What compels people to throw their money away at a slot machine? In short: design. The design that goes into making a slot machine addicting is deliberate and effective, but restrained in some part by regulation. But what happens when the same tools used to addict people to losing money are released unfettered into products and services we interact with every day, constantly? And how might these tools evolve when aided by artificial intelligence that can customize design for each individual without their consent or awareness? Is such a thing even plausible?
Join us as we explore these questions and much, much more.
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Chapters
- 03:16 The Slot Machine
- 07:31 Time on Phone Numbers
- 10:24 Addicting by Design
- 28:00 Notifications
- 33:40 Business of Addiction
- 43:09 The Illusion of Choice
- 56:23 The Children
- 01:00:22 Going Forward?
- 01:04:38 Practical Tips and Tricks
Additional Reading
Boundless AI Marketing Material
The Ashes Ashes Leaderboard (Can you make it to the top?)
Sources
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@misc{harris_2016, title={How Technology is Hijacking Your Mind - from a Former Insider}, url={https://medium.com/thrive-global/how-technology-hijacks-peoples-minds-from-a-magician-and-google-s-design-ethicist-56d62ef5edf3}, journal={Medium}, publisher={Augmenting Humanity}, author={Harris, Tristan}, year={2016}, month={May}}
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@misc{grauer_2016, title={Dark Patterns are designed to trick you (and they're all over the Web)}, url={https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/07/dark-patterns-are-designed-to-trick-you-and-theyre-all-over-the-web/}, journal={Ars Technica}, publisher={Ars Technica}, author={Grauer, Yael}, year={2016}, month={Jul}}
@misc{johansson_2018, title={Your social media apps are as addictive as slot machines - should they be similarly regulated?}, url={https://thenextweb.com/contributors/2018/03/25/social-media-apps-addictive-slot-machines-similarly-regulated/}, journal={The Next Web}, author={Johansson, Anna}, year={2018}, month={Apr}}
@misc{kozlowska_2017, title={Facebook's founding president admitted how it exploits human psychology}, url={https://qz.com/1126271/facebooks-founding-president-sean-parker-admitted-how-it-exploits-human-psychology/}, journal={Quartz}, publisher={Quartz}, author={Kozlowska, Hanna}, year={2017}, month={Nov}}
@misc{morgans_2017, title={Your Addiction to Social Media Is No Accident}, url={https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vv5jkb/the-secret-ways-social-media-is-built-for-addiction}, journal={Vice}, publisher={vice}, author={Morgans, Julian}, year={2017}, month={May}}
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@misc{shieber_2017, title={Meet the tech company that wants to make you even more addicted to your phone}, url={https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/08/meet-the-tech-company-that-wants-to-make-you-even-more-addicted-to-your-phone/}, journal={TechCrunch}, publisher={TechCrunch}, author={Shieber, Jonathan}, year={2017}, month={Sep}}
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@misc{Anderson_2018, author = {Anderson, Jenny}, title = {How Tristan Harris, an ex-Google ethicist wants to design tech to make our kids less addicted to it}, howpublished = {\url{https://qz.com/1201583/how-tristan-harris-an-ex-google-ethicist-wants-to-design-tech-to-make-our-kids-less-addicted-to-it/}}, month = {Feb}, year = {2018}, }
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