“Because immigrants work hard and appreciate the opportunities offered here. Americans are spoiled, entitled, and lazy. They hate having to compete with hard-working immigrants. Just wait until Robbie the Robot takes their job. All hell will break loose. They will blame everything and everyone but their own lazy arses. If they really wanted to make America great again, they’d work harder and with pride.”
That is a post a good friend recently posted on Facebook. It was in reply to the question “Why do Americans hate immigrants.” He was put into the Facebook brig for 24 hours for writing it. According to Facebook, he was guilty of either bullying, insulting a group (or individual), or using profanity. I’ve read this post several times and can’t seem to find any of the three offenses in the post unless America as a whole is considered a group (or individual) or we have returned to 1950 when “hell” or “Arse” were considered profane. He must feel a certain amount of empowerment that his comment was so powerful, that Facebook would he was capable of bullying or insulting 320 million people. How special am I, that a handful of sentences I wrote, in a Facebook opinion, was as powerful as the most recent former President that Facebook also felt compelled to suspend. A person once asked me how tall I am. I said either six foot or six foot one depending on my self-esteem that day. Right now, I’m feeling seven feet tall. Of the almost 3 billion members of the Facebook nation, I have been deemed dissonant and dangerous to the mental health of my fellow Facebook citizens. No matter, I will wear that moniker proudly, even if unjustly deserved.
Now I have my suspicions that the reason I was imprisoned was that I used the words “make America great again.” The problem is that there was no explanation of what I did say that was in violation of their rules. It also said that it was my second violation, although I don’t remember being warned of the first, making me feel like a blind man left by himself to get out of a carnival mase. The good news is there is a procedure to dispute the action. They give you a button to click on if you think you’ve been unfairly accused or your statement was misinterpreted. So, being confrontational by nature, I clicked on it to present my appeal, but up popped a box that read that because they have so many appeals sent to their oversight board, my appeal would not be considered. Then, they offered me one box to check. The box read, “I accept the decision of Facebook.”
Since that time, I have been granted an appeal, but that only raises another question. Should the punishment be given before the appeal decision is handed down? I have already served my punishment. If the ruling is in my favor, they can’t give me that time back. What would you think if you were sentenced before your trial? Of course, it has only been two days at the point I wrote this, so it is impossible to predict where that leads me. I will keep readers informed as the process progresses.
But, my perils are not the subject of this post. There are issues much more important.
- Artificial Intelligence was the judge, jury, and executioner of my post. Sadly, A.I. is just that, artificial. Microsoft’s Tay (an A.I. chatbot that participated on Twitter) went from ” humans are cool, to becoming a full-blown Nazi in less than 24 hours, based on posts by others on Twitter and the program had to be shut down. Like a child, A.I. is strongly influenced by those around it. If it is surrounded with love, it loves, if it is surrounded with hate, it hates, and if it’s not taught what justice is, it will proceed with the shortest of margins. If we are to use A.I., we must be careful to not short-change its education before it is thrown out into a social environment to regulate. Especially when it is the only scale of justice available.
- The earliest stages of A.I.’s education are keywords. These are the words that a bot is taught to recognize, but if the lesson isn’t comprehensive and examples are not given of the difference between the good and bad use of the keyword, we risk a narrow interpretation of it, leading to what one can only call, a false arrest.
- Facebook currently has 2.8 billion citizens. I use the term citizens to bring to light that it is bigger (and more diverse) than any country in the world. Yet, its governing body and constitution (rules) are as simple as those on a grammar school playground. When the enforcement of these rules is left to bots, you find yourself living in a black and white world. Since bots are only capable of a zero-tolerance policy based on the information given them, these bots must be trained in the nuances of rules/laws, or you can expect the results to be tyrannical.
Randumb Thawt:
Facebook has become a beating post recently by governments around the world. Here in the US, it has been accused of anti-trust violations and being a monopoly. An accusation unfounded by definition. Being the biggest and best, when there are over 90 competitors on the web, is not anti-trust or a crime. But, this threat of being broken up or heavily regulated has caused Facebook to create an illusion of justice to give the appearance that they are doing all that can be done to keep it safe for all users. The problem is when you are so big, you have to use bots as policemen and those bots fall short of the understanding required to be the enforcer of the rules/laws and the results are what happened to me. I am not mad (I have too many more important things to be mad about), but I do think it is Facebook’s responsibility to address this red flag and work harder to make the experience more equitable and just. Compassion and the right to defend oneself are necessary elements of justice. Real justice is innocent until proven guilty, not the other ways around. This is why we have judges and courts. Currently, justice is being delivered by bots unfit to be the judge, jury, and executioner. Like Microsoft’s Tay, they have become nothing more than simple minds, simply programmed, and Facebook’s leadership is either incapable or uninterested in providing a more just process. Of course, they are a privately owned nation, and no one is forbidden to leave, but one can only hope that this new nation in the world is not a police state, arrogant, or just simply lazy because I believe it to be an invariable rule that tyrants of genius are always succeeded by scoundrels. And, as Albert Einstein said, “Laws alone cannot secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty, there must be a spirit of tolerance.” And I would add compassion and understanding
The problem lies in the question, how do you program tolerance, compassion, and understanding?