Building a Technology of Creative Expression and Greater Human Intelligence

I’ve been working with machine learning and data science on some level for over ten years in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. I believe too much of the tech industry is focused on manipulating and controlling people. I think we should change focus.

I remember the time someone pitched me on building a website to help children apply for college. It sounded like a nice thing until I learned the details. Apparently, the site would collect racial and other demographic characteristics to find the ‘right’ school. It took me a while to digest that I had just been pitched on the latest generation of algorithmic racism. This idea of having computer tell you where you should go to school based on your race just seemed wrong to me. Yet, when we delve deeper what many tech companies are doing isn’t much better.

The choices we make in life are not just about facts, but about values. Algorithms are programmed to optimize for something. Often, they optimize for being addictive or getting us to buy as much as possible. Still, other times they get programmed to mirror other decision makers where they can crystalize biases, including things like racism.

I strongly believe we should be using this sort of technology to create new possibilities of beauty and intelligence. Fundamentally, any filtering engine is about putting people in boxes. This includes everything from the news feed algorithm, algorithms that decide if we get credit to self-driving cars. It pushes you down a specific path. A human no longer controls the path, but rather it is determined by the machine.

I want to create technology that opens us up to greater possibilities. We should see things we didn’t conceive before. We should re-imagine our reality. I’ve been working to realize this.

I don’t claim to have all the answers. I’ve taken to building algorithms to design apparel. You can see the stuff I’ve designed at https://roarshockbrands.com. I’m working on more tools for allowing anyone to design beautiful things. Eventually, I’d hope to create algorithms for all us to design a more beautiful, more intelligent world.

Let me know your thoughts and opinions. Email me gershon -at- roarshockbrands.com or follow me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/gersh17. You can also leave your comments below.