Many people have been working hard for a long time to develop tech that helps to read people’s feelings. They are working on ways to read facial expressions, gazes, word choices, tones of voice, sweat, skin conductance, gait, nervous habits, and many other body features and motions. Over the coming years, we should expect this tech to consistently get cheaper and better at reading more subtler feelings of more people in more kinds of contexts more reliably.
People aren't thatt naive - deep down they already know this hypocrisy between our public feelings and private feelings exists, and won't freak out when the hypocrisy is exposed. They will adjust their expectations and move forward. That was my reaction to The Elephant in the Brain, at least. Maybe other people won't adjust as quickly.
Right now some people are more successful at hypocritical doublethink than others. This skill is probably normally distributed. It comes at the price: not being able to peek into one's decision-making algorithm. I guess that makes a hypocritical person less adequate for some jobs (programming comes to mind). The distribution of this skill today roughly reflects how useful it is to be conscious-thinker vs double-thinker.
To know how hypocralypse unfolds one needs to know what this trade-off looks like in the future. We might go full-doublethink world, where anyone who fails to hide signs of selfish motives is exiled. But that is only if there is no significant gains from conscious-thinkers to the society. Aspies seem to be increasingly more important for economy (and got boost in status).
I think it might go either way when it comes to deciding whether we exile conscious-thinkers or get rid hypocrisy from our behaviour. Or somehow it might stay in the middle.
I tend to agree with you on the dangers to the first amendment but I think it's important we do preserve it so I'm excluding laws which violate it from the class of appropriate/desirable solutions even if they might obtain regardless. I mean I think it's also a possibility that there will be some kind of nuclear war that eliminates high tech entirely but I didn't mention it because I'm hoping that isn't how we deal with the problem.
But Child porn isn't where I think the (US supreme) court's first amendment protections are weakest (though it is a weak spot). They did, after all, rule that simulated child porn (e.g. computer renders etc..) was protected. I tend to be more worried about the use of speech in criminal sentencing/probation (e.g. deciding that someone can be punished more because they voice a particular view like not accepting christ as their savior or the use of hate crime enhancements based on the actor's other statements) and the very very limited protections the court has deemed required against official retaliatory action.
So yah, I could see a situation in which the court ends up formally claiming to uphold free speech but allowing laws that impose some kind of super strict (UK style) libel penalties for such automated judgements. I simply didn't include such a possibility in the space of desirable responses.
Absolutely - but there are places with a mismatch between feedback delay and decision speed, and those with the longest mismatches are where I think we already see the most problematic dynamics.
I've been thinking about a similar but more general problem, that most complex social systems have slow feedback loops while tech now changes quickly. There seems to be a worrisome general trend towards having what I've started calling complexity overhangs, (a better term would be useful) where there are looming crises created by fast changes in complex systems where we cannot see the impact until much later.
This describes your specific case, but it just as easily applies to, say, global warming and carbon emissions, or HFT and stock market structures.
Will those who accuse others or racism, sexism, or sex harassment feel or seem "creepy" for accusing them on the basis of less visible info? Or will they more seem heroic activists because of their extra effort to unmask evil?
Young people today have much more access to searching one another's online history than anyone has ever before. In response they've also developed the cultural more that internet stalking or creeping is creepy and a social faux pas. This means young people can stalk someone online but shouldn't reveal that they are and should maintain plausible deniability about it or be called out publicly. A similar thing could appear once people get the technology to easily analyze the emotions and intentions of others. Maybe the older generation keeps at it, but the generations after develop a policy of it being socially negative to reveal that you've 'peeked' at someone. Everyone will peek a little bit, but still attempt to maintain plausible deniability that they haven't peeked and maintain a public image of not being an evil peeking Tom.
People aren't thatt naive - deep down they already know this hypocrisy between our public feelings and private feelings exists, and won't freak out when the hypocrisy is exposed. They will adjust their expectations and move forward. That was my reaction to The Elephant in the Brain, at least. Maybe other people won't adjust as quickly.
Right now some people are more successful at hypocritical doublethink than others. This skill is probably normally distributed. It comes at the price: not being able to peek into one's decision-making algorithm. I guess that makes a hypocritical person less adequate for some jobs (programming comes to mind). The distribution of this skill today roughly reflects how useful it is to be conscious-thinker vs double-thinker.
To know how hypocralypse unfolds one needs to know what this trade-off looks like in the future. We might go full-doublethink world, where anyone who fails to hide signs of selfish motives is exiled. But that is only if there is no significant gains from conscious-thinkers to the society. Aspies seem to be increasingly more important for economy (and got boost in status).
I think it might go either way when it comes to deciding whether we exile conscious-thinkers or get rid hypocrisy from our behaviour. Or somehow it might stay in the middle.
I'm thinking of the kinds of tricks that are already used to defeat facial recognition, such as https://newatlas.com/facial...
I tend to agree with you on the dangers to the first amendment but I think it's important we do preserve it so I'm excluding laws which violate it from the class of appropriate/desirable solutions even if they might obtain regardless. I mean I think it's also a possibility that there will be some kind of nuclear war that eliminates high tech entirely but I didn't mention it because I'm hoping that isn't how we deal with the problem.
But Child porn isn't where I think the (US supreme) court's first amendment protections are weakest (though it is a weak spot). They did, after all, rule that simulated child porn (e.g. computer renders etc..) was protected. I tend to be more worried about the use of speech in criminal sentencing/probation (e.g. deciding that someone can be punished more because they voice a particular view like not accepting christ as their savior or the use of hate crime enhancements based on the actor's other statements) and the very very limited protections the court has deemed required against official retaliatory action.
So yah, I could see a situation in which the court ends up formally claiming to uphold free speech but allowing laws that impose some kind of super strict (UK style) libel penalties for such automated judgements. I simply didn't include such a possibility in the space of desirable responses.
Yes, fair enough. I didn't mean to suggest otherwise.
Absolutely - but there are places with a mismatch between feedback delay and decision speed, and those with the longest mismatches are where I think we already see the most problematic dynamics.
It is worth distinguishing the fast vs slow social loops of influence. Many of our social practices respond very rapidly to changing tech.
Few: "Not many, hardly any; a small number" (SOED)
I've been thinking about a similar but more general problem, that most complex social systems have slow feedback loops while tech now changes quickly. There seems to be a worrisome general trend towards having what I've started calling complexity overhangs, (a better term would be useful) where there are looming crises created by fast changes in complex systems where we cannot see the impact until much later.
This describes your specific case, but it just as easily applies to, say, global warming and carbon emissions, or HFT and stock market structures.
Will those who accuse others or racism, sexism, or sex harassment feel or seem "creepy" for accusing them on the basis of less visible info? Or will they more seem heroic activists because of their extra effort to unmask evil?
"Taylorism did not work" What? Business process engineering has produced huge gains over the last century.
Young people today have much more access to searching one another's online history than anyone has ever before. In response they've also developed the cultural more that internet stalking or creeping is creepy and a social faux pas. This means young people can stalk someone online but shouldn't reveal that they are and should maintain plausible deniability about it or be called out publicly. A similar thing could appear once people get the technology to easily analyze the emotions and intentions of others. Maybe the older generation keeps at it, but the generations after develop a policy of it being socially negative to reveal that you've 'peeked' at someone. Everyone will peek a little bit, but still attempt to maintain plausible deniability that they haven't peeked and maintain a public image of not being an evil peeking Tom.
I don't think it is clear either, but I can and should still worry.
I didn't make any claims about the rate of tech advance beyond "within a few decades". This may take decades, but it is coming.
Yes, it visibility to this tech may be wider than to ordinary humans.
Do you have anything concrete in mind?