• @affiliate
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    252 days ago

    i find it incredible that despite having access to basically unlimited information about its users, facebook makes stupid decisions that seem almost designed to piss off its users. and then you have situations like this, where facebook was told ahead of time that this decision would make a lot of people angry, and then facebook went and did it anyway only to walk it back a few days later and say it was a mistake. why?

    • @[email protected]
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      26 hours ago

      Remember when Google Glass generated backlash?
      Now we have those AI pins that have a camera and mic, multiple smart glasses with HUDs and cameras, Smart Home devices that record constantly).

      Try it -> Backlash -> Walk it back
      Try again 5 months later -> No backlash -> Continue

      • @affiliate
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        25 hours ago

        while it is no doubt the case that most big tech companies are engaged in perpetual wars of attrition against their users, i can’t help but feel that this AI posters thing is different from the examples you provided. at least in those examples, the users have something to gain from sacrificing their privacy. and the company also stands to gain something as well. (although typically the company stands to gain way more from these exchanges.) but in this case, i’m not really sure how anyone benefits. nobody seems to want to be tricked into talking to an AI, and i don’t see how that would make the company more money. maybe they think it would drive up “engagement” somehow? but that seems like a hard thing to accurately predict. it seems more likely that zuckerberg is convinced that AI is automatically good in any tech company, and this is the most obvious way to shove AI into social media websites. so therefore it must be a good idea somehow.

        • @[email protected]
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          157 minutes ago

          My bet is probably on dead-internet theory cloaing in and tech-corps trying to extend the deadline. But your guess might apply as well if not primarily in this case.

    • @[email protected]
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      201 day ago

      To see if the backlash is really that bad, to see if there are specific issues people object to, to see if there are certain demographics more strongly opposed, to desensitise people for when they try it next time (“ugh, again?” instead of the full outrage), to give people the illusion of control (look, online complaints work!)…

      There are a lot of possible reasons, but I doubt it’s an entirely ignorant decision coming from a company known to be good at manipulating it’s users.

      • @Bacano
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        61 day ago

        but I doubt it’s an entirely ignorant decision coming from a company known to be good at manipulating it’s users.

        Damn good point! As a counter, corporate leadership is often surrounded by yes men and insulated from the masses. The meta verse and apples AR flop cost them a lot of money as a result. (Not sure if fb totally gave up on meta tbh)

        • @[email protected]
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          211 hours ago

          Also a good point. Personally, I’m not willing to extend the charity of Hanlon’s Razor to corporations well known to be malicious. In this event, I’d rather be wrong than off-guard, if that makes sense?

          The meta verse and apples AR flop cost them a lot of money as a result.

          I think this is more of a case where the mandate to always increase profits compelled them to take calculated financial risks and hope to be the vanguard of a new boom. Well, maybe the calculations were more estimates, but I assumed they figured out they could afford the loss if it flopped, but would make major gains by securing a foothold in a new digital space if it succeeded.

          Consider how occasionally niche technologies once mocked later turn out to be hits. I remember once reading somewhere that QR codes were a fad, had died out and were basically useless, for instance, and I bought it because I myself saw decreasing use of them. At the time, I think QR code scanners weren’t built into smartphone camera apps, and smartphones weren’t as ubiquitous either, so unless you downloaded dedicated (and in retrospect sketchy) apps for it, they remained useless.

          Now, I see QR codes everywhere. My company has them on meeting rooms to check their occupation and book them right from your phone without needing to remember or manually enter the room number. Our printers have QR codes for email templates to report errors to IT that include technical details for the printer. Restaurants have QR codes for digital ordering, invoices for automatically scanning the payment details from your banking app, the list goes on.

          Obviously, the financial scale is far different, but that’s the example that came to mind just now seeing a QR code in my train for digital schedules including current delay. I’m sure there are better examples I could think of, but it’s eight in the morning and my long-term memory won’t come online for another hour or so.

          My point is that it’s sometimes hard or impossible to predict whether something will succeed, but the nature of corporate economics in the tech sphere compells taking risks on new innovations because the potential payoff is immense. And if they can afford to take it - they’re not exactly short on money and not particularly worried about their users running away over it - I don’t know if they can afford not to. Who knows what new tech people might surprisingly latch on to?

          I do think you’re right, but I don’t think it’s the only reason for doing things we think are stupid. The tech sphere in particular has a lot of survivorship bias, but while small companies might disintegrate over a failure, a giant corporation can take the hit and keep trying for the next gold rush.