Page 24 - ARUBA TODAY

A24 TECHNOLOGY
Tuesday 13 augusT 2019
Q&A: Ex-Googler Harris on how tech 'downgrades' humans

BY RACHEL LERMAN My concern about how
AP Technology Writer the policy debate is going
Tristan Harris wants to re- is everyone is just angry at
verse the harmful effects Big Tech. And that's not ac-
he believes technology has tually productive, because
had on all of us. it's not just the bigness that
Harris, a former Google is the problem. We have
design ethicist, first rose to to name that the business
national awareness after a model is the problem.
presentation he gave with- Q: Don't people have in-
in Google in 2013 spread dividual agency? Are we
throughout the industry. really in the thrall of tech
In it, he argued that many companies and their soft-
tech products were de- ware?
signed to be addictive, A: There's this view that
causing people to spend we should have more self-
too much time on them control or that people are
and distracting them from responsible for whatever
living their lives. He urged they see.
designers to alter their ap- That hides an asymmetry of
proach. power. Like when you think,
Harris spent more than "I'm going to go to Face-
two years pushing change book just to look at this one
within Google, but says he Tristan Harris, former design ethicist at Google and co-founder of the Center for Humane Technol- post from a friend," and
ogy, speaks to The Associated Press during a round-table discussion on Tuesday, July 30, 2019, in
couldn't get traction. So he New York. then you find yourself scroll-
quit and started a move- Associated Press ing for two hours.
ment called Time Well In that moment, Face-
Spent, which eventually of seemingly disconnected society?" There are multiple business book wakes up a voodoo
pushed companies such as things —shortening of at- We work on the internal ad- models — subscription is doll-like version of you in a
Apple and Google to build tention spans, polarization, vocacy. We work on public one. supercomputer. The voo-
screen time usage metrics outrage-ification of culture, pressure and policy. Would you pay $8 a month doo doll of you is based on
and tools into their phones. mass narcissism, election Q: How do you work with to a Facebook that didn't all the clicks you've ever
He has since widened his engineering, addiction to companies, and how are have any interest in manip- made, all the likes you've
focus, having decided that technology. These seem they taking to your vision? ulating your brain, basically ever done, all the things
many issues facing society like separate problems, A: Doing it from the inside making you as vulnerable you've ever watched. The
today are actually con- and we're actually saying didn't do anything when as possible to advertisers, idea is that as this becomes
nected and can be traced, that these are all predict- the cultural catch-up who are their true custom- a better and more accu-
at least partly, to the design able consequences of a wasn't there. But now in ers? I think people might rate model of you, I know
of technologies we use ev- race between technology a world post-Cambridge pay for that. you better than you know
ery day. companies to figure out Analytica, post the success So our policy agenda is to yourself.
The goal of his organization, how to scoop attention out of Time Well Spent, post make the current business We always borrow this from
the Center for Humane of your brain. more whistleblowers com- model more expensive and E. O. Wilson, the sociobiolo-
Technology, is to reverse Q: Where is the central ing out and talking about to make the alternatives gist: the problem of humans
human "downgrading," or place to fight this multifac- the problem, we do have less expensive. is that we have Paleolithic
the idea that technology eted problem that you've conversations with people Q: Washington is now in a brains, medieval institutions
is shortening our attention outlined? on the inside who I think huge debate about pri- and godlike technology.
spans, pushing people to- A: Much like you say, begrudgingly accept or re- vacy and data and misin- Our medieval institutions
ward more extreme views "How do you solve climate spect this perspective. formation. Will that process can only stay in control of
and making it harder to find change?" Do you just get I think that there might be deal with the causes that what's happening at a slow
common ground. In short: people to turn off their light some frustration from some you care about by default? clock rate of every four
technology has caused hu- bulbs? No. Do you pass of the people who are at A: I actually worry that years. Our primitive brains
manity to worsen, and Har- some policy? Yes. But is that the YouTubes and Face- we're so mindlessly follow- are getting hijacked and
ris wants to help fix it. enough? No. Do you have books of the world whose ing the herd on privacy are super primitive com-
Harris recently spoke to the to work collaboratively business models are com- and data being the princi- pared to godlike tech.
Associated Press about his with the oil companies to pletely against the things ple concerns when the ac- Q: Do you feel there's
work, the tech industry's change what they're do- we're advocating for. But tual things that are affect- awareness (within tech
progress so far, and why all ing? Yes. Do you have to we've also gotten Face- ing the felt sense of your life companies) that you
hope is not lost. This inter- pass laws and mandates book, Instagram, You- and where your time goes, wouldn't have thought ex-
view has been condensed and bans? Tube, Apple and Android where your attention goes, isted two years ago?
and edited for clarity. You have to do all these to launch Time Well Spent where democracy goes, A: There has been a sea
Q: Could you tell us the im- things. You have to have features through some kind where teen mental health change. For four years, I
portant ideas of your work? a mass cultural awareness. of advocacy with them. goes, where outrage goes. was watching how no one
This isn't about addic- You have to have every- Q: Is there a path that you Those things are so much was really accepting or
tion, it's not about time. It's body wake up. try to help map out for these more consequential to the working on or addressing
about what we call "hu- This is like the social climate companies? outcomes of elections and any of these issues. And
man downgrading." It's a change of culture. So work- A: They're not going to do what culture looks like. then suddenly in the last
phrase that we came up ing on internal advocacy it voluntarily. But with lots Those issues connected to- two years — because of
with to describe something and having people on the of outside pressure, share- gether have to be named the Cambridge Analytica
we don't think people are inside of tech companies holder activism, a public as an impact area of tech- scandal, because of "60
acknowledging as a con- feel, frankly, guilty, and ask, that realizes they've been nology. There has to be Minutes," because of Roger
nected system. "what is my legacy in this lied to by the companies, regulation that addresses McNamee's book "Zucked."
Technology is causing a set thing that's happening to that all starts to change. that. q