Your own artificial intelligence | Marcelo Rinesi | TEDxRíodelaPlata

The combination of social networks with artificial intelligence is generating unanticipated effects in how we relate and how we access information, how we form our opinions and even how we vote for our political representatives. But can we use this same artificial intelligence in our favor? Marcelo Rinesi is a freelance data scientist, member of the Baikal Institute, and CTO of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. In addition to creating and implementing models for the prediction and optimization of the behavior of individuals and organizations, has been cited or published on the economic and political implications of emerging technologies in publications such as Rolling Stone, Quartz, The Verge, BoingBoing, Forbes, Wired, Huffington Post, Fast Company, VICE's Motherboard, La Nacion, Clarin, and Veintitres. He has published several collections of short science fiction stories online, the last of which is TACTICAL AWARENESS.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

The best way to understand
a magic trick is from this side.

From the magician's point of view.

So imagine you are creating
a social network.

The business model is simple:

the more time people spend in your site,

the more ads you sell,
and the more money you make.

You don't have to do anything.

People generate the contents,
upload the photos.

All you have to do
is to choose at all times

what to show to who so they stay.

Being the 21st century you automate it,
you use software.

Call it algorithms, big data,
artificial intelligence.

That works, you make a fortune...

Congratulations! You invented Facebook.

Now, when psychologists and sociologists

start to observe what actually happens
to people on the site,

they discover minor side effects:

depression, political polarization,
incitement to violence.

None of that was in the business plan.

What happened?

What machines discover, or rediscover
in their blind and mechanical way,

is that what catches our attention

is not what's useful or beautiful,

is what entertains us,
more effectively, what makes us angry.

Something good that someone attacks,

something bad that someone defends.

Instinctively we comment, share, discuss,

not because it makes us feel good.

It's rare that we sign out
from Facebook or Twitter

feeling emotionally better
than when we entered.

But in that combination

of positive and negative emotions
by scrolling Facebook,

there's something virtually addictive:

The more time we are in a social network,

the worse we feel.

We feel worse, we have less energy
to do something else

and more time we spend
in the social network.

Intelligence agencies, marketing agencies
professional trolls

--today there's no difference--

are constantly generating
professionally designed content

to make us feel the worst possible

about a person, a country, a brand,

a political party, whatever.

All that negativity is toxic,

individually and socially,
but it's not the worst part.

That technology designed
to catch our attention

distracts us at the same time.

It distracts us from something important,

which is not our loved ones,
nor the sunset.

It's the technology itself.

We know it's there,
we talk about technology,

we know it's there to influence us.

We are so distracted from the fact
that we ourselves can use it

for our own purposes, today.

Every time I tell this

to someone who is not an entrepreneur,
a scientist or a programmer,

he gives me that face:

"Every word is in Spanish,
but you speak to me in Swahili."

(Laughter)

Psychologists have a term for that:
learned helplessness.

If you take a person and ask them
to do something impossible,

like doing crosswords with no solution,
they learn they can't do it.

And, sooner or later,
they never try again in their entire life.

It's a kind of conceptual blindness

where the idea itself
that you are able to do something

disappears from the mental map.

We all have things like that

--dancing, talking in public, math--

where we know with total certainty
that something is impossible.

This happens with technology.

In particular, with these technologies.

We feel them so threatening,
so foreign, so alienating

not for what they can do,

but because we see them
under the exclusive control of scientists,

big companies and advanced governments.

It's true, yes, that they use them.

But it is also true that we,
as individuals,

can develop, use and control them.

If your daily activity involves
reviewing documents or messages

and categorize them into piles or folders,

even if it's just:
"Interested", "Not interested",

very easily a program
could be looking over your shoulder,

learning from you how you do it

and slowly start automating the process.

The effect of that in your income,

in your job stability,
in your quality of life,

depends entirely on
if that same program

belongs to the company or the worker.

If it belongs to you or another party.

The same applies to creative activities.

It's another discussion
whether or not this is art,

but a tool can be programmed to generate

at least drafts of drawings,
blueprints, diagrams, music,

and use that to generate new ideas
or to explore your own.

Learning what you like, what inspires you,
what is useful to you.

And such a tool can be programmed

to learn the specific strengths

of people with totally different
skills and experiences,

then put together everything they know
without prejudice, without discrimination

and make much better decisions
than what each person would do separately

or all together on the same table.

What I'm not saying is that
to have these tools

--that we can all have--

we all have to learn to program.

It's a useful skill, yes, it's a good job,

it's a hobby, it's an art
that changes your life forever.

But there are other ways to get
advanced software for personal use.

One is to pay someone.

The most obvious idea this afternoon,

but very few people do it.

Even people who can afford it.

Another more interesting way,

is to look for someone who knows
how to do it and ask them.

If what you are doing with your lives

is to protect someone, help someone,
or create something beautiful,

it is very difficult not to find
someone who say yes.

The software is artificial,
but it's people who make it.

And people, in general,
want to help other people.

Do it, buy it, or order it.

To have your own artificial intelligences
under your control,

has no other trick than that.

But it's useless to tell someone

who "knows" that they can't do
something, that they can.

You can give them examples,
you can explain.

You can give a TED talk,

but they have to try.

If you only transmit the idea,
and you only listen to the idea,

it's just a prologue.

If you stay in that first step it's worse
than doing nothing.

It's a very insidious distraction,

because you feel you are doing something.

In my experience, people and groups

that get rid of the idea
--conscious or unconscious--

that some things are too advanced,

and they just risk the attempt
to do an impossible thing,

quickly discover that the difference
between the futuristic and the reasonable,

the realistic, the logical,

it's not in the resources,
it's in the attitude.

And when you do that
something happens to your attention.

You see the Internet less as a happy meal
to choose from a menu,

and more you see it as a box of Legos,

with pieces of things that you use
to do your own things.

Less you care about tweets, retweets,
comments, followers...

You are very busy making
your own machinery

to hook with someone else's.

I don't t have much hope
for the 21st century.

(Laughter)

There are many things not going well.

And there are very few signs
that it will improve.

On the other hand,

we are fighting with one hand
tied behind our back.

We face these problems, the big and small,

with tools owned by others,
for other people's goals,

with their rules.

If that changes, who knows.

Helplessness can be unlearned.

It's an individual process,
it's an uncomfortable process,

but it is one in which we all benefit

Thank you.

(Applause)