At first glance and at first thought the idea of predictors and algorithms seem banal enough. However after reading O’Neil’s article it became abundantly clear that humans can find ways of deceiving and using things in evil ways.
Similarly on first glance at my predictive text and on the doing of the task I didn’t think there was anything malicious in it per se. And in fact the predictive text, in the past, has often been a good help to prompt and guide some of my writing. An email response where I had planned to write ‘thanks’ or something along those lines…that same predictive option comes up. I do however think there is something profoundly wrong about predictive text. The times that I’ve used it I’ve wondered if the person receiving the email might think…hmm that was disingenuous because they could smell a rat – they knew that I just clicked on that nice sounding sentence from Microsoft. I think there is also a human connection that is lost when we don’t write out something ourselves. On the flip side I probably would have written the same thing. So if it’s the same, then is it the same? How do we measure the level of human connection that is lost by using predictive text? We think that we’re more connected together than ever because of our ability to connect via digital technology. But the question that I wonder is, are we actually connected in a profound human capacity or do we just believe it to be true in our minds. IE is it fantasy or is it reality? Now I suppose the same could be true of when we connect with people in ‘real’ life. Sometimes we connect emotionally with those people in those real moments whereas at other times we don’t for a variety of reasons. But an in person human connection can be messier and not as controlled as our digital connections.
I couldn’t help but click on ‘thanksgiving’ at the very end of my text. I think that highlighting the absurdity of it through humour identifies that we need to guide our choices more than let the algorithm dictate it.
For me the question that lingers at the end is, do these predictors over time take away a layer of our humanity in our interactions and what does that do to us?
References
O’Neil, C. (2017, July 16). How can we stop algorithms telling lies? The Observer. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/16/how-can-we-stop-algorithms-telling-lies