POL106 Midterm: Weeks 1-5 Readings + Lectures Key Terms

Epistemic Health

Tendency for people to believe true rather than false information

Hypersuasion

Future AI systems may have persuasive powers greater than humans

Microtargeting

LLMs tailor political messaging to specific individuals based on social media activity

Issue Polarization

Highly divergent political perspectives

Affective Polarization

Animosity between people with different political affiliations

Liar’s Dividend

Legitimate content being widely questioned

Surveillance Capitalism

Private human experience taken as free raw material and translated into behavioural data

Information Civilization

Scale of information technology in society

Extraction

One-way process; typically occurs in the absence of dialogue/consent

Lower Level Function

Advertised function

Higher Level Function

Collecting data to sell for profit

Relentless Logic

Endlessness of opportunities to collect data from a singular mode

Algorithm Chow

Algorithm treating users as food and consuming data

Technocarcinization

With enough time, across many environments, Big Tech companies turn into Facebook

Attention Economy Business

Ad-based; user of product/service is not directly the source of revenue

Internet Addiction

Teenagers becoming addicted to technologies associated with Facebook and Apple

Choice Theories

Addicts are not compelled to use an addictive substance but choose to as perceived benefits are greater than perceived costs; deluded into thinking they have a choice but there is actually little alternative

Disease Theories

Addictive substances produce pathological changes in vulnerable individuals that generate powerful craving and weakened self-control

Learning Theories

Addiction as learned behaviour acquired through conditioning of positive/negative reinforcement

Neurobiological Theories

Specific molecular and neurological mechanisms of addiction

General Internet Addiction

Addiction to the internet in all of its forms

Specific Internet Addiction

Addiction to specific activities that are accessed through the internet

Variable Reinforcement

Rewards that vary in their frequency/magnitude

Adaptive Algorithms

Continuous reinforcement of platforms to become more addictive for each user

Paternalistic Policies

The idea that large tech companies know better than the user of what to do with their lives; users are incapable of running their own lives

Digital Use Divide

Teens in low-income communities exposed to more technology than teens in high-income communities

Operant Conditioning

Altering behaviour based on rewards/punishments

Dark Patterns

Patterns built into design for users to make choices that benefit the company, not the user

Algorithmic Amplification of Incitement

Engagement-driven feeds; machine is indifferent to real-life consequences

Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM)

Used by cables to move large amounts of data by allowing different data streams in the form of light to be sent simultaneously over a single fiber

Amplifiers

Installed inline as part of the cable to restore the signal

Space Division Multiplexing

Increases cable’s total capacity by increasing number of independent spatial channels in the core

Planned Obsolesence

Devices not made to last

The Cloud

Set of computational resources that can be accessed remotely via the internet

Critical Minerals

Strategically important to governments for the economy

Rare Earth Elements

Encased in other elements and minerals; need lots of processing to mine them

Right to Repair

Making parts, tools, materials for consumers to repair their own devices

Gig/Platform Work

Tasks assigned and managed remotely through apps

Algorithmic Wage Discrimination

Platforms use granular data to offer different workers different pay for the same work

Mission Creep

Interchangeable with “relentless logic”

Regime

Set of norms that people follow

Algorithmic Management

1. Authority shifts: from people to proprietary systems

2. Information asymmetry: users cannot see how data is processed

Proprietary Systems

Technology owned and controlled by a single organization that restricts public access to its underlying architecture