Member-only story
SOCIAL MEDIA | TECHNOLOGY | NATIONAL SECURITY
A Deeper Dive into Our Social Media Dilemma
Tristan Harris of The Social Dilemma documentary on the power we’ve given AI — and our adversaries
Tristan Harris, co-founder and president of the Center for Humane Technology, is quickly becoming a household name in the U.S. due to his role as the lead resource featured in the currently top-ranked Netflix release, The Social Dilemma. In a terrific interview hosted by Tom Scott, CEO of The Nantucket Project think tank, long-time pandemic and national security expert R.P. Eddy and Harris discuss a wide range of issues related to America’s addiction to social media that go far beyond what was covered in the popular documentary.
One focus of The Social Dilemma is how social media artificial intelligence (AI) directs specific content to users’ feeds, contributes to narrow viewpoints among users, and rewards users for acting on their extreme views online. With the U.S. becoming more and more politically polarized, many people are turning to The Social Dilemma to try to understand why so many of their fellow citizens are buying into what to them are obvious lies and conspiracy theories — and yelling at those who disagree with their point of view.
