By LUÍS FERNANDO VITAGLIANO*
As big tech They want us to believe that they are fundamentally ideologically motivated, because then we remain ignorant of the technical issues that underpin digital capital.
1.
Artificial intelligence strategies have come to stir people's pride. big tech and the revolution is so great that the incorporation of artificial intelligence is forcing these companies to change their operating strategies or risk becoming obsolete. The impact is such that these companies are even picking tough fights with state institutions to gain time and be able to adjust their heavy costs and processes in training their artificial intelligence.
In the recent crises between the big tech and the government (whether Brazilian or others) is as important as the practical results they bring, it is necessary to understand that governments and some of the intellectuals who analyze events are mistaken because they are driven by ideologies, while the CEOs of companies and those who understand the microchip business are driven by capital. In this dissonance of purposes, companies have a lot to hide and want us to continue to believe that their motivation is fundamentally ideological, so that we remain ignorant of the technical issues that sustain digital capital.
Ignoring the essential helps blind us to the data that is absorbed by their companies, following the flow of artificial intelligence in a voluntary and free way, which feeds digital capital at the cost of conflicts in everyday life. Making us not realize where their gold mine is and persuading the population that the freedom of expression they preach is in fact desirable is the greatest technical skill of these performative CEOs of big tech.
In the Brazilian context, the crisis first came with “X”, the social network bought by Elon Musk that refused to comply with the Supreme Court order. The origin of this crisis was the corporate decision to keep fake profiles active after a court order to remove them. Let us remember that the path to increased robotic engagement began with the (previous) decision by “X” to end profile checks. As a result, the volume of data on the network increased and only then did the fear arise that the growth of artificial traffic could have an impact on the Brazilian elections.
For those who paid attention to the facts, the issue was much less political and more technological regarding the attacks by the owner of the social network “X” (formerly Twitter). In the end, the dispute was over the ability of the businessman's billionaire conglomerate to disregard court decisions. The STF ordered that fake profiles and dubious posts be removed from the platform. “X” refused to comply with the court order and its owner, Elon Musk, decided to use the platform to question the judicial powers by personally attacking Minister Alexandre de Moraes.
We all know the result: other businesses linked to “X” were also punished for failing to comply with the order. Until Starlink. That’s when the Achilles heel was found. Once again, politics was secondary to strategy: Starlink is the main internet network in the Amazon. It probably has more data about the forest and its inhabitants than the government. In addition to the financial consequences that this would have, paralyzing the company’s activities meant losing the data they have about the region and opening up space for competitors. The result: Elon Musk backed down.
2.
Removing the verification of profiles or posting procedures was (and is) the crux of the issue that has become a controversy between public bodies in Brazil and Elon Musk himself, who has now become an advisor to the US government. Now, for its own reasons, Meta is following the same path. The argument for this is always defended as a crusade of the big tech in favor of freedom of expression and demonstration on the internet. But perhaps this is just a red herring to play with the audience and gain social support while hiding the advantages of stimulating the expansion of artificial traffic: training the Artificial Intelligence of these platforms.
Then, the owner of Meta, another well-known figure adopted by Silicon Valley, the iconic creator of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, announced that he had ended the fact-checking system on the networks, justifying that “it has been very politically biased and has destroyed more trust than it has created”. The issue seems to be directly related to the first, in which technology companies, mainly social networks, are on an offensive to question the limits of public faith in legal regulation.
Most decision-makers within these mega-corporations know that this is a losing battle, and that the most they will get is some time in OECD countries that allows them to reorient their business models to compete with new startups that will already be born in the world of regulation. This makes it a race against time to make the most of the window of opportunity to train artificial intelligence in a virgin forest environment and become more efficient than the competition.
Therefore, it is clear that Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, as well as Jeff Bezos and other bigwigs in the big tech They know that they will not be able to save their businesses from the imposition of limits and legal responsibilities in more restrictive environments in the US and the European Union in the future. Regarding China, then: there is no chance whatsoever of them influencing that country's digital policy with their rhetorical pyrotechnics. In this context, it is understandable that they take risks in peripheral countries where the fight can yield other fruits and the training of artificial intelligence is a bet that can keep them at the forefront.
This is why politicizing the legal issue in Brazil is so important. We are still far from having governance for the internet or Artificial Intelligence. Entering into conflict with State institutions allows these companies to slow down the trend towards regulation; in fact, proposals to hold them jointly responsible for the harm caused to people and institutions would be a defeat for these companies.
However, it is still important to note that each company faces its own dramas. Meta and X do not have the same strategy, even though they make similar decisions. In the case of Mark Zuckerberg, the main motivation seems to be his technological backwardness and the financial losses that this may generate; while for Elon Musk, increasing traffic and training artificial intelligence is already part of the mapping of information control.
3.
Let me explain: Facebook went through a huge amount of friction with the US Congress after the 2016 elections. In 2018, the company's CEO, Zucherberg himself, was subpoenaed by the US Congress to justify how data was leaked to the Cambridge Analytics and other digital manipulation companies and how this influenced the elections. In an attempt to protect the company's image, Facebook created fact-checks and invested in data governance – note: for pure survival and not for ideology.
Furthermore, it changed, repositioned itself, became Meta and defined as a long-term strategy to invest in augmented reality, 3D games, virtual glasses, etc.; moving away from political issues. But the growth of technology in this direction did not correspond and the option for virtual reality proved to be wrong; the world of big tech went somewhere else, and the so-called fourth phase of ICTs was towards Artificial Intelligence and not towards the internet of things as many expected or towards augmented reality as an alternative; and Meta had another setback.
If this hypothesis is correct, Mark Zuckerberg's companies wasted a lot of time and money on virtual reality and did not pay due attention to artificial intelligence. Now they will need to make up for lost time. Checking and performing a minimum of content control is expensive, time-consuming and interferes with the artificial intelligence database. After the 2016 fiasco, it made sense for Facebook to invest in checking and reliability to restore its image, but with the recent direction of artificial intelligence, Meta's abandoning checking is a financial and technological decision, not an ideological one. Mark Zuckerberg cannot admit this publicly, so he uses the rhetoric of freedom of expression as a crutch.
Obviously, we all know what the ideal fact-checking policy for Silicon Valley is: a war of all against all and whoever comes out alive is right. And if this causes unprecedented social harm, the important thing is to hide any causal connection with the chaos. Since there is no scientific proof that greed for data from big tech cause social anomie, companies are not yet subject to restrictive legislation.
Meta anticipated the problem (perhaps due to its 2018 crisis) and created fact-checking filters. Meta's current change in strategy to abandon the fact-checking system is a considerable setback for those who defend regulation, while the company understands that public compliance may take time.
Personally, I find it hard to believe that Meta's commitment to filters was guided by ethics. Just as the recent setback does not seem to be linked to a paean to freedom of expression, there is a change of direction in the company's investment decisions, which are very attentive to the development of artificial intelligence. And I'll say more: if I had money invested in Meta shares, I would rush to exchange them; I wouldn't bet on Facebook as a relevant tool in four or five years.
4.
All this does not mean that the Brazilian government should not be attentive and aware of the implications of these decisions. big tech provoke. In a country where internet culture produces virulent virtual ignoramuses in larger than average proportions, the effect of removing fact-checks is immediate and harmful. But it is also necessary to understand against whom and in favor of whom the disputes are organized, in order to emerge from them stronger.
Meta is at war with its competitors, although it “chooses” the government as its antagonist, it is apparently losing ground in the business dispute for innovation. Its attitude is less political and more desperate, and what interests them is not a positive view of public opinion, but rather to make up for the losses that are caused by the training of its artificial intelligence tools.
With artificial intelligence neural networks, companies like Meta, X, Amazon, Google, Apple, etc., need big data to train their robots. They need a lot of engagement to calibrate their tools and, more than just data in exponential volume, they also need variety, diversity, contrasts and a multiplicity of types. By these criteria, the Brazilian market is an oasis of data. Is there a country that is more diverse, unequal, multiracial and multipolar than Brazil? It has volume and diversity. The Brazilian artificial intelligence feeding market is great for any company, which still has legislation that fully allows data extraction and algorithm engagement.
Thinking that there is an ideological motivation for Meta to change its fact-checking policy may be a mistake if we consider the current technological evolution. What matters is not ideology, it is the data. And the Brazilian government and our state institutions need to consider that the data produced here by user interaction is what matters to these companies.
If the cost is that a person died due to pressure on social media, if there are family disputes that lead to violence, if there is polarization between neighbors, a coup or any social deconstruction, it doesn't matter to CEOs; as long as the links between increased virtual engagement and increased social conflicts are not established... and, most importantly: as long as the data arrives.
Thus, if there is a connection between the virtual and anomie, it is all the better for conflicts to occur because they feed off each other: if virtual engagement increases social conflict, the opposite also occurs and the increase in social conflict provokes more virtual engagement.
*Luis Fernando Vitagliano holds a PhD in “Social change and political participation” from EACH-USP. Author, with Marcio Pochmann, of the book The delay of the future and the “cordial man” (Hucitec).[https://amzn.to/3CRWcNw]
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