
Former Google Design Ethicist: Big Tech in Schools Is Race to the Bottom (2018) - humanetech
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2018-02-07-former-google-design-ethicist-relying-on-big-tech-in-schools-is-a-race-to-the-bottom
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partiallypro
Software has existed for grading and primary classrooms since the early 2000s.
The software was awful, and expensive. When you look at Microsoft's new Office
365 offerings for schools...it makes me pretty enthusiastic for the future. I
don't see this as a race to the bottom at all. Though I can see some problems
with ecosystem lock-ins. But, US schools have long been teaching for the past,
Microsoft and Google's new offerings should help schools to lift themselves
out of that rut. There are trade offs, but I think the benefits outweigh the
bad. My first computer courses in school were on an Apple, that doesn't mean I
used Apple for the rest of my life.

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save_ferris
The ethicist is pretty concerned about the "arms race for attention", which
seems to go far beyond software that simply grades assignments. Sure, the
quality and price of those apps may have been disrupted, but there also seems
to be a pseudo-social component to education apps that didn't exist in the
early 2000's (at least my school).

I think we can agree that building quality CRUD apps has become much more
straightforward in the last several years (which could explain the improved
quality of grading apps), but there are many ethical questions around data
collection, user-engagement, etc. that extend far beyond basic tooling that
existed 20 years ago.

This feels like an extension of the overarching debate around social media in
general, which Tristan Harris also criticizes regularly.

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jaredtn
Interesting comparison to the food industry's race to the bottom, only to be
supplanted at the top by retails such as Trader Joe's. Could Facebook's
addictive algorithms eventually be supplanted by something more wholesome? The
difference between the food industry and social media is that a single person
can switch grocery stores on a whim, but social media platform migration
requires a crowd.

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ConceptJunkie
Facebook can easily be a dumpster fire, but I've found ways to get a lot of
value out of it.

First off, by not letting myself get dragged into bad behavior when provoked,
which is hard, when it comes to talking about controversial topics, but
primarily by focusing on single topic groups that keep a tight rein on topics
of discussion... in other words, rules like "No politics or religion, etc." or
"We are here because we like "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" and not to hate
on J.J. Abrams", etc.

Even fandom-based groups can be ugly, but by looking for groups where the
focus is on the positive rather than the negative, great discussion and even
debate can be had without having things degenerate to YouTube comments level.
Some of these groups will even have an "entrance exam" asking you a trivia
question or for your opinion on the topic so that you must demonstrate you
actually know something about what the group discusses, and aren't just there
to throw grenades.

I think this is the way people can make good use of the fact that "everyone"
is on Facebook. It allows you to create your own little clubhouse, and as with
real clubs, some are good and some are bad, but you can look for the good ones
and leave the bad ones behind.

tl;dr On Facebook, private groups can be very beneficial.

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hnuser355
For me Facebook messenger is the only part that matters. If I don’t know you
enough to speak with you on there I will never see your posts, since I very
rarely go on the main site. So political opinions from my grandma don’t really
enter into my usage

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robbick
I can see how forcing kids onto FB is a major issue, but the article seemed to
imply the same was true for other Big Tech EDU platforms (AFAIK the main ones
being Google Classroom and Microsoft Teams for Education)

Do the same issues exist in these platforms?

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jrowley
If a kid starts using a chromebook in elementary school (sometimes as young as
kindergarten), they are more inclined to use google’s products later. They
don’t even get the opportunity to make a conscious choice in their default
tech platform, and google might not be the best choice for them. A
kindergartener shouldn’t have to think about the privacy implications of their
tech choices in my opinion, so maybe the default choice should be a platform
with a better track record.

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joejerryronnie
In many cases, the alternative is no tech at all (or very limited tech),
especially for schools located in lower socio-economic areas. This notion of
tech companies essentially giving away their products to schools in order to
influence future adopters has been going on for 30 years or more. With that
said, educators should be made aware of this reality and should be upfront
with their students that tech alternatives exist.

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cat199
how about subsidies and open development for these sorts of software?

seems to be doing ok in the raspberry pi arena, etc...

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joejerryronnie
I think the challenge is that it’s hard to compete with the large vendors on a
full stack, turn key solution. It’s one thing for a STEAM focused specialist
to pull together a disparate set of open source apps into a workable model but
your typical teacher doesn’t have the time to do that and still focus on their
day job. Most teachers need technical solutions that are integrated, work 99%
of the time, and have a very simple learning curve (not denigrating teachers’
technical abilities, this is more of a time thing - they need to be up and
running quickly)

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jrowley
I totally agree! My partner is a 7th grade science teacher. She is more
competent from a technical perspective than most of the other teachers at her
school and she utilizes Chromebooks, and Google Classroom to its fullest. She
is really pleased with them as tools, because the alternatives are of such
poor quality. Maybe I should go in and give a mini lesson on the privacy
implications of using Google/monopolies in tech.

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joejerryronnie
7th grade is completely reasonable to start opening their eyes to how the real
world works - i.e. pretty much every person/company/entity you encounter is
trying to manipulate you according to their own agenda. I wonder how we can
balance the sense of wonder and optimism of youth with the hard lessons they
need to know as they sally forth in the world.

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jrowley
A very good point you make - it's hard to walk the line with regards to
keeping it real but not crushing students. For example, teaching climate
change can be challenging.

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z3t4
I got a young friend that is quite bright minded. He is an engineer, graduated
from a top school. He works for Microsoft _selling_ software, mostly the
Office suit to _schools_ ... Meanwhile I'm a FOSS "enthusiast". There are a
lot of money in the school enterprise sector.

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mesozoic
We applaud it but when big companies support this with tons of resources it's
just them trying to drive labor costs down aka lower salaries for us.

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sf101
Check out Shoshano Zuboff's new book - survelliance economy. pretty
fascinating stuff.

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splittingTimes
Here that same Google design ethicist explains in detail how technology
hijacks your mind [1].

TL;DR:

Hijack 1: If You Control the Menu, You Control the Choices. Ask yourself:
What’s not on the menu?, Why am I being given these options and not others? Do
I know the menu provider’s goals? Is this menu empowering for my original
need, or are the choices actually a distraction?

Hijack 2: Make apps behave like Slot Machines - give a variable reward. If you
want to maximize addictiveness, link a user’s action (like pulling a lever)
with a variable reward. You pull a lever and immediately receive either an
enticing reward (a match, a prize!) or nothing. Addictiveness is maximized
when the rate of reward is most variable.

Hijack 3: Fear of Missing Something Important (FOMSI). If I convince you that
I’m a channel for important information, messages, friendships, or potential
sexual opportunities — it will be hard for you to turn me off, unsubscribe, or
remove your account — because there is a 1% chance you could be missing
something important.

Hijack 4: Social Approval. When you get tagged by my friend, you think s/he
made a conscious choice to tag you, when actually s/he just responds to
Facebook’s suggestion, not making an independent choice. Thus Facebook
controls the multiplier for how often millions of people experience their
social approval on the line.

Hijack 5: Social Reciprocity (Tit-for-tat). You follow me — it’s rude not to
follow you back. When you receive an invitation from someone to connect, you
imagine that person making a conscious choice to invite you, when in reality,
they likely unconsciously responded to LinkedIn’s list of suggested c ontacts.

Hijack 6: Bottomless bowls, Infinite Feeds, and Autoplay

Hijack 7: Instant Interruption vs. “Respectful” Delivery. Messages that
interrupt people immediately are more persuasive at getting people to respond
than messages delivered asynchronously.

Hijack 8: Bundling Your Reasons with Their Reasons. When you you want to look
up a Facebook event happening tonight (your reason) the Facebook app doesn’t
allow you to access it without first landing on the news feed (their reasons),
so Facebook converts every reason you have for using it, into their reason
which is to maximize the time you spend consuming things. In an ideal world,
apps would always give you a direct way to get what you want separately from
what they want.

Hijack 9: Inconvenient Choices. Businesses naturally want to make the choices
they want you to make easier, and the choices they don’t want you to make
harder. NYTimes.com claims to give you “a free choice” to cancel your digital
subscription. But instead of just doing it when you hit “Cancel Subscription,”
they force you to call a phone number that’s only open at certain times.

Hijack 10: Forecasting Errors, “Foot in the Door” strategies. People don’t
intuitively forecast the true time cost of a click when it’s presented to
them. Sales people use “foot in the door” techniques by asking for a small
innocuous request to begin with (“just one click”), and escalating from there
(“why don’t you stay awhile?”). Virtually all engagement websites use this
trick.

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[1] [http://www.tristanharris.com/2016/05/how-technology-
hijacks-...](http://www.tristanharris.com/2016/05/how-technology-hijacks-
peoples-minds%E2%80%8A-%E2%80%8Afrom-a-magician-and-googles-design-ethicist/)

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mfoy_
Re: Hijack 2

This is _huge_ in mobile apps. Loot creates, "packs", etc. which means every
end result doesn't have a fixed cost, but an "Expected" cost. I.e. if you want
a certain item, you don't know how many times you have to buy a $3 pack to get
it. You know you would pay $15 for it, though. So you start pulling that
lever, hoping you'll get it. It's gambling, essentially. Literally a slot
machines where you put $3 in, pull a lever, and maybe you get nothing good,
something okay, or something great.

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x3tm
Yes, it does seem to be gambling indeed. Legislation should catch up with this
kind of tech and clearly label some of its aspects as gambling and therefore
not suitable for children and teens.

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jstewartmobile
Big tech is a race to the bottom in general.

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dest
I think such statement is hazardous.

What if you need to build maps for all the world? What if you want to go to
Mars? What if you want to build a payment system?

Small actors could not do that.

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germinalphrase
Why do we need to go to Mars?

Edit: I realize it’s an unpopular question here, but other than it being cool
- why do we need a Mars colony?

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BLKNSLVR
Off-site backup

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gotocake
That’s not an argument for Mars, it’s an argument for living somewhere other
than just Earth. A distant, low-g, airless, wasteland seems like an odd choice
for that. If we’re going to have to terraform, at least Venus has an
atmosphere and some tectonic activity, and even space stations or asteroids
would be more feasible than Mars.

So why Mars?

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BLKNSLVR
Because I'm nearly through the second book of Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars
Trilogy...

