'The Worst Internet-Research Ethics Violation I Have Ever Seen'
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
States have been astroturfing internet for a long time. It’s gotten exponentially worse since the Ukraine and Gaza wars though.
As such they often hold opinions that are not based in fact on reality, and instead are based on false belief making them even more susceptible.
Can people even be people if they lack rationality? Human's are much more closer to animals when those people cannot use reason.
We can be mad at both advertisers and what happened here, there’s no need to choose one.
Regardless, research must be done ethically and with full consent. These researchers did neither so they must face consequences.
My contention is that humans are experts at creating tools they are unable to control and/or incapable of using exclusively constructively. This is a damning case study and wonderful for progress in social science. Just modify this “AI” entity into another “human being at a protest or rally or social forum” and suddenly the ethics dispute hold much, much less weight. HUMAN BEINGS LIE ALL THE TIME.
Not everyone who claims to be a victim actually is one. Not everyone who human who advocates violent uprisings does so because they truly want to engage in such behavior. The current President of the US is a consistent liar, easily proven with evidence such as Sharpie marker on a hurricane map (Question: “Who added that?” Response: “I don’t know”) and yet look at the outcome.
Humans are absolutely in a hell of their own making and clutching pearls about this experiment is a clear reminder that many people have erroneous and laughable understandings of human nature. They choose to live in an idealized bubble. It’s much easier than admitting the flaws and cruelty and savagery not “civilized out” but superficially cloaked in modern times.
Great work and I’d love to read the actual paper one day.
This is a textbook case of using human subjects without consent. There is absolutely no room for argument that this isn't an ethic violation, regardless of whether you feel harm was caused to people or not.
Calling it "not an ethics violation" is like saying that a theft wasn't theft because of what was stolen or who from. It's irrefutably not true. No journal would accept this research, and for very good reason.
People don't have to claim that they were a victim, anyone involved without informed consent in this 'is' a victim.
Your reasoning is fallacy. There is no greater weight, no weight at all. Its simply a did it happen, when you conduct a scientific experiment without informed consent or need, on unsuspecting people.
This is what the Nazi's, and many other destructive and evil regimes have done. Supporting this, making light of it, is the same as supporting one of those camps.
Humanity as a whole hasn't made a hell on earth, evil and blind people have.
There are many people that think they are good when in fact their souls are darker than black, and they have just willfully blinded themselves. The study authors would definitely fit this definition.
>This is what the Nazi's, and many other destructive and evil regimes have done. Supporting this, making light of it, is the same as supporting one of those camps.
If it's parody, absolutely pitch perfect. Well played.
Godwin's Law in turn, runs in the same circle as Hanlon's law. The law itself is a joke not meant to be taken seriously.
What's being discussed is not a joke, and mis-attributing it to this context does the discussion a great disservice.
Involuntary uninformed human experimentation is a very serious matter. Making light of verified claims of such as a joke is in poor taste.
Social experimentation is not serious or unserious. It's the human condition to be subject to it, at every interaction with every animate and inanimate signal that a human can react to. There is nothing nefarious about an open forum being fully, partly, or devoid of inputs that are not carefully curated by another human. The billboard you see on the highway is more impactful and overt than the referenced experiment. ie Yelling at the clouds will not make the world a better place.
You could not be more wrong. A billboard is non-interactive. It can never make full use of any of the psychological blindspots inherent in people whereas the experiment was entirely interactive.
You are aware that your stated opinion of social experimentation includes outcomes that historically are found in cults, and torture, and had outcomes of death right? You completely neglect that in your argument to support this. The Jonestown massacre as an example.
Are you familiar with the coercive double bind of Sophie's choice?
The way it goes...You have a choice, to kill one of your children by sending them off to the gas chamber, your son or your daughter, but in so doing you will save your other son or daughter, if you make no choice both die and so do you.
You are isolated, it is just you and your children you can't get help. You cannot remove yourself from the choice. There is perceived loss that may become real loss, you won't know until you make the choice. There is the cognitive dissonance in that your identity as a parent is protective in nature but you must violate that to remain internally consistent to protect the other. The survivor will know you made the choice. There are multiple structured trauma loops.
This described situation falls under social experimentation. It also meets all the classical requirements for real-world torture which is simply the imposition of psychological stress through elements, structuring (trauma loops), and clustering (in time of these things).
Yelling at the clouds will not make the world a better place by itself, sure, and inducing people to mental breakdown, and other related psychological and physiological responses that arise and form issues precognition that come with torture are far worse, which you neglect or simply don't know.
Indoctrination of youth includes torture during a period of vulnerability in their development which crystallizes their thought processes moving forward in life. This also falls under social experimentation. It need not be physical, you can inflict these things on others socially through structure and word through communication. This is the basis for propaganda which many don't even realize they've adopted internally.
A loud or short series of pops is heard near a school. If your immediate first thought was school shooting, that's a mild indoctrination. A car backfired, or some kids lit some fireworks, far more common but not enough to warrant being on the news (distorted reflected appraisal at work).
Operant conditioning towards stimuli caused by a constant barrage of curated media can have lasting harm to self when done for purpose.
The same goes for a lot of other things, often towards disunity, people rarely reflect on their first impulses, and if you don't have critical attention in those impulses they simply follow set patterns robotically which is thoroughly described in classic material on this subject matter (Joost Meerloo and Robert Lifton).
If you distort the inputs and shape the mind into a parasitic structure for purpose towards a non-adaptive control, this causes societal systems to fails over time the brittle bridge breaks under stress. The flexible adaptive solution is resilient.
This goes to the heart of the differences between Proteanism and Totalism cultures.
In the latter you get a lot of doomed people who can't reason or think, and by extension lack the critical gift that elevates humanity over animals. These types are already dead, they just don't know it yet, and simply wait for the right set of circumstances to arise that will domino to extinction, as occurs more often than not in dystopian fiction.
Anything related to the protection and assurance of the dependencies you need to grow, self-direct, and survive are a serious matter to the living.
I am not wrong at all, despite the phrasing.