- My quick take on Netflix’s docu-drama “Social dilemma”
I have grown up in a non-smartphone era (rather it was a non-mobile phone era), hence the best time-pass at my disposal then, was to read indrajaal comics. Phantom, Flash Gordon & Mandrake were my childhood heroes and I would have read almost all titles published by Indrajaal guys. In one of the Mandrake comics, my hero Mandrake had to confront a nonliving nemesis which is a robot. This ‘Robot King’ becomes so intelligent that it starts multiplying itself and thus overpowering the human race.
Such stories are quite common, isn’t it? we have seen it all, from the terminator to our chitty robot, these movies have enlightened us on how to ‘take care’ of an intelligent machine which has gone rogue but what if this is no more a science fiction and what if in the quest of developing a super-intelligent machine we have ended up in creating an invisible Frankenstein?
A few months back, in one of our EPBMI classes where the professor had a habit of switching over to Google search to show us graphs, pics, and articles on the net, class had observed that google search had become so intelligent that it could predict what we wanted to ask next. That was the time when we became aware of predictive algorithms and the power of AI, which has captured everything about you every time you have visited a social site on the net. Your likings, your taste, your personality, your favorites, everything about you has been captured by these creepy social sites.
This well-made documentary will scare you and make you re-think your addiction to visiting social sites like FB, Instagram, Twitter etc. The documentary is more of a collage of various interviews of all those guys (insiders) who had played a very important role in developing and reinforcing these surveillance and data capture technologies in FB, Google, Pinterest, and various other tech giants. They confess to having created this Frankenstein which is now working for its customers who are none other than advertisers and has made you (human being) as mere ‘data’. The Frankenstein has now taken over your emotional triggers and can use it to his advantage, can polarize your thoughts and actions, can make you believe in fake news in short it has transformed you into a puppet. Remember the famous dialog of Anand “ Babumoshai, hum sub to rangmanch ki kathputliyah hai jinki dor upar waale ki ungaliyon mein bandhi hai”, looks like we have changed the rangmanch to the screens of our smartphones and have become kathputliyas by carelessly visiting these social sites.
This eye-opener documentary will definitely make you introspect, however, the timing of its release (just before US elections) may raise eyebrows of a few as some may feel that the documentary has a loaded agenda. Notwithstanding its agenda and release date, it does highlight some grave concerns which cannot be overlooked.
Fortunately, the “Power off” button of yr smart gadget is still in your hands and you can use it to stay away from these sites if needed.
Watch it and introspect.
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