[ANALYSIS AND OPINION]
For the last eight months, we, (whom we shall sometimes also refer to simply as
“SS”, which is a sister website of reasonandbalance.com), have dealt with two global giants that control, by far, the lion’s share of all internet browsing. Not only that but because they allow companies to advertise on their platform and they also control the algorithms that dictate what appears on free search engine results when folks go to shop for anything online, they have overwhelming influence, if not absolute control over, internet advertising. In short, they pretty much make the rules which pertain to, and control, commerce that is affected in any significant way by the internet, particularly search results for those potential customers shopping for goods and services online.
Let’s call these two companies G and M. This is a tale of woe and, if our society doesn’t learn how to address its implications in a constructive way, horror as well. Why? Because we have run smack dab into two separate but related situations involving two gigantic firms, having basically monopolistic and/or oligopolistic powers, who increasingly rely on artificially intelligent computers to make decisions having, from a business perspective, life and death consequences for the firms affected thereby—which, nowadays, is virtually everyone. [We will also note here that all of this is integrally related to a yet unfinished series of articles that we started of the relative advantages and disadvantages of competitive versus cooperative economic and political philosophies. We note this because these matters are all interrelated and have compelling and fundamental effects on virtually all domestic and international economic, social and political matters. We mention all of this because the issues and concerns raised herein are complex and not easily rectified—but that does not reduce the urgency or importance of addressing the concerns that we discuss.]
There is no question that technology, if properly used, allows all of us to enjoy a better life. Technology, however, is just like nuclear power. If one isn’t careful and it’s used negligently or improperly it can be catastrophic and lethal on a massive scale. Unfortunately, our political leaders have, for too long, sat back and simply allowed computer scientists and the “techies” to essentially take over the way we communicate and the way we do business. There is not enough concern for the unintended consequences of just turning things over to a bunch of self-appointed geniuses and their artificially intelligent robots and computers, who cannot possibly know all of the social, economic and political ramifications of what it is they do. We are talking about the extremely serious dangers that lurk on the path that we are now on. And when we say “we” here, in the final analysis, we are talking about all of mankind, but we point the finger principally at the United States since it is the most responsible for the problem, and more importantly, is probably in the best position to do something about it.
Let’s assume, because generally speaking it’s true, that G controls over two thirds of all internet advertising and that M controls the other third. Although the precise labels applied by these two internet behemoths are different, the procedures they employed in this context were/are very similar, and in the end, appear to be the result of an admittedly noble attempt to insure the web-surfing public that advertisers appearing in their respective search results are legitimate companies, lawfully doing business and/or are not employing some artifice or device to circumvent advertising requirements designed to protect the public from unscrupulous bad actors.
To take our first example, M is now requiring their advertisers to be “verified”. After providing information to M to comply with M’s verification process, our sister firm, SS, was originally notified that it flunked M’s verification process. However, SS was not told how or exactly why it flunked.
Let’s start by saying that we are not sure exactly what being verified means in this context (in large part because M has never told us), but we presume it means that it can objectively be proven that advertisers are who they say they are and/or that they are lawfully engaged in business before they can run an ad that is searchable on, and therefore appears after, a search request is typed into the search box by potential customers, using their respective search engines. In short, by “search” ads, we mean the kind of search where you go on the internet and ask the search engine (G’s or M’s) to look for companies who are selling the product or service that you want.
Again, on the surface, requiring advertiser “verification” sounds like a great idea, especially, since we have so much misinformation being disseminated on social media. But let’s remember that in this day and age, when everyone has a cellphone with an internet browser and with increasing amounts of business being done online, that folks have a tendency to take a lot of what’s said or not said, and what they see, or don’t see, online as presenting the whole picture of what’s available to be bought and sold in the entire marketplace. And, as such, not having a healthy online presence and reputation can spell doom for companies, especially if they are smaller and/or don’t have a rainy-day stash-of-cash to hang around and weather any financial storm caused by bad press or lack of a genuine online presence. And, the fact of the matter is that when looked at from this perspective, not-being verified can be very harmful, if not lethal, to startup and smaller businesses if they are forced to await the outcome of some subjective private verification determination by unregulated gigantic monopolistic companies who have their own money-making agendas, before they, the smaller more thinly capitalized companies, can advertise.
There’s a very fine, but very important, point that must be made here because we experienced it firsthand. Under the procedures that that these internet giants employ, it is quite possible to lawfully be in business, be who you say you are, and still not meet G and/or M’s verification processes. We say this because this is exactly what happened to SS who either flunked the verification process or similarly, was wrongfully accused of violating a non-circumvention policy.
For example, in the case of M, we submitted for their review, not only our state government-issued personal identification cards, but also, various forms of proof that we were lawfully in business. We were even asked to submit for their review photographs of ourselves (selfies) taken by our own cellphones and/or our laptop webcams. Presumably, this was required so that M could use facial recognition programs that would allow them to satisfy themselves we were not bad actors who had disguised themselves as us.
Take a second and think about all of the private information that M and G, themselves private companies, collected about us and, worse, consider that for all practical purposes, we were required to do so in order to stay in business. That is, unless we could survive without any internet advertising at all. Consider what the potential consequences of all of this are, especially in the context of a firm holding significant, if not monopoly power, over all of internet commerce. This is basically the power of life and death, especially for companies and firms that heavily depend on internet search advertising. We didn’t even allow the telephone companies in the old days have that much power.
All of which raises an important question to consider. Should the internet, particularly web browsing controlled by companies offering search engines results, be governmentally regulated much like utilities such as the electric power companies or the phone companies were in the “old” days? Think about that the next time one of them sends you some kind of notice of a software update, which interrupts you while you’re trying meet some important deadline.
But there’s even more to this story to consider. During the process of several failed verification attempts, SS repeatedly provided M additional documentation like, leases, driver’s licenses, state licensing information and the like. A couple of weeks passed without any word from M as to what the problem was. The situation with G, however, was far more damaging. G refused to accept any supplemental information at all and merely, after repeated attempts by SS to contact a live human being at G (to get some kind of explanation of what was going on and/or be told what SS could do to address G’s concerns) G kept sending SS canned form-like emails (from some unnamed sender at G or M) simply stating (yet again) that SS was violating G’s’ non-circumvention rules but without specifically stating exactly how SS was doing so. This economically crippling impasse lasted for nearly four months. In both instances, a major problem was that neither M nor G ever stated exactly what SS was doing that violated their rules. Moreover, in both cases, neither M nor G ever provided SS with a live human being who was knowledgeable or who could say exactly what the problem was. And even worse, in G’s case, no human being at all could be spoken to about the problem (other than to be told by an innocent company operator to visit a some URL page on their website—which SS had already been directed to and visited several times before by some anonymous form email generated by some robot at G).
In G’s case, G can be given credit for at least sending an anonymous email containing all of its non-circumvention rules, but, in short, it was like being arrested by the police but not being informed exactly what the charge was and, instead, being given a copy of the whole criminal code and told by the officer to figure it out what you did wrong for yourself.
The concern here is the use of artificial intelligence and the ramifications thereof. It is thus worth repeating and emphasizing that all of the foregoing was made infinitely and unnecessarily worse, because neither G nor M would make a knowledgeable live human being available to answer a simple phone call (numerous attempts were made) so that the problem could be expeditiously addressed and/or so that SS could be informed exactly what the problem was. (It should be emphasized here, that in SS’s opinion whatever the problem was in both instances, it probably could have been easily resolved, if a live human at M or G told SS what the problem was.) Meanwhile, SS’s business was drying up for lack of new customers because it was not allowed to advertise since it wasn’t verified and/or it was still being accused of violating non-circumvention rules.
The bottom line is that the strong suspicion here is that the major reason that SS could never get a live human from M and/or G on the phone to tell SS how to solve the problem was that both M and G are developing artificially intelligent programs (AI) to handle both their verification processes and customer complaints. In other words, both M and G are/were looking for ways to reduce workforce and rely only on AI systems to handle this and other types of problems. From SS’s perspective, it was like dealing with a cold and indifferent giant arbitrary robot who could care less about you and only cared about carrying out its programmed instructions and algorithms, all of which were designed merely to increase profits at M and G.
Given the above, one might ask: Who put M or G in charge of deciding who was legitimately in business? Unfortunately, the answer is that “we”, that is, the free market did. Some may be very comfortable with that answer but we are not. Why not? For the very simple reason that the decision-makers at these private monopolistic behemoths have no legal standards that are promulgated through acceptable democratic processes regulating how they are allowed to make these determinations (or whether they are allowed to make these determinations in the first place.)
What make the foregoing particularly worrisome is that M and G have their own profit driven agendas, which can, at some point, given the right set of circumstances, be the cause for making “verification” decisions favoring some advertising firms over others all to suit the subjective and biased purposes of M and G. And perhaps worse, given the fact that G’s and M’s terms of use are basically forced down the general public’s collective internet-surfing throat, the cold hard fact is that M and G can pretty much do what they want to do on, what is by far, the biggest and most important commercial highway in the world. As such, it is submitted that much of this deserves much more governmental attention than it is currently getting.
In short, the processes in question turned out to be fraught with imperfections and difficulty and, in stark terms, exemplified the dangers of a society that is: (i) dominated by monopolies and/or oligopolies; and (ii) increasingly reliant on artificial intelligence (AI) to conduct business and/or governmental affairs.
In other words, M and G both have monopolistic, or at least oligopolistic powers. This whole verification process allows them to collect too private data about us. M and G have virtually life and death power over businesses who increasingly rely on internet advertising. They have the power to shut you down if you don’t abide by the rules that they make. G and M are not ordinary businesses, yet they increasingly act like entities that have governmental power. In fact, one might reasonably ask: What politician nowadays is willing to stand up to them? Who can afford to do so? They even control things like a firm you might know, who we’ll simply call Ytuber on which increasing numbers of people rely for the most basic information of all types. Can they interfere or even stop any candidate who opposes them from getting his/her video message out? It is submitted, that if they wanted to, the answer is a very disturbing yes.
Meanwhile Democrats and Republicans fiddle and obsessively worry only about getting re-elected. It’s all about power, about acquiring it and keeping it. It’s not about solving problems. Extreme partisanship has resulted in a total lack of any ability by Republicans and Democrats to compromise. This is a very disturbing and dangerous state of affairs because democracies like ours require compromise if their governments are to effectively function. And frankly, Americans who vote for extremists on the far left or the far right are doing an increasingly big disservice to democracy, because if extremists of either major party are elected there will be no compromise, there will only be rule by one group of people who force their will down the throats of the rest of an increasingly resistant and dissatisfied society. Either that or there will be governmental deadlock, nothing will get done and then we will see an increasing willingness to turn to leaders with authoritarian tendencies who will tell us that only they can solve our problems. We already see an uptick in authoritarian leanings even amongst Americans.
Any potential dictator will invariably try to align himself or herself with firms that have strong AI capabilities and who can control communication and commerce. Does that sound like internet companies offering search engine services?
Dictators lead by intimidation, violence, the obfuscation of truth and outright lying to maintain their power. They can only hide the truth if they control communication. Obviously big internet related companies like M and G could be put to great use by any would-be dictator. And, equally worrisome, given the power that companies like M and G have they themselves could at some point become an ominous source of authoritarian power in their own right.
Eventually, all dictators and authoritarians will throw people who originally supported them “under the bus”. A dictator’s supporters often become his or her victims. This is because sooner or later, the interests of all people diverge (at least on some issues for a certain period of time). And when that happens, if it’s in his or her interests, the dictating authoritarian will crush even his most loyal supporters. This has been shown and proven again and again throughout history. In the long run, it is dangerous to support would-be dictators.
AI is nothing but the inevitable result of the culture which, very unfortunately, predominates in America, and indeed most of the rest of the world. One where greed and the desire for speed, convenience and attention predominate. Greed derives from an obsessive profit motive, enhanced by the desire by virtually all people to somehow prove that they are special, that societal rules and norms are for other people, that they are better than other people and that they are “number one”. How many sports commentators get paid seven figures just to endlessly engage in broadcasted discussions of whose the greatest of alltime; who’s the GOAT?
We all need to ask ourselves: Between the oligarchs and companies like M and G who is going to protect the little guy—the men and woman whose jobs are being shunted aside by things like AI. It’s scary when one considers that there are still tens of millions of Americans out there who do not have access to broadband. Moreover, it’s estimated that over a third of the world’s population still hasn’t used the internet. Are these people going to be a huge source of social unrest? How much are these people going to cost taxpayers in terms of unemployment benefits and social programs? Are these people ultimately going to be considered to be dispensable because they are just dead wood and a drag on society?
In Rao’s Solution, I demonstrates how differences in risk tolerance between rich and poor folks cause and/or allow the rich to become richer anytime there is an unregulated fair game. And, very importantly, I show that this is true regardless of whether all other factors favoring the rich (and there are plenty of other such factors) are neutralized and eliminated. In short, unless the government figures out a way to make sure that rich versus poor disparities are lessened or at least reasonably controlled, the rich will always get richer and the gap between rich and poor will always grow wider in a totally unregulated free market system. I wrote Rao because over the last forty years or so, we’ve seen increasing disparities in wealth and wage levels between rich and poor folks. And Rao, discusses, albeit in the context of a fictional story, one way to start to solve this potentially dangerous problem of increasing wealth gaps between rich and poor.
And speaking of wealth disparity, what is going to happen to the increasing number of people who lose their jobs because of AI? Proponents of AI says they will find other jobs. How? Won’t they have to be re-trained or re-educated? How is that going to be paid for? The fear here is that the temptation will arise by those with totalitarian tendencies to somehow eliminate folks who aren’t educated enough to get jobs in an AI dominated society. Those people can too easily be blamed for being just an economic drag on society, and thus considered to be “expendable”. Imagine the social unrest, and the tendency of demagogues to point fingers at inconvenient scapegoats.
And, we’ve already mentioned the amount of economic and hence political power internet behemoths such as M and G ( and FB for that matter) could have with untold sums of money and an AI system with its ability to collect personal data. What candidate or politician would ever dare cross them? Super rich guys with super smart robots running the World, is that good?
This leads us to our final point. A few days ago we watched a what we’ll call a YTuber video about a 9 inch drone that can be used by the military to scout/spy on areas. Moreover, these drones can be turned into very lethal weapons that can strike anyone anywhere at any time. We’ve seen what drones can do in Ukraine and Rao’s Solution also alludes to our deep concerns about drones. Imagine an authoritarian regime taking over control of this country that had at its disposal that kind of ability to spy on its citizens and/or “eliminate” dissenters and/or potential political adversaries. How would democracy ever make a comeback against any dictator backed by AI who could spy on and eliminate dissenters through control of the skies, the internet and other means of communication, not to mention the most vital highway through which increasing amounts of business is conducted? The big fear here is that once our liberties are lost, given the state of technology and the government’s ability to spy on us and control us (if it wanted to), we must, at all costs, never let anyone in power (via the ballot box or otherwise) who has any authoritarian tendencies at all.
Unfortunately, and part of what makes this problem so vexing, is that the governments, militaries, and companies in other countries also want to develop and improve their AI technologies as well. And if we don’t perfect AI, or at least have better AI than they do, then we will be in an inferior position, economically, militarily, and politically. So, one huge reason why this issue is so complex and difficult to resolve is that it is probably very foolish for any country to impede and/or abandon development of AI technology. But merely because addressing the AI issue is difficult, doesn’t mean that we should just let AI development proceed in an unfettered fashion without addressing all of these problems as best we can, and provide whatever governmental oversight as is reasonably appropriate.
In short, the situation is critical. Yet we have politicians who don’t have time to consider how we should tackle AI and monopoly issues in a way that preserves protects both democracy and the little guy.
Voters must stop nominating and electing politicians on both the far left and the far right who cannot reach across the aisle and compromise. Democracy depends on a willingness to compromise.
[Footnotes with additional details are at the bottom of this page.]
David Dixon Lentz revised May 1, 2022
originally published April 21, 2022
© Copyright 2022; David Dixon Lentz; All Rights Reserved.
[fn 1: We note here that as this was being written, both M and G finally verified and/or removed our suspension. But in the case of one of those entities not before several months had passed, and in the case of the other entity a couple of weeks.]