“You are being programmed,” comes the ominous warning from Chamath Palihapitiya, a former Facebook Vice President. “It was unintentional, but now you have to decide how much you’re willing to give up.” Talking about the exploitative nature of the consumer internet business at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, he cautioned the audience about the dangers of social media usage.
“We have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works,” he admits. Admitting that he does not have a good solution, he said that he just does not “use these tool anymore”. In fact, Palihapitiya confessed, he’s barely used Facebook in the past seven years. “If you feed the beast, that beast will destroy you. If you push back on it, we have a chance to control it and rein it in.”
Palihapitiya explained that this is a vicious cycle and he considers himself one of the creators of this problem. “The short-term, dopamine driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how social works,” he said.
Watch the full interaction below.
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