I don’t think it is an either / or – a regulation or a ban –
1. A ban would give us breathing space and leverage whilst Governments catch up on regulation.
2. Big Tech has over the decades shown complete contempt for ordinary people and the tech power imbalance has become ingrained – no algorithmic transparency or accountability is available for parents, teachers and carers
3. The move fast and break things Big Tech culture is endemic
4. i don’t think we can trust US Big Tech with their own dangerous geopolitical strategy (Greenland, resource wars, water, energy, techno- feudalism, undermining of democracies and sovereignty) to have the best interests of UK children at heart
The frequency of meetings between government and big tech and their advocates is astounding and points to the incredible power imbalance at stake when it comes to protecting children online – Andy Burrows, the chief executive of the Molly Rose Foundation.
Just months after President Donald Trump first expressed interest in the United States possibly gaining control over Greenland, some of the richest people in the world—including Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg—began making strategic investments in the mineral-rich island – Martina Di Licosa, Forbes
Peter Thiel: The Paypal and Palantir tech titan funded in early 2021 the startup Praxis, which aims to build a technologically advanced “freedom city” on the island of Greenland – Forbes
The risks of utilizing generative AI in children’s education overshadow its benefits – Brookings Institution’s Center for Universal Education
As a disciple of the great Jaron Lanier (and my wife), I’ve been banging this drum for years, in particular on the dangers of exposing young brains to addictive-by-design algorithms. And while it may be too late for a generation of teenagers and young adults staring down at glowing rectangles in every restaurant and park and already fully hooked into the TikTok Matrix, there is time to save younger children from the same fate
I’ve heard the arguments against introducing an age limit, which mainly centre around the challenges of implementation and the possibility of pushing use underground, but these miss the point: legal change will making it easier for families, and IRL communities, to hold the line. None of this is to deny the potential benefits of social media (though I think these are overstated) like providing community for the marginalised and isolated, but children are just way too impressionable for it to be a worthwhile trade-off
By the way, we’ll be having the same conversation about chatbots very soon – Ben Maling on linkedin
Resist AI 