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A review by branch_c
Stand Out of Our Light: Freedom and Resistance in the Attention Economy by James Williams
5.0
The attention economy and its ill effects are now starting to get the focus they deserve, but in case anyone hasn’t followed the commentary from Tristan Harris or seen the 2020 documentary “The Social Dilemma”, this book is a brilliant and engaging presentation of the material in a way that’s compelling and enjoyable to read.
I came across Williams as a keynote speaker at an upcoming conference on persuasive technology, and the description of this book seemed exactly the kind of statement I’d like to see made. The book is from 2018, yet somehow I hadn’t come across it in my survey of literature on the subject.
With its extensive quoting of historical thinkers from Rousseau to Adam Smith to Huxley, the book makes it clear that the issue has been around for a lot longer than smartphones have. But current technology represents the concerns of those who came before us actually being realized. As Williams notes, “Designers began applying techniques and infrastructures developed for digital advertising to advance persuasive goals in the platforms and services themselves.” (p. 28)
And Williams introduces some thoughtful philosophy of his own, asking questions about identity, democracy, and polarization, as well as, of course, influence, persuasion, and coercion. The key point is that “... the dynamics of the attention economy are thus structurally set up to undermine the most noble aims and virtues worth pursuing.” (p. 80)
Because we all like to believe that we freely choose what we do with our time and attention, it may sound extreme to say that “...the competition for attention and the ‘persuasion’ of users ultimately amounts to a project of the manipulation of the will” and that “At individual levels, these problems threaten to frustrate one’s authorship of one’s own life.” (p. 88) but Williams makes a persuasive (!) case that this is what’s happening. And in the case of persuasive user interfaces, we may not even be aware of it.
The book is not perfect - the title, for example, was taken from an alleged encounter between the philosopher Diogenes and Alexander the Great. The analogy drawn by Williams casts the well-intentioned Alexander as the technology that offers so much promise, and suggests that we should respond as Diogenes did, telling Alexander that he was blocking his light. Apparently Diogenes had a reputation for being unconventional - not to say an obnoxious troll exactly... but anyway, I’m not sure I like the idea of being cast in the role of this cynical character. It’s not asking too much to expect that we can find a better way to respond to the situation.
Williams also takes pains to say that “...we cannot put the blame for these problems on the designers of the technologies themselves. No one becomes a designer or engineer because they want to make people’s lives worse.” (p. 102). That may be true, but software developers are not stupid, and each one who finds himself or herself in the position of being asked to build software whose purpose is persuade users to click on ads surely recognizes that this is not an ethical use of their talent, and can choose not to do it. Might that result in a loss of income? Sure; no one is saying that being ethical is the easy thing to do, just that it’s the right thing.
As for the solutions that Williams proposes, he suggests four angles of approach, with the first being to reassess the nature and purpose of advertising. As he says, “Advertising ethics has never really guided or restrained the practice of advertising in any meaningful way: it’s been a sleepy, tokenistic undertaking. Why has this been so? In short, because advertisers have found ethics threatening, and ethicists have found advertising boring.” (p. 109) I think he’s absolutely right about this, and while he points out that advertising is not the only root cause of the problem, it’s certainly one of the most important.
The remaining suggestions involve “...conceptual and linguistic reengineering, ... changing the upstream determinants of design, and ... advancing mechanisms for accountability, transparency, and measurement.” (p. 108) The discussion of these items comes across as a bit more technical and less forceful than I’d have preferred - but further work in these areas seems promising.
Personally I’d like to think it comes back to the individual ethics of each person involved, as I mentioned earlier. Williams quotes Facebook research scientist Jeff Hammerbacher as saying “The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads ...and it sucks.” (p. 30) There’s obviously a financial incentive for this, and ideally incentives can be changed, but individual choice in the face of those incentives can also be a step in the right direction.
I would recommend this book to anyone, but I particularly hope that my fellow software development professionals will read it. We are literally creating a new society with the technology that we design, and we get to decide what kind of society we want it to be. We need to recognize that “We have neither reason nor obligation to accept a relationship with technology that is adversarial in nature.” (p.100)
I read an electronic version of this book, available free of charge online from the publisher, Cambridge University Press (but I may follow up and buy a hard copy in support of the author and his important message).
I came across Williams as a keynote speaker at an upcoming conference on persuasive technology, and the description of this book seemed exactly the kind of statement I’d like to see made. The book is from 2018, yet somehow I hadn’t come across it in my survey of literature on the subject.
With its extensive quoting of historical thinkers from Rousseau to Adam Smith to Huxley, the book makes it clear that the issue has been around for a lot longer than smartphones have. But current technology represents the concerns of those who came before us actually being realized. As Williams notes, “Designers began applying techniques and infrastructures developed for digital advertising to advance persuasive goals in the platforms and services themselves.” (p. 28)
And Williams introduces some thoughtful philosophy of his own, asking questions about identity, democracy, and polarization, as well as, of course, influence, persuasion, and coercion. The key point is that “... the dynamics of the attention economy are thus structurally set up to undermine the most noble aims and virtues worth pursuing.” (p. 80)
Because we all like to believe that we freely choose what we do with our time and attention, it may sound extreme to say that “...the competition for attention and the ‘persuasion’ of users ultimately amounts to a project of the manipulation of the will” and that “At individual levels, these problems threaten to frustrate one’s authorship of one’s own life.” (p. 88) but Williams makes a persuasive (!) case that this is what’s happening. And in the case of persuasive user interfaces, we may not even be aware of it.
The book is not perfect - the title, for example, was taken from an alleged encounter between the philosopher Diogenes and Alexander the Great. The analogy drawn by Williams casts the well-intentioned Alexander as the technology that offers so much promise, and suggests that we should respond as Diogenes did, telling Alexander that he was blocking his light. Apparently Diogenes had a reputation for being unconventional - not to say an obnoxious troll exactly... but anyway, I’m not sure I like the idea of being cast in the role of this cynical character. It’s not asking too much to expect that we can find a better way to respond to the situation.
Williams also takes pains to say that “...we cannot put the blame for these problems on the designers of the technologies themselves. No one becomes a designer or engineer because they want to make people’s lives worse.” (p. 102). That may be true, but software developers are not stupid, and each one who finds himself or herself in the position of being asked to build software whose purpose is persuade users to click on ads surely recognizes that this is not an ethical use of their talent, and can choose not to do it. Might that result in a loss of income? Sure; no one is saying that being ethical is the easy thing to do, just that it’s the right thing.
As for the solutions that Williams proposes, he suggests four angles of approach, with the first being to reassess the nature and purpose of advertising. As he says, “Advertising ethics has never really guided or restrained the practice of advertising in any meaningful way: it’s been a sleepy, tokenistic undertaking. Why has this been so? In short, because advertisers have found ethics threatening, and ethicists have found advertising boring.” (p. 109) I think he’s absolutely right about this, and while he points out that advertising is not the only root cause of the problem, it’s certainly one of the most important.
The remaining suggestions involve “...conceptual and linguistic reengineering, ... changing the upstream determinants of design, and ... advancing mechanisms for accountability, transparency, and measurement.” (p. 108) The discussion of these items comes across as a bit more technical and less forceful than I’d have preferred - but further work in these areas seems promising.
Personally I’d like to think it comes back to the individual ethics of each person involved, as I mentioned earlier. Williams quotes Facebook research scientist Jeff Hammerbacher as saying “The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads ...and it sucks.” (p. 30) There’s obviously a financial incentive for this, and ideally incentives can be changed, but individual choice in the face of those incentives can also be a step in the right direction.
I would recommend this book to anyone, but I particularly hope that my fellow software development professionals will read it. We are literally creating a new society with the technology that we design, and we get to decide what kind of society we want it to be. We need to recognize that “We have neither reason nor obligation to accept a relationship with technology that is adversarial in nature.” (p.100)
I read an electronic version of this book, available free of charge online from the publisher, Cambridge University Press (but I may follow up and buy a hard copy in support of the author and his important message).