Free Willing Part II: It's Gotten Worse
Image by Eric Pickersgill, from his “Removed” series
We were bred as hunter-gatherers, trained to follow the slightest sound and vibration in search of a meal or to prepare for danger. Dopamine spikes from pings and buzzing give pleasure, but also trigger stress chemicals. Sadly this provides the opposite of what we need for achievement and wisdom, let alone lasting happiness and connection. We should have already become so horrified, running away from the phone not toward it, but it’s really hard. Such is addiction. The tiniest distraction in the midst of creative FLOW, and even love-making, threatens our capacity to “Stay Stay Stay” (Pema Chodron’s perfect mantra for the overactive mind). I’ve written, read, and talked about this phenomenon until I was sure that I had grokked it. Not even close. I re-started sleeping with Phoney nearby, just to check the time, then weather, then news, then Wordle…. I clearly needed a dope slap to escape the magical thinking that I can resist once the www grabs my attention.
In the fire of my youth, I boycotted Dow Chemical and grapes, chucked my razor, and wore thrift store clothes (personally embroidered). I was extraordinarily brave, strong, and imaginative. I need to reignite that flame. In case you do too, let me introduce you to gobsmacking ways of looking at this topic. I’m citing and quoting up the ying yang, doing hours of research so you don’t have to. This constant drag on our attention should be scaring the shit out of all of us. I used to think it less a problem for us older folks, we who remember NOT having a phone in our hands at all times. Nope. It might be worse. Organizing books, laughing (or crying) with others, even pulling weeds, improves brain function. Scrolling diminishes it. But, can I deny myself the orgasmic schadenfreude over deep fakes of him in an orange jumpsuit? DAMN it’s fun to look at.
What follows is my own summary, argue if you wish, but I cleverly cite “those who know.” The inventors and investors of this pernicious suck on our attention have started sweating aloud about their role in creating Artificial Intelligence (AI). Letters with 40+ scientists’ signatures, university researchers, and the father of AI, Geoffrey Hinton, are apologizing to the 5 billion people who have been lulled into allowing The Internet (TI) to read/listen in, AI conforming each click to be personally compelling. (They also mention being the teensiest bit worried ChatBot and deep fakes will foment WWIII.)
That is on their conscience. Personal costs are our responsibility to manage. Read on, please.
ATTENTION
Gloria Mark, PhD, is the chancellor’s professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine. She received her PhD from Columbia University in psychology and studies the impact of digital media on people’s lives. From an interview this Fall: “Back in 2004 (before Google Search went public), we found the average attention span on any screen to be two and a half minutes on average. Throughout the years it became shorter. Around 2012 we found it to be 75 seconds. And then in the last six years, we found it to average about 47 seconds, and others have replicated this result within a few seconds. The median is 40 seconds. And what this means is that half of all the measurements that we found were 40 seconds or less of people's attention spans.” You still with me?
ADDICTION
In 2015 brain researchers discovered that instant gratification atrophies the prefrontal cortex, and ain't nothing more instant than TI. I was stunned to learn it was only 2007 that Phoney became hot-to-own, and in a sneaky-snakey way promised conveniensssse rivaling the Tree of Knowledge: now-you-can-know-everything. Instantly. The cost? We are increasingly less able to resist impulses and think for ourselves. Can’t you just see that snake eating its tail?! To affirm the addiction metaphor, we pay thousands for equipment and connections for this fix. What the designers of The Internet knew was that people will engage for hours in meaningless activity if they receive—or can give—a reward. So, they invented the ❤️, 👍, jingly sounds, vibrations, and exploding candy. Pigeons and rats at least get food. We get a pop of dopamine. Humans are waaaay too easy to program. Escaping the clutches of meaningless engagement with AI is our only chance for joyful, meaningful living. Who dies wishing they had spent more time staring at their phones?!
FAILING MEMORY
In 2004, Google became public. In 2011, Siri was born. I’ve lost confidence to spell or define a word. There is no doubt that “netting” empties our memory banks. We feel it as swaddling and spoon feeding to no longer have to open a book. I used to look in the dictionary several times a week. But once we start asking plastic devices for facts, even those we are pretty sure we know, it doesn’t stick. Not phone numbers, names, grocery lists, nor day of the week. NOTHING moves from short to long term storage without at least 2 steps. Measure twice, cut once works for everything: Pick two of these actions to stick it in your brain. Three if it’s vital to your or someone else’s well-being.
read it aloud
if you think it, ink it!
double check
verify with yourself or others
CREATIVE & SOCIAL COSTS
Watching amazing artists on Instagram/Facebook Reels doesn’t expand the mind the way actually making something yourself will. Try your hand at something new, be it a painting, rock garden, hat, or recipe from a cookbook that will evoke memories of Mom. Seek awe inspiring moments and locations, go for phone-free walks. Way too many people look to their phones as their preferred companion: while sitting with a real person or their child, at gatherings, important meetings, a meal, even at performances. We need to make this unacceptable for all our sakes! Ask people politely to turn off their phones while visiting or sharing a meal. Explain you want to exchange undivided attention. It may seem rude, but resenting them causes a rift. It is an unmistakable message that you are not as important as whoever just sent a SPAM. And… please! Dear Gods and Goddesses, never process personal problems over text! This is every therapist’s nightmare to untangle. You are a person among people, use your phone to actually talk with someone, and make a date to see them.
ABANDONED PRIVACY
During my Springtime Covid isolation, I was enthralled by two long articles (linked at the end). The first was an exhaustive (not -ing) article in Slate 4/16/23 by Merritt Tierce: “You Have A New Memory.” She calls her phone The Internet (TI), because it is the portal to feed the dark web gathering data specifically to convince you to spend money or vote against your interests. She observes how TI is not only listening to, but reading her mind. We yell “Hey,” tell Tim and Jeff what we want, treating them like waitstaff. But who’s the boss when I follow a hyperlink, “learn more,” or a lede to a story about “his” lawyers having to get their own lawyers? I have unconsciously veered from whatever I was thinking, and it takes bucketloads of diminishing self-discipline to turn away. As a writer, Merrit initially celebrated TI as a tool, then it became her companion, as well as external memory. She noticed a bizarre sequence of synchrony because AI uses algorithms, combining our last few searches, to anticipate what we might be next interested in. Her powerful piece is meant to warn us we are in danger of losing original thought, or an uninfluenced mind.
ENCOURAGING GREED
Robert Reich in and op-ed 11/25/23 nails it. What’s The Real Frankenstein Monster Of AI? GREED. He admires the health and education potential of AI. But, “If we’re not careful, AI could be a Frankenstein monster. It might eliminate nearly all jobs. It could lead to autonomous warfare. Even such a mundane goal as making as many paper clips as possible could push an all-powerful AI to end all life on Earth in pursuit of more clips.” To avoid this means oversight of test models which must attract money from investors. “How can we prevent investors from taking over the enterprise? Don’t put them on the board.” But who would put millions/billions into a company without some control? No one. “And as board members and employees are lured by the prospect of making billions, how can you ‘cap’ their return on investment? Well, you can’t. Which is the flaw in the whole idea of private enterprise developing AI.” Greed. Power. Lust. Fame. It’s brought down entire armies, kingdoms, individual lives by the millions every day. And the climate, and the birds, and …. Oh, dear. Please keep reading.
WHO’S IN CHARGE?
Jaron Lanier, The New Yorker 4/20/23, who ends his less alarmist piece, “There Is No A.I.,” with the rejoinder that all the information in “artificial” intelligence originated with actual people. “There are ways of controlling the new technology. If society, economics, culture, technology, or any other spheres of activity are to serve people, that can only be because we decide that people enjoy a special status to be served.” The obvious fallacy in his intended-to-be-calming piece, is that “we” ain’t deciding nothing. It’s “them” and they are stealing and profiting from others’ work, despite protests from the authors, actors, and creators. It’s a business model, basically sociopathic in terms of competition being rewarded, while cooperation looks weak. Who is overseeing these people? The “ethics committees” in powerful establishments (Google, Meta, X, Openai, Microsoft), are forging ahead. “Trust us!”
RESISTANCE!
What can/should we do? I know in my bones that it’s easier to go back to binge-watching or reading something that TI + AI mostly wrote. But this condemns our culture and personal brains to hopelessness by increasing separation and loneliness. We have to become fighters and mentally disciplined again if we want to build deep thinking, meaningful relationships, and joyful experiences. The firewall against the influence is not so difficult. How? Turn off “Hey” and other “mic apps” and it can’t listen in. Turn your ringer and especially vibration* OFF unless you are expecting a call. Then turn it off again. Don’t carry it into a restaurant, or bookstore. Read longer books and articles (even on line). For a meaningful life? Set a timer when playing a phone game, put TI in a drawer while doing important activities, like visiting with a friend or talking with your partner or kids. When have you last eaten a meal, alone, without your phone? I’m not bragging, I’m revealing! And making bits of progress on all fronts in making TI a tool again, and not a master.
And remember, hunter-gatherer, you are a Child of Nature. Go there as often as possible.
*Why worry about buzzing? We are exquisitely attuned to vibration as a signal of danger, and it triggers a whole-body stress response, which causes inflammation and anxiety, when it’s in another room.
Merrit Tierce “You Have A New Memory.”
Jaron Lanier “There Is No A.I.”
Robert Reich: What’s The Real Frankenstein Monster Of AI? – OpEd
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