Better Decisions Everywhere : Social Media Week, NY 2016

Editor's Notes

1. Good morning! How are you all? Don’t reply. We don’t have time. But you look fabulous. Happy. Dry. Warm. Excited. Me, I’ve had a terrible morning! Every time I give a talk it’s the same way. Appalling the day before. Early start to practically rework the whole godamm thing. Then sometimes I pull it back :) Let me know how I do – it was 4/10 yesterday. I love that advice that people give about public speaking – ‘imagine them naked’. As a Brit, nothing is more horrifying than myself or others naked. I mean, no. Maybe with the lights off. In very small numbers. I prefer practical advice like ‘trust your instincts’ . Or ‘don’t eat yellow snow’
2. The theme of this event invisible hand is a metapho rused by Economist Adam Smith to describe unintended social benefits resulting from individual actions. The phrase has come to capture his notion that individuals' efforts to pursue their own interest may frequently benefit society more than if their actions were directly intending to benefit society.
3. Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī[note 1] (Arabic: محمد بن موسى الخوارزمی‎; c. 780 – c. 850) (Arabic pronunciation: [ælxɑːræzmiː]), formerly Latinized as Algoritmi,[note 2] was a Persian[3] mathematician, astronomer and geographer during the Abbasid Caliphate, a scholar in the House of Wisdom in Baghdad.
4. Here is I say to my real physical human excellent assistant, can you work with Amy (who is apparently super-intelligent)
5. Super-intelligent Amy then proceeds to relentlessly hammer my inbox with suggestions…
6. You met your bf / wife / special friend thanks to an algorithm.
7. I mean, technology might be clever but why do I have to continually train my new cellphone how to swear.
8. Trainable, helpful, useful agents. Technology working for us. Utopia!
9. Actually, both. But while they create value for us - the many - they are crucially designed and controlled by the few. This gives those people immense power over our lives.
10. Making point that let’s distinguish between hands - which actually may be more visible - and the morality, weighting, agency, direction of those - the brains, which are even less visible
11. The kind of things that the CMO of a social intelligence company would be talking about at social media week to a group like you!
12. Algorithms have been around since 850 (OK, kind of) Market research has been around for just under 100 years But it’s now more precise. It’s now more advanced.
13. social is flat, open, transparent, unprompted, and we’ve got it right here - this fucking massive telescope Just let that sink in. Don’t think about Kanye. Don’t think about Donald Trump. Think about this vast human resource we have….
14. Making point that let’s distinguish between hands - which actually may be more visible - and the morality, weighting, agency, direction of those - the brains, which are even less visible
15. so now we know they’re smart helpful things, but they don’t necessarily work for us, but are these opaque black boxes, how do we exercise control?
16. so now we know they’re smart helpful things, but they don’t necessarily work for us, but are these opaque black boxes, how do we exercise control?
17. Getting better, the more people that use them
18. No title required. Slide illustrates
19. No title required. Slide illustrates
20. Nudge at key moment, examplePossibly watch / supermarket vs watch
21. I wanted to share this with you - the functionality to at least influence his algorithm And then I was like ‘what the actual fuck is hardcore filth trapstep’ And then I was like ‘ALGORITHMS!’
22. Mention ad-blocking and increasingly customizable app-settings.
23. Making point that let’s distinguish between hands - which actually may be more visible - and the morality, weighting, agency, direction of those - the brains, which are even less visible
24. can we hav
25. Abraham Wald, Mathmetician and academic
26. But they couldn’t armour the entire plane – it would be too heavy. So data was collected from all the damaged planes that made it back. The obvious reaction was to put the armour over the areas that were most damaged. That was the obvious reaction to the data. Abraham Wald said it was also exactly the wrong reaction to the data. He said they were misinterpreting the data. Where they should put the armour was around the undamaged areas. Everyone thought he was nuts. Wald explained the data revealed the bombers that made it back were all damaged in the same areas. But they made it back even with that damage. The more important data was all those that made it back were also undamaged in the same areas. Read more at http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/1349646/view-dave-trott-data-alone-isnt-answer#411pP6GWehkm3QJX.99
27. Should driverless cars kill their own passengers to save a pedestrian? Imagine you’re in a self-driving car, heading towards a collision with a group of pedestrians. The only other option is to drive off a cliff. What should the car do? Most philosophers believe they should be programmed to avoid bystanders above all.
28. Trainable, helpful, useful agents. Technology working for us. Utopia!