Nowadays, as the world becomes more and more modernized, we've also seen the polarization of opinions and people being less and less accepting of others. It seems that everything in the world is either black or white, correct or wrong. Many people tend to form an opinion and stick to it for their entire lives without being open to other ideas. As a result, this has led to a higher likelihood of conflicts and violence around the world.
Actually, modern technology plays a big role in these issues. New technologies impact every aspect of our lives and could create chaos by influencing our opinions. First, companies collect all kinds of data from various resources and store the data. Next, they classify the data and build a model using algorithms according to the classification. After thousands of times of training, the models get more precise. Finally, the models can automatically classify the rest of the data and show the most suitable classification, which is referred to as artificial intelligence.
People are giving out private data without hesitate nowadays. However, in this way, people have effectively become controlled by these apps instead of exerting control over these apps as a tool. In recent years, many tech and media companies, in order to retain customers, have started to use AI to generate and push articles that fit the customers’ interest. As a result, most customers started to receive only one-sided reviews instead of a comprehensive sight of an event. Therefore, the users become more and more polarized. If we look at some of the violent conflicts such as the US Capitol Riot, we may find the original intent of these events were peaceful and restrained. Their original thoughts were just to express their opinions and seek for a better world in their form. However, when these intentions and news were spread by AI and targeted by big data, everything changed. Everything started to lose control and flipped into violence and chaos.
Sometimes, the tech companies even create a cocoon to convey its own political views. According to the Guardian, Twitter amplifies more tweets of rightwing politicians and news than leftwing sources. (Milmo) This is because most Twitters’ managers and investment sources are from the right wing, and to do so is in their interest. In the end, people strengthen their already-held ideas and stick to them. They are not able to access and are not willing to accept thoughts that are different from their original opinions. When peoples’ thoughts become extreme, it is more likely for them to use violence as a way of defending and expressing their idea, which causes the tragedies. (Meloy)
We should admit that artificial intelligence and big data do help a lot in our daily lifes. They help society become better and improve the standard and quality of life. However, society should also be aware of the development of these technologies which may cause a mess about privacy and extreme opinions. People’s privacy and opinions should not be a tool to maintain customers and achieve popularity. We all wish for a peaceful and harmonious world, and society can be nicer if people can become neutral and gentle. AI and big data should be a helper in creating a better society, not a player that brings violence and chaos.