Techy or tacky: why social media is just about bearable

I joined Twitter this week.

Now, given that Twitter has been around for over a decade, you might think I'm coming a little late to the party, and you'd be absolutely right. This is no accident. I've been purposely avoiding Twitter under the impression that it's a platform where people go to snipe about the contestants on Celebrity Love Island having cellulite, or to spread disinformation about the 'dangers' of vaccines, to showcase their hatred of Jews and Muslims, and to share the general minutiae of their everyday lives with the entire planet.

I haven't changed my opinion in this respect; I still think that Twitter is the place to go to discuss celebrity cellulite, to spread disinformation, hatred, and minutiae - but now I'm willing to admit that there is (a little) more to it than merely this.

It's not just Twitter of course: Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Weibo (etc) are also guilty. Social media as an institution is predicated on the fact that people love to make snarky comments from behind the safety of the screen. I've written previous posts about people encouraging a girl to kill herself on social media (which sadly, she did), and people are oh-so willing to criticise politicians, celebrities, and indeed anyone via the wonderful internet.

I must admit I'm not above this sort of attitude - after all, in this blog post I have made (albeit implicit) judgements about people who watch Celebrity Love Island, oppose vaccinations, and so on. It's a human compulsion to criticise, and social media is the ideal place to do it: people can be vicious without (much) recourse, and reading the comments is a sure-fire way to waste away your life. That's why I try to avoid it.

You might be surprised that someone writing a PhD about AI and future tech shuns social media, but there is no reason to think that all tech is a force for good. We shouldn't just accept tech with open arms merely because it is new or techy. (Indeed, my thesis will serve as a warning as well as an attempt at a solution to the perils of new tech.)

I've not always shunned social media: I spent ten years of my life on Facebook, and it was not time well spent. I knew it was drivel, yet I found myself scrolling through it several times a day, often shaking my head at the banality of its content, but reading it nonetheless! 

I probably spent an hour a day looking at the chocolate-covered faces of the nephews of old school friends, or watching people I once met on holiday pour a bucket of ice over their head, or listening to the rants of people I didnt really consider friends, but felt social pressure to friend them on Facebook because they'd sent me a request and I sort of knew them. It took the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018 to give me the push I needed to leave Facebook. 

So, I deleted my account.* The following day, there were several times when I thought to myself "I'll just check Faceb-- oh, I deleted it. Ok I'll do something else." Within a couple of days, I stopped thinking about it altogether, and didn't miss it at all. Now, it's just not a part of my life any more. It's something I wasted a lot of time on, and ditching it gave me more time to devote to other things (such as my son -- not just eBay, Pinterest and TV!)

* Social media being what it is, I understand that my profile was not really deleted, at least, not by Facebook. It'll never be obliterated, short of a planetary meltdown on the scale of the extinction of the dinosaurs.

After that watershed moment (not just leaving Facebook, but leaving Facebook and not missing it at all), I resolved to stay away from social media for good. In my humble opinion, Facebook is possibly the least toxic of the social media outlets: at least it's people I know writing about things in their actual lives. On the other hand, Instagram is probably rife with duck-pout selfies and photos of people's dinners (this is my guess; I must admit I haven't checked). Snapchat is the place to go if you wish to receive unsolicited "dick pics" (again, this is my guess, not an empirical fact). And as I wrote earlier, Twitter is primarily celebrity-bashing, banal arguments, and disinformation. Weibo I'm less sure about, but it is probably filled with posts of people wholeheartedly endorsing the amazing Chinese government. In a nutshell, it seems to me that social media platforms are the means by which humans disseminate the drivel which we would tune out if someone were saying it IRL (in real life). Or it is the written (photographic) manifestation of smalltalk which is palatable in tiny doses, but causes severe nausea and brain damage when taken as a regular part of one's diet. 

So why the turnaround?

If the above is my genuine opinion of social media (and it is) then why on earth have I just joined Twitter?

Well, I was convinced by my friend and fellow grad student Mo (I'm not mentioning their real name; I wouldn't want to be named on someone's blog without my knowledge, unless they were citing my awesome work, of course). Mo said that Twitter is a great place to find out about new research, to make connections with people writing about similar things, and to find out about conferences. At first I was unconvinced, but Mo made a compelling argument. Mo also said Twitter is a great place to self-publicise (although Mo noted that they hate soing this, as it sounds so arrogant and conceited).

I gave it a fair bit of thought, and decided that Mo was probably quite right - Twitter could be useful.

But how could I go on Twitter whilst avoiding the chatter about celebrity cosmetic surgery and the banal minutiae of strangers' lives? Further reflection gave me my answer, and I felt more than a little sheepish. Social media is an echo chamber: if my previous experiences were characterised by pointless trivialities, then I had only myself to blame. If my online friends had interests which I was/am so disdainful of, then why did I engage with it - and with them? I must have engaged with it, because it kept coming back! 

The Plan

This time around, on Twitter, my intention is this: 

1. Follow only people or organisations whose interests truly fit with my own

2. Don't engage with banality, should I happen to see it

3. Unfollow people who routinely post banality 

Will it work out? We shall see. If I don't complete my PhD because I'm too busy commenting on botched nosejobs and why a score on Strictly should have been an 8 rather than a 7, then we'll know the experiment failed.

Wish me luck.

Why people encourage suicide online

Many philosophical issues - and many interactions with others - are not matters of life and death. But some are.

Please note that this post contains discussion of suicide, and why some people endorse suicide. If you think you will find this upsetting then you may choose not to read on.

One of this week's headlines involves a 16 year old girl who took her own life after she posted a poll on Instagram asking her followers or others to decide whether or not she should die; 69% of respondents voted that she should die... A few hours later she took her own life.

This is an utterly tragic story. Any loss of life, particularly one so young, is really sad. It's made so much more tragic when the cause of the death is suicide. And worse again that she did so upon the suggestion, encouragement and endorsement of others. Suicide is, in my opinion at least, the most overwhelmingly sad cause of death for family and friends of the deceased. Whenever someone dies it provides some small amount of comfort to know that "he had a good life" "he fought right till the very end" or "he made the most of his life" but these cannot be said when suicide is the cause of death, because the deceased was not just unhappy, but so immeasurably unhappy that they think there is nothing worth living for any more. My son is only young but I know there is no greater fear for a parent. It's the second leading cause of death in children and teens (behind car accidents) in the Western world. It can happen to anyone and is totally preventable and never something which should be encouraged or done flippantly as a result of a poll on Instagram. Suicide is not a hashtag; it ends the life of a person and ruins the lives of family and friends - particularly parents - of the deceased, and I hope if anyone close to me ever feels so desperate, that they turn to me rather than social media.

But this is not a post solely about the tragedy of suicide - the tragedy of suicide is fairly obvious. This post concerns the girl who took her life after the Instagram poll and asks the question: why did 69% of people vote that she should kill herself?

In some sense, people's motives are an empirical matter; their motive is what it is, and that's the end of it. But it's my blog so I can do it if I want, even if it's not "real philosophy", so I'll hypothesise and comment upon some possible reasons why someone might vote yes in a suicide poll.

So here are some possible reasons I think someone might vote yes to a suicide poll on Instagram. I think they're fairly exhaustive but maybe there are other motives too.
- they're using reverse psychology to save her life
- they think suicide is the ideal way for her to end her pain and suffering
- they think suicide is awesome
- they're evil, sadistic bastards
- they don't think she'll really do it
- the distant and impersonal nature of social media makes people say things they wouldn't normally say

Let's consider each of these:

They're using reverse psychology to save her life

Sometimes I can't decide between A and B, so I flip a coin to help me decide. Sometimes when it turns up A, I feel disappointed, and that tells me that what I really wanted was B, so I do B. Similarly, sometimes when you can't decide something, having another person suggest a course of action can actually persuade you to do the opposite; it makes you realise what you actually want. Perhaps some people were attempting this sort of 'bluff' to make the girl confront the reality of suicide so as to realise that she did in fact want to live, in the same way that sometimes telling a child to give up X-ing makes them try harder to X. It's reverse psychology at its simplest. So yes it's possible that people were trying to do this, but I don't think there are many people who would want someone to live and therefore tell them to commit suicide; it's too risky a bluff. But it could combine with another reason below such as they don't think she'll do it.

They think suicide is the ideal way for her to end her pain and suffering 

It's possible that some people voted 'yes' to the girl's suicide out of some sort of misguided sympathy. They saw someone in mental anguish and felt sorry for her; they wanted her pain to end. In the same way that someone might see a dog in extreme pain and conclude that it's better for the dog to be euthanised so its pain ends. This sort of mentality relies on the mistaken assumption that staying alive will be bad, and is almost certainly the faulty reasoning which suicidal people utilise. Even if something terrible has happened in your life, suicide is never the answer. There will be some bad parts of life but life is still precious and suicide only ruins the lives of others. Except in cases of painful terminal and degenerative illnesses, life is better than death. Most people know this, and enjoy most of life. I'm not trying to be flippant, as I've felt suicidal before, but life got better and now I have an awesome life.

So did people vote yes out of misguided sympathy, or giving the girl what she wants? This is possible, but highly implausible. If someone really cared about the girl, they'd urge her to seek help and go on living.

They think suicide is awesome

I suppose there are some people who think suicide is a good thing. Perhaps because it rids the world of sad people, and it's just basically cool and decadent, that it's done by celebrities, and a way of gaining notoriety. This is a ludicrous viewpoint. Anyone who thinks suicide is good is serously mistaken; it's the worst thing in the world. I don't think that any living person genuinely thinks suicide is cool and a great thing to do, but if they do they need to turn to family and friends and mental health services to seek help (some links are at the bottom of this post).

But do I believe anyone voted yes because they have this viewpoint? It's a distinct possibility. Social media can become an echo chamber and maybe her followers think that suicide is a good thing, as she did.

They're evil, sadistic bastards 

This is the go-to reason which most of us assume when we hear that people voted yes to someone contemplating suicide. There have been polls (I don't have any references though) where people have said that if murder was legal or they knew they wouldn't face punishment then they would probably do it. I guess many people who have that feeling are thinking it with a particular person in mind. They don't want to kill just anyone, they want to kill their ex or someone who bullied them, for example. But yeah there are undoubtedly people who just want the experience of killing. Maybe they've killed insects and small animals and enjoyed it and they fancy killing someone but they don't want to go to prison... but then up pops an Instagram poll and they get the chance to cause someone's death just for fun, and so they click yes. All the fun of a murder, without the prison time (however it's worth noting that encouraging or helping someone to take their own life is a crime in the UK.)

I think the "guiltless murder" mentality probably (sadly) accounts for some of the yes votes.

They don't think she'll really do it

Many people who see a poll about suicide probably doubt that the poster will really follow through, but that alone wouldn't explain them clicking yes. It would have to be teamed with another belief, like "I don't think she'll do it, so I'll call her bluff" or "I don't think she'll do it, so it doesn't matter if I click yes". Even so, either of these motives are taking a very risky and very flippant attitude towards life and death. Because it shows that the person voring hasn't really grasped the gravity of the situation. Yes the girl who posted the poll might be bluffing, but are we so sure that she's bluffing that we're willing to bet her life on it? If yes then we fall into the "evil sadistic bastard" group above, and if no then we would not click yes, just in case she means it. I doubt that the butcher would stab my mum, but if he's stood there with his knife and asks if I would like her to be stabbed, then I'm not going to call his bluff. We wouldn't risk someone else's life on the basis of a hunch unless we kind of wanted the death to occur, or simply didn't care one way or the other, in which case, we're evil sadistic bastards.

The distant social media effect

This is the notion that the distant and impersonal nature of social media makes people say things they wouldn't normally say, and although I think this is probably true, it still does not fully explain people's actions.

The Trolley Problem is a famous philosophical thought experiment involving a runaway train, where a person must make a choice: do nothing and five people will die, or pull a lever and you kill one person (saving five). Most people say they'd pull the lever. In a second scenario, a person must make a choice: do nothing and five people will die, or physically push another person onto the train tracks, and you kill one person (saving five). Here, most people say they wouldn't push the person -- even though the consequences and indeed the motives are identical to the scenario with the lever.

Why?

Probably some sort of proximity effect. Physical contact with the victim brings it much closer to home, and that makes us more mindful of our actions. Knowing that some people died in a faraway land is easier to cope with than knowing that some people died in a nearby area, even when we don't know the victims. News organisations are well aware of this, and the agenda is always local-centric. Translate this into social media and suicide and we might understand that the suicide of someone in front of you in the flesh is more shocking than the suicide of someone far away whom you never knew, and don't see them dying, you don't see their family grieving, and you don't see the aftermath of their death. Analogously, being mean to someone online is 'easier' than being mean to someone in the flesh.

But being mean is still being mean, and encouraging suicide is still encouraging suicide; would a person of good moral standing be mean or encourage suicide simply because they're online? I don't think they would. It seems to me that the anonymity of the Internet coupled with the ease of making comments without dealing with the consequences merely makes people say things they kind of want to say anyway, but they stop themselves because of social convention. Social media is a bit like a "truth serum" inasmuch as people who are nasty at heart show themselves to be nasty when online. Nice people don't encourage others to commit suicide simply because they've gone online. For example, before social media, when chat rooms and online forums were a thing, I frequently corrected people's spelling, grammar, and apostrophe usage, I pointed out flaws in their arguments, and I told them when they'd got their facts wrong. The Internet didn't make me become such a pedant; I am a pedant, and the Internet gave me the means to say the things I always felt like saying, but was (often) too inhibited. In other words, it showed me up for what I really am. Analogously, the people who endorse suicide online almost certainly have a nasty streak in them, and social media has merely brought it out for all to see. The distancing effect of the Internet does not on its own explain people who voted yes to the suicide of a girl. The idea that people say things online which they wouldn't normally say is only a partial explanation, and must be coupled with some underlying personality trait or belief such as the ones mentioned above (eg being an evil bastard, or thinking she won't do it) in order to be a full explanation.

Conclusion 

We're a highly evolved species, but for all our advancement we still have some very primitive drives within us. The drive to be successful, and to out-compete others is right up there with the drive to procreate as one of our most primitive urges. One way to out-compete others is by making yourself look better; another is by making others look worse. That explains bullying (in a very clinical and woefully inadequate way). When people think they can improve their social standing - eg by being nasty to someone else - they may take the opportunity to do so. And when people think there is no possible way for them to ever improve their social standing, they may perceive that there is just no point in anything any more. People are the best thing in the world, and the worst thing in the world. But there is never a good reason to encourage another person to take their own life, and there is never a time when suicide is the only or best choice. There is always, always something that can be done, and someone who can help.

Here are some useful links if you are feeling unhappy, depressed or suicidal, or you know someone who is:
The Samaritans website or phone 116123
Child line website or phone 0800 1111
Mind website
And of course, if you feel you can't keep yourself safe right now, call your GP for an emergency appointment, or 999.

Should human pilots be able to override autopilot?

All over the news this week is the Boeing 737 crash in Ethiopia, which has killed all 157 people on board. The cause of the crash, it seems, is the same as the cause of the Boeing 737 crash in Indonesia last year: a malfunction in the AI autopilot system which is supposed to keep the plane level. It seems that if a plane climbs at an angle greater than 10°, it is likely to stall, and so the AI system (known as MCAS) detects if this is about to happen, and automatically pulls down the nose of the aeroplane, thus preventing it from stalling. That's what is supposed to happen, anyway. Apparently, in both the Indonesia and Ethiopia crashes, the problem was that the MCAS system wrongly detected the angle of the plane (thinking it was angled upwards more than it actually was) and compensated by pulling the nose of the plane downwards. This caused the plane to nosedive and crash.

According to news reports, in both fatal crashes, human pilots had fought against the AI system, trying to regain control of the aircrafts, but failing to do so because the AI system was built to override human input. So we have two cases where the AI was in error, but the human was right, but the AI system 'won', with fatal results. In those cases, if humans had been allowed to override the AI, lives could almost certainly have been saved. But should humans always have the power to override AI?

Why do we create AI systems or machinery in the first place? For two main reasons, it seems:

1. To free up human time
2. To be better than humans / other methods

We invented spinning and weaving machines which could produce cloth more quickly, cheaply and accurately than humans could. We invented the motor car to go faster, further and for longer than a horse can pull a carriage. And presumably we invented the MCAS system for aeroplanes because it can judge angles of ascent and compensate for them more consistently and safely than a human pilot can.

Sometimes, people make mistakes. Sometimes those mistakes are fatal. But it is part of human nature to make mistakes sometimes, even when one is trained to an exceptionally high standard. But we seem to more readily accept human error than AI error. We seem to have a tendency to believe that AI should be flawless, and anything less than 100% perfection is unacceptable. I don't know the stalling statistics of planes prior to the MCAS system; if human error on the issue was higher than AI error, then shouldn't we just accept that, although some people have died as a result of the MCAS system, many more have been saved? If human error on take off used to cause 300 deaths a year, and endanger many more, then an AI system which 'only' causes 160 deaths a year is an improvement, isn't it?

But we are loathe to accept that, because we have a sentimental idea that AI should be flawless, and it's unrealistic. Sometimes people make mistakes, and sometimes machines malfunction or misjudge situations. What's particularly sad about the Boeing crashes is that the human pilots were right, but had been locked out from overriding the AI system. So why not alter the MCAS system so that pilots can override it? The answer is that an override function reintroduces the possibility of human error. There could be a take off where the human pilot wrongly believes the MCAS system is malfunctioning, overrides it, points the nose of the plane higher, the plane stalls and crashes and everyone dies. Then we would call for humans not to be able to override the AI. But we can't have it both ways: either we live with human error, or we live with machine malfunctions. AI seems to make fewer mistakes, but we are less accepting of its flaws than we are with human error. Where we'll go with the human versus AI pilot is anybody's guess. But no system is flawless, and whether we rely on humans or machines to fly our planes, there will sadly be some fatal crashes.

Black Friday: No thanks - just bargains

It's that time of year again - Black Friday. The time of year when people clamour for bargains, enthusiastically elbowing others out of the way in a frenzy of desperation to save a few quid buying consumer goods at knock-down prices. That time of year when, for a week or more, people are glued to their smart devices (even more so than usual), in the crucial search for stuff.

Apparently, Black Friday has been with us in England for eight years now. It's long been an American trend; it's the Friday after Thanksgiving. But whilst Brits - and probably numerous other countries - have been only too happy to adopt the greedy fight for cheap electronics that encapsulates Black Friday, we seem to have no interest at all in the ethos which precedes it in America. We don't want to give thanks; we just want bargains.

I know that Thanksgiving has its history in colonialism, pilgrims, and has a religious spin to it, but even though I'm an atheist and a Brit, I think there is something worthwhile in the festival which we would do well to adopt. A general disposition of gratefulness is something that is probably quite good for one's mental health. Life is busy and it's no wonder that there's been a growth in mindfulness and relaxing activities like adult colouring books, meditation, yoga etc. Reminding ourselves of everything we are grateful for is a worthwhile exercise in itself, even if we don't say it out loud around a table full of turkey and pumpkin pie the way Americans do. I know I'm grateful for good health, my wonderful son who brings joy and meaning to my life, and for my family and friends. I'm grateful that I've recently started a relationship after nearly 7 years of being single. And I'm grateful that I have the opportunity to study for a PhD and that I'm being funded to do so.

All of this gratitude - the very essence of Thanksgiving - seems intrinsically valuable, and it's a real shame we don't adopt this festival. But what's more sad is that we're only too happy to adopt Black Friday, the fight for cut price electronics, clothing and suchlike, whereby we're implicitly reinforcing in ourselves the idea that garnering more stuff will make us happier.

Perhaps I'm being too cynical: perhaps everyone uses Black Friday (which has somehow morphed into a week or more of sales) to purchase gifts for their loved ones in time for Christmas. And they use these gifts to spread the love and bring about gratefulness, wellbeing and happiness in those around them. Yes, that probably happens to some extent. But I just don't think that these HD TV's and Playstations and iPhones are all being given as gifts. And maybe it's none of my business - if people want to buy an iPhone cheaply for themselves then why shouldn't they? Well, yes, my revulsion at the fight for bargains is not iron-clad proof that Black Friday is somehow morally wrong.

I just wish that we would adopt the disposition of gratefulness for what we already have, and appreciate that the people around us are what really makes life worth living.

Driverless cars, the trolley problem, and tyranny of the majority

Today BBC News ran an article entitled Driverless cars: who should die in a crash? The news story has come about because researchers at MIT have conducted a study analysing more than 40 million responses to an online 'trolley problem'-style ethical survey.

The trolley problem is a classic philosophy problem (which, by chance, I taught today to a class of Year 5 pupils). The problem is this:

A train is hurtling along a track; and on the track ahead are five innocent people who will die if you do nothing. You can't stop the train (its brakes have failed) but you can pull a lever to switch it onto another track - where it will kill just one innocent person. Should you pull the lever or not?

My 'Trolley Problem' powerpoint for the Year 5 pupils.
Several of them said it would matter if some of the people were
criminals; no one said the people's skin colour or gender mattered.

Most people (and indeed the pupils I taught today) say that one should pull the lever based on purely utilitarian grounds - this can be phrased in the words of Spock from Star Trek: "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few". In other words, although it's bad for one person to die, it's even worse for five people to die, so pull the lever and kill one.

It's OK for us to hypothesise about what we'd do in this very unlikely scenario, because it's just a thought experiment: it's not real. But driverless cars are forcing us to reconsider this problem not as a hypothetical possibility, but as a very real possibility. If a driverless car is in a no-win situation where its brakes have failed and someone will die, who should it be? The passengers, the toddler on the zebra crossing, or the old ladies on the pavement?

Well, the people at MIT designed a survey / experiment ("The Moral Machine") to find out people's responses to these very sorts of questions. So far so good you might think, but here comes the troubling part: BBC News quotes the MIT people as saying:

"Before we allow our cars to make ethical decisions, we need to have a global conversation to express our preferences to the companies that will design moral algorithms, and to the policymakers that will regulate them."

Now although this falls short of their suggesting that we use the results of the survey to inform the moral programming of driverless cars, it certainly seems to be in that ballpark. But this, I maintain, is a dangerous and morally troubling step towards eugenics-by-driverless-car. Why? Because in the Moral Machine survey, people's choices about who should die and who should be saved are based on judgments about factors such as age, gender, class, weight, and how law-abiding the person is.

Screenshot from the Moral Machine survey

An optional section of the survey involves moving sliders according to how important you think that particular factor is. For example, you can say that saving higher class over lower class is really important, and saving the young over the old is fairly important. One factor which didn't feature in the survey was race/ethnicity/religion. The people at MIT probably thought it was just too controversial to see whether people would save a black man rather than a white man, or a Muslim woman rather than a Christian woman - but these are probably factors which would yield interesting and distasteful results --but no less interesting and no more distasteful than the actual results of the survey, which show that people choose to save:

• Women more than men
• The young more than the old
• Fit people more than fat people
• Middle class more than lower class

So why am I troubled by this? Well, driverless cars are on their way, whether we like it or not. And they will be faced with genuine moral decisions, whether we like it or not. And they will need some moral guidance or 'rules' to follow in order to make those split-second decisions about whether the fat young person or the thin old person should die. Yes, a moral system programmed into the cars will be absolutely essential - however....

Basing the moral system of a driverless car on the results of a survey - however large - is a huge issue. Even if we ignore the fact that there is no barrier to the same person taking the survey more than once (I took it twice) and even if we ignore the fact that details of the pictures in the survey aren't immediately clear (in my first time around, I didn't notice that some people were crossing the road on the red man, nor that some of the stick men were supposed to represent homeless people) there is still a massive problem in the form of the tyranny of the majority. 

John Stuart Mill (I love that guy!) in On Liberty wrote that we must take steps to guard against the tyranny of the majority - this is when a large group of people get their way simply because they are greater in number than a small group of people. Now if you ask me, the majority getting their way is unproblematic if we've taken a vote about whether we should have chocolate ice cream or strawberry ice cream - or about whether we should visit a castle or the beach tomorrow... but the majority verdict really does become tyrannical when the issues at stake are the welfare, lives and rights of people. And these are the very things that are at stake with these driverless cars trolley-problem-style dilemmas. The results of the Moral Machine survey show that the majority prioritise the young over the old, and the rich over the poor - and suppose a similar survey also shows the majority prioritise able-bodied people over disabled people, and white people over brown people. This alone is disturbing enough, but if we then proceed to program the moral system of the majority into driverless cars, and set them free on our public highways - well, it's the tyranny of the majority at its most foul, and a recipe for eugenics by carcrash.

We simply cannot allow the vulgar prejudices of the majority to inform the moral systems of driverless cars. Driverless cars need a way to determine which action to take, of course, but this should be based on non-prejudicial factors such as the likelihood of surviving the crash, the number of people, and the location of the impact: the age, gender, class (etc.) of people should not - ever - be a factor in decision-making about who lives and who dies.

Finishing off my MA thesis

When I was pregnant with my son, it was a problem-free pregnancy and I didn't mind being the size of a house and having a baby jumping around inside me. But as I reached my due date, I started to want him out; not just because I was looking forward to motherhood, but because I was just sick of being pregnant. A week after my due date, I was REALLY sick of being pregnant and I just wanted the pregnancy to be over with. He finally arrived 10 days after the due date, and although I'd enjoyed pregnancy, I was so glad it was finally over with. (Of course, I soon realised that motherhood was a thousand times harder than pregnancy, but that's another story!)

I feel the same way now about my MA thesis as I did about pregnancy: it's been fun, but I want it over with. On the other hand, it feels like there's just not enough time to get it finished to a really good standard, even though I've been working on it for an eternity. I guess that's another parallel with pregnancy: no matter how much preparation you do, you're never quite ready for it.

My argument has generated far more interest than I expected it to; I thought people might be squeamish about talking about sexbots, but I should have credited people with more maturity. My work has been a talking point among my friends, family, and other academics, so of that I am grateful. At least my work is not so obscure that it's impossible to explain to the lay person, and every couple of weeks I see a sexbot related news article or something that someone sends me via email. I've pushed "not safe for work" to a whole new level, with people sending me all kinds of grisly stories.

I'm hopeful (but not expectant) that my work can be published in a journal. There's very little work on sexbots in the philosophical literature, so that is a point in my favour, but novelty shouldn't (and won't) be mistaken for quality, so I'm still going to have to produce something of a really high standard if I want it out there on Philpapers. Hopefully my MA thesis is a reasonable quality, but I'm so close to it I just can't tell any more. I've spotted a couple of holes in my argument but I'm not sure whether they are insurmountable failures or minor imperfections. They seem glaringly obvious to me because I've been embroiled in it for so long. Maybe others won't really notice them... or maybe they will. I suppose that there can't be many philosophy papers - if any - which present an argument so perfectly that no one has any criticisms of it. (Gettier's paper is the only one I can think of which comes anywhere close to universal acceptance.) So maybe a flawless argument is an impossible, unachievable goal to strive for.

Anyway, it's due in tomorrow, so there's not a lot I can do between now and then if my work is rubbish. I might have to resort to crossing my fingers until I get the grade back.

"Alexa, why are you so stupid?" - Is our rude treatment of AI devices a problem?

A few weeks ago, my mum got Alexa (an Alexa? the Alexa?) in her house, and she and my step-dad were keen to show off how it (she?) can play any song, tell us the weather forecast, and other things. Of course, my son and I were straight in there, asking for songs, asking it questions, and making requests. (I've had "OK Google" on my phone for years so it's hard to say why Alexa had such novelty appeal, but it did.)

However, it didn't take long for our conversations with Alexa to deteriorate into exchanges such as this:
- Alexa, how is cheese made from milk?

The Alexa family - image from Amazon

- I'm sorry, I don't have that information.
- Yeah well you're pretty stupid then aren't you?

- Alexa, what is the temperature today?
- The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare...
- Alexa, that wasn't what I asked you!
- I'm sorry, I don't have that information.
- Alexa, why are you so
incompetent?
- I'm sorry, I don't have that information.

I began to wonder whether it was problematic for us to speak to Alexa (Google, Siri, Cortana) in such a rude way. It began with us adults (probably me more so than my parents) and soon my son was saying "Alexa is really stupid isn't she?" and I began to feel uncomfortable. Perhaps this was just an example of bad parenting on my part? But I've observed a similar phenomenon in too many other people for me to think that I am an anomaly ( although, the behaviour's being commonplace doesn't rule out its being an example of bad parenting, I understand.) In fact I recall the first time I heard of Siri, my friend demonstrated it to me, and was showing me how Siri responded when you swore at and insulted her/it.

Now, Alexa, Siri etc. have no feelings to be hurt when we speak to them rudely, so no harm done... I mean, we've all got angry with our computers or phones when they don't do what we want, haven't we? And it doesn't matter... or does it? Just how easily we slip into rude or verbally abusive behaviour towards AI devices is (now) a concern of mine. The tech will progress, and at some point, AI devices will have feelings, opinions, personalities... and probably some day, rights. As things stand, there's no problem with being rude towards Alexa, but the next generation of AI devices - Alexa's children, if you will - will be more sophisticated, and so perhaps we (and by that I am pointing the finger squarely at myself) need to cultivate in our children a little more respect and good manners towards smart devices. I will try to catch myself whenever I want to get annoyed with my phone or computer, and consider how I would want my son to treat Alexa's 'daughter': with civility as a bare minimum.

But if electronic devices - even voice-activated ones - don't have any feelings, then it seems harmless for us to be verbally abusive towards them, but does this change when those devices give the appearance of feelings? I wonder how we'd feel if being verbally abusive towards Alexa caused her to respond with something like "I don't like it when you are rude to me; please be more well-mannered" or a simple "You've hurt my feelings" or perhaps something more aggressive such as "Hey! Don't speak to me like that! How would you like it if I called you a $@£$%?!" I think we would perhaps feel more guilty - although I imagine that some people would complain that Amazon is trying to control the way we talk. After all, some people pepper their speech with expletives as a matter of course; is it really the job of Alexa to police people's use of language? Probably not, but since it's not usually acceptable to use swearwords or be verbally abusive to others in most situations, then maybe Alexa should behave in a similar sort of way to how a normal human would behave if treated rudely?

Amazon have introduced a feature whereby Alexa praises children for saying please and thank you. I know from my own experience how hard it is to get children to say please and thank you (I must have reminded my son around 10 times a day, every day for the past two years, and still he needs reminding. He's not abnormal either: I hear many parents reminding children - even aged 10 or over - to say please and thank you!) So if Alexa can help children to be more well mannered, then all the better. But it wouldn't seem right if Alexa reminds children to say please and thank you, but not adults - after all, we should have learnt our manners by now.

Of all the voice-activated AI tech that I've had contact with (my Garmin satnav, "OK Google", Siri, Cortana, "Hi Galaxy" on my Samsung phone, and now my Mum's Alexa) none of them have required manners or prompted me to say please, so now I am accustomed to speaking to them solely with commands like "Navigate to 123 High Street", or "Show me images of great white sharks" without any manners. In fact, if you say please to my satnav, it thinks that is part of the address, and it starts searching for 'High Street Please'!

"OK Google, show me a picture of an iguana"

"OK Google, please could you show me a picture of an iguana?"

The more I think about it, the more I think that AI devices which are voice-activated ought to expect the same level of manners from users as we humans expect from one another. In our everyday lives, we might be more inclined to help out a person who is well-mannered as opposed to one who barks orders at us, and I wouldn't be surprised - I think I would be pleased, actually - if the AI devices of the future provide a better service to those who are well-mannered. Imagine: saying "OK Google, show me pictures of iguanas" retrieves poor-quality, small, grainy, pixellated photos with watermarks all over them, whereas saying "OK Google, please could you show me pictures of iguanas?" retrieves high-quality beautiful photographs. This, I think, would be progress, and it would certainly prepare us for a world where we interact with intelligent - and perhaps even emotional - artificial devices on a daily basis. I for one am going to try to change my ways (except with my satnav!)