From the article: “In particular, five fundamental attributes of social media have harmed society. AI also has those attributes. Note that they are not intrinsically evil. They are all double-edged swords, with the potential to do either good or ill. The danger comes from who wields the sword, and in what direction it is swung. This has been true for social media, and it will similarly hold true for AI. In both cases, the solution lies in limits on the technology’s use.”
I’d say it’s that we all have these elements within us.
We’re all born as selfish idiots, how can we be otherwise? We’re helpless at birth, thrust from perfect comfort and safety into discomfort, utterly ignorant and wholly dependent, with no knowledge there are others, who are just as dependent when they’re born.
There’s the variability in personality, but by and large we have to learn to see others as the same as ourselves.
So while we may not all actively try to be assholes, it takes conscious effort to be better than our base nature.
And, I tend to think we all get to be assholes now and again. We all have moments we can look back on and say “oh, yea, I was the asshole that time”.
Social media just reflects humanity, though the algorithms are certainly designed to increase engagement via the simplest mechanisms - emotional engagement. And which are the easiest to target? Yep - the most basic, they have the broadest appeal, because we all share those base emotions.
Another way to look at this: if we didn’t share these base emotions, would the algorithms have any effect?