What would happen if all the free services that you use on the Internet, which are powered by advertisements, stop being free one day? This is the premise of the Subprime Attention Crisis. If you ask yourself this, you might realize that many of the services that we think of as free are powered by advertising. For me, the most frequently used services that are ostensible free are Google Maps, WhatsApp and YouTube. I use at least one of them almost every day. If they were to become paid services, or the hurdles to using them without giving up too much data increased, it would be mildly annoying. This calculus will be very different for an Internet user who uses Gmail and uses it to receive important communication. Hwang’s argument is sensible and easy to understand. He starts from the basics of advertising on the Internet and builds up to his myriad theses: Programmatic advertising is very similar to the financial markets. Ad networks claims that targeted advertising on the Internet is better than “spray everyone” advertising on TV. This claim is a lie and that banner ads don’t really change consumer behavior. Commercial interruptions are blocked by users using ad blocking plugins or because users reliably skip ads on video-only platforms in under half a second. To back all of this, he presents a lot of industry research and anecdotal evidence. This was a convincing case for being aware that free services could stop being free any day, and there would be nothing really surprising about it. (Just the other day, YouTube took a step towards blocking ad blockers.)...more
This is 150 pages of scary, gift-wrapped in ponies, pastel colors, happy narratives and broken thoughts (whose completion is left solely to the indulgThis is 150 pages of scary, gift-wrapped in ponies, pastel colors, happy narratives and broken thoughts (whose completion is left solely to the indulgent reader: Butterscotch always interrupts!)
I am tempted to make a comparison between this book and 1984. They both have the same skeptics who finally end up accepting the system, either through coercion or fear or because of the lack of other options. They both end up in a world where nothing goes unseen or unheard. Big Brother was a demi-God, he couldn't see what you were thinking. Princess Celestia is a proper GOD. She's omnipotent, omniscient and visually overpowering.
I don't think that this version of the apocalypse is anywhere on the horizon. It's an interesting concept. But fearing it would be just as rational as fearing that a country would suddenly become one of the three powers in 1984. The consistency of this A.I character is just much more believable than the ones shown in a million Hollywood movies (VIKI in I, Robot; Tet in Oblivion; ARIA in Eagle Eye).
These A.I characters had some sort of weakness in the physical world that makes them vulnerable. Transcendence went the extra mile and made the weakness emotional. I firmly believe that an A.I character would stick to the values we tell it to stick to when we write it, which is why I think this book is much closer to what fiction should carry.
Oh, also, this book satisfied my values through friendship and ponies....more
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