learning about themselves. (Or
psychotherapists interested in personality systems.)
STEP 2: Make "Sigma Males" sound like the most attractive type so they
are identified with. (Lonely geeks are recast as desirable lone wolf
types with all the skills of alpha males.)
STEP 3: Game the YouTube algorithm so the next recommendations are how
"Sigma Males" get women. (I decided to bail at this point so I am not
going to view what is being recommended. Judging by the fact that "Sigma
Male" connects in Google searches to Incel websites, I shutter to think...)
[It's possible that "Sigma Male" is a term from a legitimate personality
system, but if so, its been at least partially co-opted by pop psychology.]
A discussion commenter stated: /"The mental health challenge is to help
people become aware of how AI is taking over their lives so that they
can manage the AI rather than have the AI manage them."/
My new resolve to periodically create new YouTube profiles to get out of
old tracking algorithms is one example of an adaptation.
*People need other ways to escape tracking to get out of boxes* -- like
the old BBS (bulletin board systems) that let you read (or not read)
every community comment from every poster without algorithms tailoring
your newsfeed.
*People need tools to recognize when they are being herded into specific
ways of thinking.* Like many of our political silos. Like my original
example above of an interest in male psychology potentially leading to
Incel-like "education" on how to be a "Sigma Male" who gets all the women.
*Businesses need some government regulation in what tracking they can do
-- in all environments, but especially the free ones.* People may need
to return to PAYING for their information sources so they themselves are
not the product.
Ironically, it was GOOGLE, whose "I'm feeling lucky" button below the
search engine field used to take users to a random website somewhere on
the Internet.
*We are now in need of actively maintaining personal ways to randomly
escape our information bubbles so as to better recognize them.**
***
-- Michael
*Michael Reeder, LCPC
*
*Hygeia Counseling Services : Baltimore / Mt. Washington Village location*
*410-871-TALK / michael(at)hygeiacounseling.com*
#psychology #socialwork #psychotherapy #research #incel #AI
#artificialintelligence #youtube #mentalhealth @psychology@a.gup.pe
@socialwork@a.gup.pe @psychotherapists@a.gup.pe @psychiatry@a.gup.pe
#Algorithms #personalitytests @silos
We make a grave error when we say an algorithm “decided” anything.
No computer in the world has ever yet made a decision. The decision was made by the people who designed the system, marketed it, bought it, deployed it, or based actions on it.
Nobody has been denied credit or an apartment lease because an algorithm “decided” it should be so. A person decided. Every. Time.
After just a month away from #twitter, I'm only now starting to appreciate how extremely damaging these content delivery #algorithms are. The more I talk to younger people about their relationship to #SocialMedia, the more lean towards #policy which would put substantive constraints on companies who knowingly manipulate the human reward/dopaminergic system. The wholesale import of all the vile tools of the casino industry into the distribution of information is truly wrecking our brains.