“The Social Dilemma”- An Overview

 

 

“The Social Dilemma” is a combination of documentary and drama on Netflix in which tech experts explore the dangerous human impact of social networking sounding the alarm on their own creation . Movie mainly depicts that the world in which people are living is not actually real , but a massive computer simulation where the human beings are controlled by machines i.e. ‘The AI’ ( Artificial Intelligence).

 

The movie zooms out from the social media landscape to reveal the larger Internet landscape within which social media platforms exist . It is an eye opening , frighting , forbidding documentary which explores dangerous social media and the internet in general affecting our daily lives and our mental health.

 

This documentary mainly tells us about if something online is free you are not the customer,you are the product! The advertisers are actually the real customers of the various social media platforms and we and our data are the product for their companies for which they are looking . Algorithms are unaccountable , uncontestable , unregulated and have a disproportionate impact on how we are manipulated and influenced without any checks and balance .The algorithms are always figuring out what is the highest possibility that will make you stay in social media .

What is the dilemma in the documentary ?

 

The social dilemma in this movie is the acceptance that the ecosystem of information is broken , while we are in the middle of that information ecosystem . It is an understanding that big tech companies have often framed it as a problem they can solve and is centered around persuasive technology . When we look at various social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat,you will realise that these platforms are created in a way that is addictive in nature. These platforms will try their best to keep you stuck on their platforms .

This movie is kind of interesting because it poses a new reason , a new argument which really talks about the effects of machine learning and what that does to people and it is entirely new and is really a powerful weapon .

Millions and millions of clusters of supercomputers , machine learning algorithms targeting each individual person and figuring out the best way to keep these individuals absolutely addicted and obsessed with the various social media networks .

These machine learning algorithms have access to millions of data points about you , they know everything about you , all of your interest , all of your likes , all of your dislikes .They can use this content to layer you in by giving you some click stuff about for example -Covid-19 , how you would possibly die , talking about black magic , emotional content and some type of content which can turn you against your family, friends and your close ones. The main problem of these platforms is that it influences human behaviour over and over time . Also at the end of the documentary , tech experts told that they have restricted their children to use various social media platforms and they make sure that they have limited access to the internet .