Steven Novella

It's like, you know, asking Coke, is there actual cocaine in your problem?

We don't really know.

Enjoy.

Right.

Right, because the accusation is that the algorithm, the addictive radicalization feature of those algorithms, again, it's a feature, not a bug.

It's deliberate.

It's not incidental.

Right.

So I have to say, that's pretty much what I figured.

I didn't think there was, you know, like, yeah, we're gonna only offer up radicalizing videos.

Of course it's psychological.

So I think a better analogy here is like a slot machine at a casino.

The slot machine is not doing anything active to make you gamble more, but it is calibrated to human psychology to maximize gambling.

They know exactly how to reinforce the behavior that they want.

And so you can't separate that from the human psychological component.

So I think with the YouTube and other online algorithms, I think they are optimizing your behavior, which is clicking, right?

And your attention and eyes on and staying on their site.

That, of course, is psychological.

And it leads to rabbit holes and radicalization, etc.

Yeah, that's complicated.