If You Get Hit in the Head with a Hammer (Heaven Forbid), Who is to Blame: Us, the Tool, or the Intention?

The thumbs that we use for texting and posting—the original tools of our digital era—evolved over 2.5 million years ago as the opposable thumbs that were a distinguishing trait in hominin species that began to make tools. Our more direct ancestors developed killer app thumbs…and thus created more elaborate tools. And here we are today, digging up their remains and pontificating on evolution.

If, in fact, thumbs were the first killer app (an apt description as you will see), tools were the killer outcome (same). In Stanley Kubrick’s brilliant 2001 movie A Space Odyssey, he shows us the evolution of tools…their power, and their own inevitable evolution…if you haven’t seen the movie or have forgotten the opening sequence, the first 9 minutes or so are a critical watch.

Some might argue (and please do!!) tools too often evolve or perhaps devolve into weaponry—tools of destruction; tools that allow for control or ruin; the annihilation of others. Side-bar diversion (wouldn’t be IMAGINE if there wasn’t at least one): Nuclear might be one of the few examples of a powerful tech that went right to devastating weaponry and then became a serious tool for humanity.

Rather than swords into plowshares as the Bible would have it, the technology and knowledge that created plowshares ultimately led to the weapons of today.

It makes no difference the category we look at…think movable type and the spread of hate along with knowledge…same for movies, radio, TV, and of course, digital.

Yet the debate rages. Do we regulate the tools of the trade, so to speak? After all, they are inanimate until our highly evolved thumbs engage them…or is it just a human problem, and we either need to just protect ourselves, head for the hills, or…??

KNEE JERK ALERT: NO POLITICS PLEASE…comment on the issue…

The tools of social media and AI clearly, I would posit, fall into the category in question. The debates are raging, and I will conflate the two for the purpose of this IMAGINE.?

Therefore, in yet another fully unscientific Sable Survey (all my usual caveats apply), I ruminated:

“I talk a lot about social media and how it can amplify misinformation and more, but here’s some food for thought…Social media is a tool. It doesn’t post. It doesn’t troll. People do.

My view has always been that social media simply reflects where our culture is at. What’s your view?”

I would ask you to apply AI to the same basic question with all the obvious changes to its usage.?

The question I asked was, as usual, simple and hopefully unambiguous to the point:

“Is social media the root problem or is it simply a tool that reflects the state of our culture?”

Your answers were illuminating and as usual, it's the comments that give depth and power to these little surveys and my belief that they are actually fairly accurate reflections of projectable sentiment.?

There were three possible responses, and here they are with their percentage of the vote:

• It's not the problem: 18%
• It adds to the problem: 46%
• It created new problems: 36%

Bottom line…less than 20% of us are ready to let them off the hook. Most feel that social media as a tool, if you will, bears some accountability for its own misuse.?

Now to the comments:

• “The problem isn’t the ‘tool’ – the problem is the algorithms and exploitations on the back-end. My hammer doesn’t suggest to me things I can hit with it.” —CH
• “Yes, SM is a tool. All tools are neutral and can be both good and bad and all have unintended consequences. The printing press was used in nasty ways too, before culture figured out rules. And it is still used in nefarious ways.” —GC
• “Often wielded for profit over humanity. Society does reflect the culture, but bad actors sometimes impact us the most.” —NC
• “I firmly believe it reflects society…with social media you realize that our issues are deep-rooted and widespread.” —TM
• “SM accounts may be ‘Free’ but there’s a societal factored in as humans love the bad stuff.” —GA
• “People interact more with things that make them angry and argumentative.” —NH
• “It's not a problem if you control social media and not the other way around.” —JS
• “Can be a boon or bane.” —Dr. AP
• “It's a shared responsibility.” —FA

No lack of extra food for thought ranging the gamut.?

There is one more powerful proof point of the confluence of the tool and its creators and users…one that I have written about before and that my close friend Aaron Mitchel so articulately posted to this question:

“I don’t let the tool off so easily. Tool+intention = where things are.

Case and point:

FaceMash was opened in 2003, and developed by Mark Zuckerberg; he wrote the software for the Facemash website when he was in his second year of college. The website was set up as a type of "hot or not" game for Harvard students. The website allowed visitors to compare two students' pictures side by side and let them decide who was more attractive.

While writing the software, Mark Zuckerberg wrote the following blog entries:

“I'm a little intoxicated, not gonna lie. So what if it's not even 10 p.m. and it's a Tuesday night? What? The Kirkland [dorm] Facebook is open on my desktop and some of these people have pretty horrendous Facebook pics. I almost want to put some of these faces next to pictures of farm animals and have people vote on which is more attractive.” — 9:48 pm

“Yea, it's on. I'm not exactly sure how the farm animals are going to fit into this whole thing (you can't really ever be sure with farm animals ...), but I like the idea of comparing two people together.” — 11:09 pm

When we make a habit of removing history, it’s hard to understand when technology evolves to do exactly what it was designed to do.” — Aaron Mitchell

We can never remove history…much like maybe we need to be mindful of our own human cultural inclinations (see Kubrick again)…

My view? It's ultimately up to us…it’s too easy to blame the tool. It lets us off the hook too quickly.?

Remembering where META came from is a great start.

What do you think??