I no longer subscribe to my earlier statement, ‘AI lead content personalisation is a good thing’. Nothing was hidden from me when I signed on the dotted lines and sold my soul for free content, services, entertainment and everything friendly.
Last week, I made a list of things I searched and what was served to me. Definitive there was a high degree of polarised personalisation at work. I was being served what the algorithm decided will interest me. Just like they say in ‘Social Dilemma’. Unintentionally! They will further strengthen my bias. They will tweak my internal algorithm defining my taste, interest, actions, reactions and inaction- to replicate the machine algorithm. Man-made the machines and now machines are making man.
Over Personalisation is Coding My Subconscious.
In a way, the sites are busy coding my conscious and subconscious mind. There is no escape from it. In the past few months, I have signed new contracts as per the new privacy laws. I signed them just like the last time, without thoroughly reading and understanding them, fully aware what I was doing. See, I have no control.
This selective unilaterally controlled information is creating an information gap and bias. It is defining an island of knowledge, individually. The protective layers of biased information servings run by multiple algorithms are suffocating. Internet should not be the only thing but it is more and more becoming so. It is said that by 2030 digital will stop having a meaning as everything will be digital. And to me, that means – overtly over personalised.
They are protecting me from what I may not be interested. Things not in sync with my internal algorithm and in turn philosophies, thinking, values and culture. Something that can only help open my mind to a different world. It is true across the digital interface.
Is It Right Thing to Do?
Is the syndicate of business-minded platforms not doing a disservice to me and to humankind? Are they not playing with my mental framework? Is it not like a new concertation camp or a religious conversion drive? The answer is YES, and we all know it.
Randomisation Is Crux Of Development.
Randomisation is the backbones of evolution. It leads to a differential gap between expectations and experiences. Humans try to bridge or overcome the gap. This is how development happens. By bridging the gaps and making things possible.
Now, the digital space is busy templating me. Putting me in a bucket of similarly brain-washed people. Curating lists as the primary currency for transactions. Clones are being created as that serves the business needs.
Not A Natural Evolution.
Is this a trap or Is there a conspiracy? Maybe it is happening purely accidentally. A mere coincidence. Could it be a result of not-so-well understood randomisations?
The deep-rooted systematic AI-powered Personalisation is now too apparent to miss. Even if I only talk about a possible vacation in Mauritius, the digital space picks it up and starts serving all the details. It is freaky. Is digital this the new secret? If you really want something than nature (digital) start to work on making it a possibility.
APP TO confuse AI.
Maybe, it is time for a simplified app to mislead the AI-powered space. It will feed the snooping AI equally viable but randomised data. It also tries understanding AI-led serves and generates a set of confusing data. Making it that much tough to predict and segment.
That is what the rebels within me needs and wants. A game played with AI in a continuous loop.
My FAILED Experiment in Challenging Personalisation.
In the last few days, I have been trying to do something silly. I search randomly on google. I talk loudly to myself. Alternate between discovery, Netflix, Big Ganga and Hamar TV. I see videos of Gita by ISKON and check Gandi Baat on Alt-Balajee. I even keep some Tamil and Telegu movies running. Read biographies on Kindle and listen to Horror on audible. I watch baseball, read about chess and keep the mobile on while the staged WWF matches happen. I follow Barkha Dutt, Kapil Sibal, Sunny Leone and Narendra Modi.
All this to challenge the AI to connect the dots, make sense of this randomness and slot my profile. There is a marked shift in what I am being served. Do you think that the current AI is powerful enough to understand when I am trying to fool it? How long will the AI see through the selective randomness of my attempts?
Not Losing Hope.
No, I am not paranoid. I am trying to shake over personalisation. I did not ask for it, and I do not want this order of personalisation. Maybe, it is too late? Perhaps we have already converted to a new religion and sold our souls.
We no longer question our compromised privacy because we know we signed for it. Whatever is happening is happening with our consent and without force.
We have graduated to ‘yeh toh Hota Hai’ to ‘Toh Kya’, to now ‘Saab kartey hai’. (‘This was to happen’ to ‘so what’ to ‘everyone is doing so’)
It was over the first day we signed and said ‘I Accept’ without reading the terms. We signed believing in collective wisdom and patrolling of interest. If no one has objected- it must be right. Dah! We never thought, what if everyone was thinking just like us.
Randomisation- What I Want And Will Never Get.
I want to have my choice. I want to be able to decide what I want. I don’t want overt AI-led Digital personalisation to serve me content. I want randomisation. Let me choose. Don’t remember what I chose and don’t try to guess why I choose what I prefer. Late-night while on business trips I don’t want to be served porn. I want to read Munshi Premchand or Saadat Minto. And if I did that last Friday at 11 PM, does not mean that every Friday at 11 PM I get the urge to be seduced through literature.
Maybe it is too late to fix the future. Maybe the degree of Randomness and anonymity we have experienced and enjoyed in the past will never come back. However, that should not deter people from trying to fight this digitisation of your identity, soul and psychological understanding. Do you agree with me?
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