Like the vast majority of this Big Data stuff people try to sell you is a human analyst who already has their own opinion about a social phenomenon or whatever and then carefully looks for datasets and algorithms for interpreting them that sound like they match what they think
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The idea that a computer is at all capable of answering a question like "How do Generation Z youths feel about Obama's legacy" is obscene, it's ridiculous But people act like doing a term search on Instagram comments or something can "approximate" this somehow
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Replying to @arthur_affect
Technophiles are trash. Computers are real cool *to a point* and anything after is a disgusting mockery of life itself
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Replying to @its_so_soft
I just really want to die on the hill that computers even now are still only tools used by humans, "true AI" may exist someday but right now it's a distant dream, and everything in the world that's "computer-generated" is just human-generated with extra steps
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Replying to @arthur_affect @its_so_soft
That means whenever people treat "the Internet" as this amorphous digital God out there that just gives you information out of nowhere for free it's one big lie There's always a human or group of humans who did it
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Replying to @arthur_affect @its_so_soft
A lot of credit for good stuff gets lost because of this But, possibly far more importantly, a lot of blame for serious harm is also dodged this way
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Replying to @arthur_affect @its_so_soft
This comes up right now in US constitutional law The Sixth Amendment of the Bill of Rights explicitly gives you the right to "confront the witnesses against you" in a trial The witness can't be a camera, or a sensor, or an algorithm, it has to be a person
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Replying to @arthur_affect @its_so_soft
Stupid jokes people make about "calling a red light camera to the stand" aside, this is very relevant on a deep legal level The red light camera can't issue you a ticket A human being looked at the footage generated by the camera, interpreted it, and made the call
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Replying to @arthur_affect @its_so_soft
"The algorithm" never does anything without a human being's consent and agency, even if the human being acts out of benign neglect and turns themselves into a rubber stamp
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Replying to @arthur_affect @its_so_soft
The fact that in a criminal trial that human has to come forward and give an accounting of themselves is really fucking important, in ways the writers of the Bill of Rights didn't anticipate It sharply limits the power of the alliance between Big Tech and Law Enforcement
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(I say they didn't anticipate it, but they DID anticipate it, because the idea that tech changes the situation is FALSE An anonymous tip submitted by a written note isn't DIFFERENT from anonymously submitted surveillance footage, even if the latter looks more convincing)
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Replying to @arthur_affect @its_so_soft
(The idea that it is is just them fucking with your head with the dazzling power of technology again All data -- a paper trail, a photo, audio, video -- means nothing without context Someone has to *take responsibility* for it -- "Where did this come from, what does it mean")
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Replying to @arthur_affect @its_so_soft
(People who think "hard evidence" is different from "testimony" don't get that ALL evidence in a trial is testimony Physical evidence can't be entered into the record at all without a human being's testimony of some kind -- "This is how I got this photo")
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