What Are the Biggest Challenges Technology Must Overcome in the Next 10 Years? – Scott Atran
https://gizmodo.com/what-are-the-biggest-challenges-technology-must-overcom-1837985525
In this Gizmodo article discussing technological obstacles in many fields with many different knowledgeable people, one individual, Scott Atran, uses logic we used in our class. Atran was mainly talking about how to tell the difference between real vs fake, and between good vs harmful in a world where it’s becoming easier everyday to share information. Atran talks about how small clusters that initiate a “viral cascade” can propagate hate speech and other potentially harmful ideologies. He also mentions how information cascades “follow a heavy-tailed distribution, with large-scale information cascades relatively rare, with 50 percent of shares in a cascade occurring within an hour” showing just how fast an idea can spread. It can be used to gain political advantages, and be abused by criminal organizations as well as other large groups.
Just like in our class, information cascades can easily turn an entire network of people from one belief to another. In the cases Atran described, the changes were for the worse and spread very quickly. Once an idea “infects” a cluster, if it can take root in even one or two nodes, then it will likely completely spread throughout it. Overcoming the spread of false and harmful information is a technological hurdle that must be overcome.