So a bit of Code, is fuelling the anger of the yellow West

On the 19. January 2018, announced Mark Zuckerberg, to put the focus of Facebook more on local News and groups. At the time, he had burned out on the world policy, just fingers: His company had distributed Fake News, Trump and the Brexit protect made involuntarily help, and now, under political pressure. Zuckerberg's response a retreat was: to hide Instead of continuing in geopolitical disputes Ricken, he wanted to spread in the future, better news from the neighborhood. And instead of user by anonymous trolls to turn on, you should communicate more with your family, friends and Acquaintances.

But now a new political Protest: the yellow the West, in France, summarized in this digital neighborhood. If older French Facebook-publish something, write it like "ptg" (short for "partager", i.e., share, share) – followed by the number of your département. And yellow the West-groups, for example, "Colère 36" – "anger from the Department of 36". As Facebook changed its algorithm, is lost big news pages massive visibility – the local Wutgruppen were flooded with Traffic almost. Their concerns, after which no rooster had crowed, there was a huge audience. A new uprising articulated, with a powerful help of a bit of Code from the Silicon Valley.

You could call this development the "agile Revolution". The English term "agile" (agile, nimble) originates from the software development and describes a new type of cooperation: Instead of products, to plan extensively, then to develop them over the years, and to test long "in the laboratory", to develop rather quickly with a "Minimum Viable Product" – an extremely simple prototype. This is still an immature product is released directly to the users in the network. It is observed, what happens and learns from the data obtained. Then you released a new prototype and so on. Permanent Beta, the eternal test run. The advantage of this is radically shortened innovation cycles. The disadvantage is that The engineers focus their product Pipeline almost directly on the world, make to the experimental field and to rabbit your User test.

Not only the people are the Problem

And how is this so in the case of experiments: what can go wrong. As in the case of the yellow West: As Zuckerberg, his company wanted to pull out of the political Tumult back, has been changed the algorithm and the next political turmoil triggered. Facebook is so large, that any "Pivot", i.e., any strategic change of course, immediately attracts massive consequences. In this case, even Dead.

The latest revelations from the Facebook universe offer now quite a seductive statement: The Facebook leadership has morally failed. In fact, the news of the past weeks and months, Facebook "like an Internet cartel with only one goal" look like this: "earn money and the competition to destroy", so the Tech-Newsletter of the New York Times. This means that the problems were easy to solve: All it takes to Facebook to wash back to white, and to reassure the world that would be new Management.

But in fact, only a few people are probably not the Problem, but the speed itself. Facebook can take his company motto of "Move Fast and Break Things" is still a so often back, Zuckerberg can apologize a thousand times, and even come back – it will not change in the Slightest the fact that in an unregulated competition is always the Fastest win.

is Not the shortest, fastest way

And this is exactly where the difficulties lie. Many of the old institutions knew this and did brakes about "inner": editors needed to check facts before they were published; cars had moose tests; in parliaments has been extensively discussed; before the court, there was also a defense, etc. In all these cases was chosen to be the shortest, fastest and smoothest way. On the contrary, The procedure should rumble, stutter and stop time and again, it conflicts, and various "Checks and Balances" were planned.

Exactly that was a source of competitive advantage: processes of this type are profoundly democratic – they have multiple, often conflicting perspectives of the word, as a result, but also to better informed outcomes. That you need longer, was long accepted as a necessary Evil.

the promise of the Computer and its artificial intelligence is to hasten such processes superhuman. Unlike people, computers do not need to meet many hundreds of other people, and with them play chess, before you can be master too Big. You don't have to study old chess games. Instead, a learning algorithm plays a lot like Google's alpha zero just four hours (!) against themselves – that's enough for people (and older chess computer) is unbeatable.

not calculate The world is so simple

have seen is the perspective of the Tech companies long to the world. You have mountains, the fastest computers, and huge data – what could possibly go wrong? "Move Fast and Break Things" is ultimately the Motto of an intelligent machine, which must also lose all sorts of games even before it is unbeatable.

Only unfortunately, the world is not quite as "easy" predictable as chess, with clear rules. Facebook has more than two billion users and operates in a variety of cultures, religions, and political systems – one could speak of a complex System. It would, therefore, much more data and computing power to calculate all the possible futures of the world. And even then, there is a built-in "uncertainty principle", because people have the annoying property that predicted by the fates to want to actively prevent. The only future that can be safely and easily achieved, consists of Chaos and destruction.

Maybe we should be a bit more careful, with regard to the experiment on a global scale. "Agile at Scale", i.e. "agile Management in the large-scale" was a big buzzword in the Management theory of the past few years. All of the major companies and organisations should be as quick and nimble as Start-ups. And also, politically, there is a large Trend in the direction of new Start-up parties and movements that want to often be extremely reluctant democratic reins create. We should look in the coming weeks with great sympathy to Paris and consider whether this is really such a good idea. (Editorial Tamedia)

Created: 12.12.2018, 13:16 PM