Film Warns of Algorithms Controlling Our Lives

By: Abdallah Abbas
@abdallahabbas13

Photo: The Social Dilemma poster

Jeff Orlowski’s The Social Dilemma that was released earlier this year, exposes how giant tech companies have created sinister algorithms to manipulate and influence societies. 

The movie features interviews with several tech experts and former employees at Silicon Valley, the hub for high technology and innovation in the southern part of San Francisco.

The interviews reveal their feelings towards how their companies have introduced technological advancements that strongly influenced human minds and personalities. 

But those interviewed expressed their remorse about what technology has become and went as far as to offer warnings of the consequences that people may encounter as a result of this fast developing technology.

The Social Dilemma was screened on November 1 as part of an ongoing film series organized by Yasmeen El Ghazaly, Assistant Director at the Center of American Studies and Research, and Balthazar Beckett Assistant Professor at the Department of English and Comparative Literature, to provide a forum in which the AUC community can discuss film and important American social issues.

Ghazaly explained that the idea for the screenings developed in 2017 as a way to increase exposure to the center; Through it’s cultural scope along with its political scope. 

“The easiest way to do this is through art, by engaging movies, or theatre, or drama, or poems…so we said why not start with the film series,” said Ghazaly.

Ghazaly went on to explain that with the movies they pick, they want them to resonate with the political and cultural aspects of American culture in Egypt and the U.S.

When it comes to selecting the movies for their monthly screenings, Ghazaly explained that she and Beckett tend to gravitate towards films that were resonant in American cultures.

“For example we had a whole theme about black lives matter…we had something about Michael Moore and the presidential elections from before,” said Ghazaly. 

Beckett and Ghazaly hope the screenings will expose students to the reality of what life in the U.S. is like.

“Many students have never set foot out of Egypt. They get their perception of America from social media, from TV, from reading a few articles, it’s all very superficial,” explained Ghazaly.

She went on to say that fitting into American society is not as easy as these different media would make it seem. Non-American people, even if they have citizenship, will always be seen as such.

With the ongoing elections in the US, Ghazaly and Beckett decided to screen The Social Dilemma as a way to shed light on social media’s role in people’s decision making.

“The algorithms in these technologies are very scary, it’s almost as if they know how your mind is thinking. This does affect your choice at some point, and that’s what happened with the Trump scandal,” Ghazaly said.

“With The Social Dilemma, it actually has a lot to do with how social media can manipulate people to go towards a certain choice,” she added.

Maryam Gehad, a Petroleum Engineering student, told The Caravan she liked the way the movie was made.

“It exposed me to new and interesting ideas.. But I found it slow at times,” she said. 

According to The New York Times, The Social Dilemma was remarkably effective in sounding the alarm about the incursion of data mining and manipulative technology into people’s social lives and beyond.