Tech documentaries

Watchlist

This week I chanced upon the new Netflix documentary - The Social Dilemma. This documentary talks about how (quoting the tagline here) the technology that connects us, also controls us. For me personally, It’s always interesting to watch any content that is focused on software. You know, being in the field and all…

The content of this documentary is not entirely new for many of us. You probably already guessed what it is about just by reading the tagline. That is not what this post is about. What interested me more, was how the tech was represented. Now obviously the target audience for this or any other tech documentary for that matter, are not software engineers. It’s the general public. How do you get across the intent of the various algorithms at play, while also not getting too technical?

The focus here, for example, are “User Engagement Algorithms”. Keeping the documentary in context, any approach taken to explain these algorithms is going to sound bad. And that is why I like the name - it is a dilemma. Now movies, docs or shows take different routes to explain tech based on the genre. For example, Amazon’s Upload takes a fun route to showcase a lot of tech. Then there are shows like Westworld and Person of Interest that take a more serious route. Popular movies like The Matrix also take a similar route. The Social Dilemma also takes a serious, and albeit scary, route - similar to the Matrix in many ways. To avoid “spoilers”, I am not discussing the exact approach. Do check it out. Suffice to say that for the target audience, it will work.

Creators can’t get too technical because there is always the risk of losing a segment of the audience, but they also can’t dumb it down too much(this part is subjective). With fiction, you do have a “creative license” but when it comes to documentaries like this, there is a need to be correct. The emotion that needs to be triggered is the key factor. You need to convey information and also get the audience in a particular state of mind. This doc, for example, falls into the docu-drama category as there is a significant amount of dramatization, to get the point across.

The Social Dilemma also raises a lot of interesting questions about the use and misuse of these software while also providing solutions or workarounds in certain cases. These questions are worth pondering over. When these systems were invented, they were meant to be good and they have enabled a lot of good things to happen and will continue to do so. As the docu-drama points out, the misuse is what needs to be kept in check and the responsibility, is on all of us. While on the topic of misuse, The Great Hack is another on-topic documentary on Netflix, about a very well known scandal, that is worth looking at.

Side Note 1: The shows and movies listed here are all great and definitely worth watching/bingeing. Do check them out. There is a lot more to talk about them :wink:

Side Note 2: Come to think of it, I probably didn’t just “chance across” the Social Dilemma in the first place at all :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: !

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