Mining Your Attention

-
I watched the movie "The Great Hack" and aside from the expected response of incredulity, I also thought more about what data really is - a series of snapshots over time of where we were focusing our attention. Billboards want our attention. The traveling salesman at the circus wanted our attention. The cereal boxes at the grocery store want our attention. But this is more insidious, more invasive, because it is not just that they want our attention at this moment. They have surveilled every available moment that we have focused our attention online, and they then use this profile of attention points to maximize their opportunity to persuade you to buy their snake oil. Make no mistake. The intent of collecting our attention points and then to analyze them is to "qualify" us for the sale attempt, then sell to you. 

Questions and thoughts:

If a snake oil salesman spent a year watching what you did, where you went, where you shopped, what time you left the house, etc. All in an attempt to construct the perfect script to use on you as you walked by at the fair, would that qualify as a predatory sales tactic? If so, why do we accept this tactic in a digital world?

 

Popular posts from this blog

Idea: Root Intelligence and Derivative Intelligence

-
 Root intelligence is the intelligence that creates an artificial intelligence. chatGPT is a derivative intelligence and root intelligence will always be valued, regardless of how intelligent the derivative intelligence becomes. Derivative intelligences are a forcing function to push root intelligences to understand themselves better and to double down on the things that make root intelligences unique. We already know that if a derivative intelligence is trained on data it derived rather than a root intelligence, the root intelligence soon can not understand what the derivative intelligence is producing.  To get metaphysical, maybe this is what meditation is - a re-calibration of a derivative intelligence (you) with the root intelligence (consciousness?).
Read more

Things that should always be true

-
 I had a Casio wristwatch back in like 1982 that I could dive to like 50m deep with. All wearable tech should always be waterproof. Like seriously. As of this writing, we are 40 years past that now. There is no need to improve on a steering wheel, gas pedal, brake pedal, emergency brake location, gearshift, seat adjustment locations, etc. Let's just leave the user interface for cars alone. We're good. The cognitive load to figure out how to adjust mirrors, seat, radio controls etc. is not worth any benefit from some fancy new feature. All digital user interfaces should be in the control of the user. I might love the data collected from a given app, but hate it's interface. I should be able to allow the data from any app to be rendered by an interface in another app. A standard for this would increase user freedom. Decouple data and presentation, world. Please. Expensive coffee should always be delicious. Why is it ok that we pay $2 for absolute burnt blackwater at mega-bux ...
Read more

The Rich Will Always Get Richer

-
 A paradox that Eckhart Tolle revealed to me is that the world we live in in is simultaneously getting worse and better at the same time. It is getting better in so many ways, but the ways it is getting worse are much more likely to be paid attention to because our biology is fine tuned to pay attention to negative emotions. I invite you to turn on the nightly news and observe your own reactions to the news. Once one news story is presented, pause the program, and just close your eyes for a moment. Are you having thoughts like "That is outrageous!" or "There is so much violence on our streets!" or perhaps "What a Jerk. I cannot believe that he was ever elected." Due to the financial incentives to mine your attention to the advertisements between news reports, the nightly news will do whatever it can to grab and hold your attention. It has an intrinsic negative bias because that is what makes money. Social media is just a much more optimized and targeted ex...
Read more