On Modern Technology Always Being Annoying

So I’ve got to pondering recently, if you can’t tell by this isolated website. Far too much pondering for my own good, when the world is so nice and sunny out there. But one needs to ponder one’s circumstances in order to know the direction of travel in order to ‘do’ something and live a life with a satisfying narrative.

What are these strange electronic devices that we are all rampantly dependent on?

I have several, and whenever I look into them, something flashes back at me that seems almost tailor-made to annoy and provoke me. It’s like whoever is pumping the content knows my user profile and is tormenting me to try and, this is where the speculation enters, manipulate my life.

From a base narrative point of view, this black box in my pocket and on my desk is the great driver of my life. It tells me where to go, who to talk to, what to do, what to think, what to think about and it’s all nicely catalogued. I also engage in the surveillance, providing it with a steady stream of updates so that whoever is monitoring my profile knows that I am not going to engage in some theoretical heretical act against the monitor.

I can’t really drop the thought, as I’ve been investigating the algorithms that drive the backbone infrastructure of the internet. When we think of Google search engine results, or Map application directions, we assume that there is a mythical ‘algorithm’ that is providing the results.

I thought so too, until I began to poke around and have a look.

There exists a load of ‘AI Intelligence’ companies that supply companies such as Microsoft, Apple, Facebook and Google with labour. The tasks are to verify search results, social media pages and posts and the veracity of directions given on map applications.

I suppose the least nefarious of these is verifying map directions as it’s useful to have a pocket atlas of everywhere, but the manual that ranks how good the results are is absolutely absurd – you’ll have to trust me on that one.

Where it’s truly nefarious is in the ‘social media evaluation’, search engine rankings and ‘fact rankings’. Behind your phone app is a global work force working on $0.05 per task ascertaining whether something is allowed or not.

I suppose that’s the cost of having a magic black box in your pocket that allows you to do anything. Where I get annoyed is when all of these companies then become the arbiters of truth, because if you control the truth you can control reality, and I suppose the reality we’re living in is literally scripted as per the requirements of our phone apps.

I must be doing something right if the reality blasted at me on my computer screen is so frustratingly annoying. If you knew how to solve every single issue in the world, but the world tried it’s best to silence the solutions, perhaps the vested interests of the world are the impediments to living a full and wonderful life.