Living in an age of social media and artificial intelligence

 I've resisted writing this post as it's been difficult to wrap my brain around the fact that I've grown old alongside the evolution of social media and artificial intelligence. I remember the early days when I first began connecting online with people far and near. For the most part, I was very excited about the opportunity to connect as a way of developing my knowledge and understanding of the world around me. Social media greatly impacted my ability to teach well by leading me to wonderful experts and information that truly helped me to become a better educator, parent, and person. I loved that. And the rapid growth of artificial intelligence has been an advantage for me too since I've been able to quickly gain valuable information related to my interests and responsibilities. Thanks to artificial intelligence I've been able to navigate grandparent duties, gardening, cooking, health needs and more with greater accuracy and efficiency. 

Yet, as with all new inventions, there are plusses and minuses to both social media and artificial intelligence, and today I'm thinking a bit about that. 

Social Media

It's great to be able to keep up with friends and relatives near and far via social media. I enjoy seeing pictures of my friends and relatives' travels, family celebrations, and other endeavors. I also learn a lot from those I connect with online. Yet, challenges remain with regard to social media. First there's the continuum of those who never share to those who share, perhaps, too much. Right now there's no common expectation in that regard and I find that my friends and relatives fall all over that continuum. I understand that many who don't share have personal and professional reasons for that. Sharing online has the potential of making you a target for cybercrime as well as opening up your personal world to critique, commentary, and lots of reactions, both positive and not-so-positive. When is sharing too little, too much, or just right? This is a question that many avoid since sharing online often mirrors our personalities. Gregarious, outgoing people tend to share a lot, while quiet, more introverted people share less. 

Also, who you share with differs from person to person. The younger people in my family tend to have very large follows and followers on social media where as many in my generation have smaller numbers of follows and followers. For me, I've carefully chosen who I share with since I don't want to widely share on most platforms. Yet the rules for sharing are continually changing so while I think a post may be shared by a few, rule changes may mean that the post is shared by many. It's difficult to keep up with all the rule changes by these social media companies, and those companies know that. Their aim is to farm as many individuals and information as possible in order to be able to sell the information they harvest to make a profit. 

We need laws to help us stay safe on social media, and so far, our government has been slow to regulate these ultra-wealthy, ultra-powerful social media companies. One reason that I believe that regulation has been slow is that many in leadership don't understand how social media works. That gives those companies a clear advantage when it comes to doing whatever they want. This week a big win for the people was holding META responsible for the way they market to young people -- this was a good win for the people. Lawmakers need to make laws that hold social media companies in check by disallowing monopolies, ensuring that social media companies share truthful information and honest accounts (not fake accounts and lots of propaganda, lies, and misinformation), and regulating the influence these companies have over lawmakers and government. 

I am still toying with my personal rules for social media use. For now, I'll try to follow these guidelines:

• Share what I believe may be helpful and positive (I know I can be faulted with oversharing, but for now, I'll continue to share if I believe it will have a positive impact on those in my follow/follower groups)
• Block fake accounts and those that post in rude, inhumane, hateful ways with the exception of major leaders whose posts may be rude, inhumane, hateful, and lawless, but where it's important to be witness to that destructive behavior. 
• Speak up and advocate for the kind of regulations that hold social media companies in check with regard to honest reporting, honest accounts, and ethical behavior.
• Be careful about posting information that is too personal such as specific names, addresses, and other information which can be used in unethical, harmful ways. 
• Posting positivity--I learned long ago that if we share the good news, good news is more likely to increase.
• Sharing information that helps people to understand what's happening in our world, both good and not so good.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

All new inventions are like adolescents (awkward, prone to mistakes, highs and lows. . . .), and we need to realize that AI has both positive and negative aspects. First, not all AI can be trusted. I typically use the "power of three" method when using AI which means I'll look for three different answers to the same question, and if all three are similar and not seemingly wrong, I'll likely accept the answer. Obviously if the question is of a serious nature, I'll look further for the exact, right answer. 

I do use AI a lot mostly for simple questions related to gardening, cooking, childcare, and simple medical issues. 

As far as AI's impact on culture, I hope that we will use it as a way to deeper develop us into mindful, loving, good people. Since AI will replace more jobs, I hope we can work towards algorithms of living that provide people with more time for meaningful activities such as working and exploring in nature, spending quality time with loved ones, increasing our abilities to cook well, sleep more, and stay healthy. Building our capacity to collaborate around the big questions in life such as how to live together on a planet in peaceful, productive, positive ways or how to make sure that every person on Earth has access to nutritious foods, good homes, quality education and health care, and healthy/enjoyable recreation. Hopefully AI will elevate us ahead of some of the crap we put up with to a higher, better standard of living. For example, many of the movies produced right now are truly horrible--let's work at making movies of better quality with regard to the stories they depict, the settings, the music and more. 

Right now AI is robbing communities of clean water resources. The technology has to be improved so that it doesn't rob us of needed resources, but finds its needed energy sources elsewhere. 

We've let technology run wild which is not unnatural for new inventions, but now it's time to regulate in ways that help the best of the new go forward while ensuring that new technologies don't prevent the best of what humanity has been and can continue to be. 

I'll think more on this topic in the days to come. I welcome your input.