Social media revolution and polarization. Are we ready to be influenced by Artificial Intelligence?

Developers and data scientists are getting good at anticipating our needs based on what we post, what we view and how we react.

I recall describing this phenomenon as “social media bubble” during my earlier entrepreneurship journey; i.e more and more people will be trapped in this “bubble” due to the power of machine learning algorithms controlling, filtering and feeding content which you think you like.

For most users of social media, we are not cognizant to the fact that our behavior as consumers or voters are massively influenced by Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms which reduces human’s cognitive ability to think or analyze.

This is because consumers are driven by emotions that triggers the primal brain and influences us to act in a certain way.

Recent studies have shown that social media users are exposed to more than 5,000 ads daily.

The wave of visual stimuli coming from these ads are termed “pushed content”; i.e advertisers pushing content to serve the target audience.

The debate on social platform’s commercial objective as a huge advertising platform continues amongst regulators and policy makers as Facebook and Twitter exponentially record year on year growth from advertising revenues.

So where does Google fits into the equation?

One uses Google Search to seek for more information, to decide, to compare or to validate on selected offers or information.

This is where the “pull content” comes into play. You “pull the content” that you want to see, not what was “pushed” to you.

In Malaysia, the magnitude of influence of social media and digital platforms have resulted in the change of Government in the last 14th General Election.

Whether it is for the better or for the worst, 150% mobile penetration in Malaysia provided sufficient opportunity for political parties and organizations to exploit the full potential of social media in shaping one’s behavior and belief.

The latest by-elections also were powered mainly by social media influence, where sentiment and other social media metrices provides the proxy indicator of winning or losing.

It is no surprise large advertising firms in likes of WPP, Publicis and Dentsu are racing on “horizontal” transformation programs to integrate data, technology and creativity in order to deliver more value to their clients and brands.

What is more surprising that technology consulting firms like Accenture, McKinsey and IBM are equally nimble to encroaching into the advertising and marketing space.

Research in 2018 showed that Accenture spent US$1 billion to acquire smaller advertising agencies in their attempt to drive more value in the digital space such as social analytics or emotion analytics.

Coming back to users like you and me, what is more evident today is how we interact amongst friends or with brands in social media.

Undeniably the machine learning algorithms continue to trap us in our own interest bubble, promoting cognitive biases based on our self-belief or spiraling our interests deeper, fueling our desires for more content.

For some, running away temporarily from your phones on weekends or searching fresh content or perspectives can be a revelation.

The business model underpinning in all social media platforms (as an advertising revenue generator) will not change.

What will and should change is our responsibility on how we utilize social platforms and yet not be easily influenced by it.

Decluttering the information overload, navigating through waves of misinformation, trusting credible sources and making a good judgement of the situation are signs of growing maturity that we need in this country.

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