Tim on AI’s role in the Attention Economy

A wealth of information or a poverty of attention?

Next:Economy Newsletter Cropped image by Clare Black on Flickr   "A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention."—Herbert Simon   AI's role in the attention economy In this Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio conversation, Tim O'Reilly looks at how we can harness AI's enormous potential for helping us deal with information abundance in ways that both enhance our productivity and creativity and mitigate its dangers: We need to use this AI moment as one for deep self-reflection about who we want to be, and how we want to act. We need to understand that when an AI shows us bias, we should be thinking about how we trace that back to the source. For example, racial bias in sentencing algorithms originates from the biased decisions of human judges. It takes humans to elicit that bad behavior. A model doesn't just do it on its own. We need to fix us, not just the mirror.   Regulating AI We don't understand this technology enough to regulate it effectively, Tim says, but regulation is needed nonetheless—and our first attempts can help us gather the information we need to establish standards that can evolve along with the technology. He suggests that "a repeatable metrics framework, akin to financial reporting but focused on the 'operating metrics' that companies use to evaluate and manage the systems they create, would be an ideal place to start."   An economic theory for our time We also need to develop an economic theory for the information age that explains how value is created and distributed—and that provides transparency into how companies can abuse their advantages and block the creation of new value. Working with economist Mariana Mazzucato, Tim is exploring how the concept of economic rents can be applied in the digital era. In two- or three-sided markets in which users typically get services for free, what is happening is that platforms use their algorithms and designs to encourage users to spend excess time on the platform, which can then be monetized on the other side of the market. We call these "algorithmic attention rents." Attention rents will show up in emerging AI services, Tim says, but we don't understand yet what that will look like—and it's important to get it right. The history of the internet is one of putting machines to work to save us time in both navigating abundant information and managing our attention to that information. But things have changed, and many algorithms are now actually taking our attention. The current focus of trying to understand AI's impact on the future of human flourishing and wellness is good because it could radically change the economy for the better—but it could also radically change the economy for the worse.   Where we go from here The interesting questions about AI revolve around both its transformative potential and how we govern that potential—and every time there's a reset in the computer industry like this, the lessons of history give us an opportunity to do things better. AI is one of these big resets....As the economy increasingly shifts from one based on objects to one based largely on information, we need to be thinking about what that will look like, and how to create policies that will lead us in the right direction. In this context, AI offers enormous possibilities for new kinds of discovery. This message was sent to alexvarboffin.abbb@blogger.com. You are receiving this because you've signed up to receive email from us. Privacy Policy | Unsubscribe From All | Unsubscribe From Next:Economy O'Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA, 95472 (707) 827-7000