The previous blog summarized the first part of our discussion on Facebook algorithms and how they can become accountable to users. This blog summarizes the second part where we took a look at the potential and reasons for hope in this technology. While the temptation of algorithm misuse for profit maximization will always continue, can these technologies also work for the good? Here are some thoughts on this direction.
Elias: I never know where the discussion is going to go, but I’m loving this. I loved the question about tradition. Social media and Facebook are part of a new tradition that emerged out of Silicon Valley. But I would say that they are part of the broader tradition emerging out of cyberspace (Internet), which is now roughly 25 years old. I would also mention Transhumanism as one of the traditions influencing Big Tech titans and many of its leaders. The mix of all of them forms a type of Techno Capitalism that is slowly conquering the world.
Levi: This reminds me of a post on the Facebook group that Jennifer posted a few months ago. It was a fascinating video from a Toronto TV station where they looked 20 years back and showed an interview with a couple of men about the internet. They were talking with excitement about the internet. They then interviewed the same men today. Considering how many things have changed, he was very skeptical. There was so much optimism and then everything became a sort of capitalist money-grabbing goal. I used to teach business ethics for 6 years in the Bay area. One of the main things I taught my students about is the questions we need to ask when looking at a company. What is their mission, and values? What does the company say they uphold? These questions tell you a lot about what the company’s tradition is.
The second thing is what is the actual corporate culture? One of the projects I would have the students do is every week they would present some ethical problem in the news related to some business. It’s never hard to find topics, which is depressing. We found a lot of companies that have had really terrible corporate cultures. Some people were incentivized from the top to do unethical things. When that is your standard, meeting a certain monetary goal, everything else becomes subordinated to that.
Milton Friedman said 50 years ago that the social responsibility of a business is to increase its profit. According to Friedman, anything we do legally to obtain this is acceptable. If the goal is simply this then the legal aspect is subordinate to the goal then we can change that by changing laws in our favor. The challenge is that this focus has to come from the top. In a company like Facebook, Zuckerberg has the majority of shares, and then the board of directors are people he has hand-picked. So there is very little actual oversight.
Within the question about tradition, Facebook has made it very clear that their tradition is sharing. That means sharing your personal information with other people. We would want to do that to some extent, but he is also sharing your data with third-party companies that are buying the data to make money. If profit is the goal everything becomes subordinated to that. Whether the sharing is positive or negative is less of a question of is it being shared and if it’s making money.
Glimpses of Hope in a Sea of Skepticism
Elias: I would like to invite Micah, president of the Christian Transhumanist Association to share some thoughts on this topic. We have extensively identified the ethical challenges in this area. What does Christian Transhumanism has to say and are there any reasons for hope?
Micah: On the challenge of finding hope and optimism, I was thinking if we compare this to the Christian tradition and development of the creeds, you are seeing some people looking at this emergence and saying that it is a radical, hopeful, and optimistic option in a world of pessimism. If you think about ideas of resurrection and other topics like this, it is a radical optimism about what will happen to the created order.
The problem you run into (even in the New Testament) is a point of disappointed expectations. People are “where is he coming, where is the transformation, when will all this be made right?” So the apostles and the Christian community have to come in and explain the process of waiting, it will take a while but we can’t lose hope. So a good Christian tradition is to maintain optimism and hope in the face of disappointed expectations and failures as a community. In the midst of bad news, they stayed anchored on the future good news.
There is a lesson in this tradition of looking at the optimism of the early internet community and seeing how people maintain that over time. You have to have a long-term view that figures out a way to redemptively take into account the huge hurdles and downfalls you encounter along the way. This is what the Christian and theological perspectives have to offer. I’ve heard from influential people from Silicon Valley that you can’t maintain that kind of perspective from a secular angle, if you only see from a secular angle you will be sorely disappointed. Bringing the theological perspective allows you to understand that the ups and downs are a part of the process, so you have to engage redemptively to aim for something else on the other side.
Explainability and Global Differences
Micah: From a technical perspective, I want to raise the prospect of explainability AI and algorithms. I liked what Maggie pointed out about the ecosystems where the developers don’t actually understand what’s going on, that’s also been my experience. It’s what we’ve been baking into our algorithm, this lack of understanding of what is actually happening. I think a lot of people have the hope that we can make our algorithms self-explanatory, and I do definitely think we can make algorithms that explain themselves. But from a philosophical perspective, I think we can never trust those because even we can’t fully understand our mental processes. Yet, even if we could explain and we could trust them perfectly there are still unintended consequences.
I believe we need to move the focus of the criteria. Instead of seeking the perfect algorithm, focus on what are the inputs and outputs of this algorithm. It has to move to a place of intentionality where we are continually revisiting and criticizing our intentions. How are we measuring it (algorithm) and how are we feeding them information that shapes it? These are just some questions to shift the direction of our thinking
Yvonne: You have shared very interesting ideas. I’ve been having some different thoughts on what I’ve been reading. In terms of regulation and how companies would operate in one region versus the other. I have a running group with some Chinese women. They often talk to me about how the rules in China are very strict towards social media companies. Even Facebook isn’t allowed to operate fully there. They have their own Chinese versions of social network companies.
Leadership plays a crucial role in what unfolds in a company and any kind of environment. When I join a company or a group, I can tell the atmosphere based on how the leadership operates. A lot of big companies like Facebook, their leadership, and decision-makers have the same mindset and thoughts on profits. Unless regulation enforces morality and ethics most companies will get away with whatever they want to. That’s where we come in. I believe we, as Christians, can influence how things unfold and how things operate using our Christian perspective.
In the past year, we have all seen how useful technology can be. Even this group is a testimony of how even with different time zones we can have a meeting without having to take plane tickets, which would be more expensive. I think technology has its upsides when applied correctly. That defines whether it will be helpful or detrimental to society.
Brian: Responding to the first part of what Micah said when we think about technology and its role it can be easier if we think about two perspectives. One as a creative vector. Where we can create value and good things. But at every step, there is the possibility of bias to creep in. I mean bias very broadly, it can be discrimination or simple mistakes that multiply over time. So there has to be a “healing” vector where bias is corrected. Once the healing vector is incorporated, the creative vector can be a leading force again. I believe that the healing vector has to start outside ourselves. The central thought of the Christian faith is that we can’t save ourselves, we require God’s intervention and grace. This grace moves through people and communities so that we can actively participate in it.
Elias: I think this also comes from the concept of co-creation. The partnership between humanity and God, embracing both our limitation (what some call sin) but also our immense potential as divine image-bearers.
I look forward to our next discussion. Until then, blessings to all of you.