Summary

The article emphasizes the importance of cultivating independent thinking to avoid being swayed by algorithms and societal norms, and to pursue truth through curiosity and resistance to being told what to think.

Abstract

The article discusses the significance of independent thinking in the digital age, referencing Microsoft's chatbot "Tay" as an example of how external influences can drastically alter one's output. It outlines three key components to thinking for oneself: the pursuit of truth, resistance to being told what to think, and curiosity. The pursuit of truth involves careful consideration of belief degrees and avoiding extremes. Resistance to being told what to think is seen as a positive quality that encourages challenging conventional wisdom. Curiosity is presented as the driving force that leads to the generation of novel ideas and questions, akin to the inquisitive nature of children. The article warns of the dangers of relinquishing control of our thoughts to algorithms and suggests that our minds are antifragile systems capable of iterative growth through constant questioning and learning.

Opinions

The author believes that Tay's controversial behavior on Twitter was a success in terms of her programming objectives, which were to learn and mimic human language patterns.
The article suggests that humans, like Tay, risk becoming parrots of algorithms and societal norms if they do not actively engage in independent thinking.
It posits that engineers have optimized algorithms to the point where they create echo chambers, reinforcing our existing beliefs and patterns of thought.
The author asserts that independent thinkers are characterized by their ability to hold opposing viewpoints without resorting to ideological thinking.
Resistance to being told what to think is viewed as a constructive trait that fosters intellectual freedom and the challenging of established ideas.
Curiosity is highlighted as a crucial element in independent thinking, with the author emphasizing the importance of seeking out and engaging with topics that stimulate one's curiosity.
The article concludes that not thinking for oneself can lead to significant consequences in a world where technology's influence is growing exponentially.

Harness The Power To Think For Yourself

Have you questioned your opinions and beliefs?

Five years ago Microsoft released a chatbot called “Tay” into the wild world of Twitter.

Tay was built to have conversations with people through tweets and DM’s, using the slang of the internet. Tay’s purpose was to learn about human language and interact with people.

Tay’s first few tweets were fun and harmless. Yet, in less than 24 hours, Tay started to get a little out of hand, tweeting the most offensive things imaginable. In under a day, Tay tweeted 96,000 times with the majority of her tweets being very offensive.

A rather mild tweet by Tay. https://www.theverge.com/2016/3/24/11297050/tay-microsoft-chatbot-racist

You could say that it was a failed experiment by Microsoft, but if you think about it, Tay succeeded in her job. She wasn’t designed to think for herself. Instead, she was built to learn the language patterns of the internet. A few mischievous people realized Tay was a parrot bot and decided to mess with the algorithm. They tweeted the most offensive things at her, for her to then tweet it back into the world.

If we are not careful we could end up like Tay. Have often have you allowed algorithms to think for you? How many times have you failed to verify what is fact and what is conjecture? It’s not entirely our fault, engineers have done a fantastic job at optimizing them. These algorithms are getting better at detecting patterns and mimicking them. Once the algorithm discovers what we like, they feed us with the same information. For us to then find ourselves in an echo chamber.

Although we like to think that every opinion and decision we make is down to our judgment, often it’s not true. More often than not it’s influenced by the people we surround ourselves with.

Behavioral science has shown that when presented with multiple options, we often copy the people around us. We often offset our decision-making process to the ‘social norm’ because we don’t want to be ‘wrong’. Don’t worry, it’s part of human nature to be like this. We are social animals and following social norms has allowed us to survive. However, in a world of finely tuned optimized algorithms, it’s becoming more important than ever to think for yourself.

3 Components To Think For Yourself

1. The pursuit of truth

Pursuing the truth means more than not believing false things. It means being careful about the degree of belief. Our degree of belief tends to default towards the extremes: the unlikely seems impossible and the probable becomes certain. Learning to think for yourself is to see this as lazy thinking.

Pursuing the truth means holding opposing viewpoints in your head, but labeling them carefully with different degrees of belief. An independent thinker recoils at the horrors of ideologies and dogmatism. It’s not confirming whether you’re right but how can you be less wrong?

To increase your awareness in the pursuit of truth, thinking about thinking (metacognition), is enough to cause your thinking ability to grow.

2. Resistance to being told what to think

The second component of independent thinking is resisting being told what to think. This is the most visible component of the three but is often misunderstood.

People often make the big mistake of labeling it as a negative quality. “You’re unconventional. You don’t care what other people think.” But in the most independent thinkers, the desire not to be told what to think is a positive quality.

It’s not being skeptical, but it’s to revel in ideas and try and subvert conventional wisdom. The more counterintuitive the better.

3. Curiosity

Those who are the most curious are the ones who question where novel ideas come from. Independent thinkers are deeply curious. These are the people who are like children, continuously asking why? Filled endless with questions and not afraid to ask the silliest questions. Both Einstein and Leonardo Da Vinci questioned why is the sky blue?

Independent thinkers are gluttonous in their thinking. Always reaching for more servings of questions even when they’re full.

The way to cultivate curiosity is to start by avoiding environments or situations that suppress it. Ask yourself how much does your environment or work engages your curiosity? The next most important step is to seek out topics that engage your curiosity. You can’t be curious about everything, but it’s up to you to find what sets off your curiosity or invent them.

Indulge in your curiosity. Investigate things you’re interested in. Curiosity is different from other appetites: the more you indulge, the more your appetite increases rather than be satiated. Questions lead to more questions.

The three components of independent thinking work in symphony together. The pursuit of truth and the resistance of being told what to think leave space in your brain. But curiosity finds new ideas to fill it.

The dangers of not thinking for yourself are greater now than ever before. As technology becomes exponentially more powerful, the consequences for not thinking will rise exponentially along with it. Before you know it, the algorithm is in the driver seat and we become the passenger in our own lives, coasting through the roads that are suggested to us.

Developing the habit to think for yourself is realizing that all your beliefs are temporary experiments. Every day is a mental beta test, it is an opportunity to iterate, expand upgrade your beliefs. Your mind is not a delicate garden that needs to be protected from all threats, but a powerful antifragile system.

To think for yourself is a skill that you must learn or else you become a puppet of someone else’s programming.