I try to avoid words like “fault” because of the inevitable judgment and blame. But recently my personal Facebook account got permanently banned, for mysterious reasons of Meta’s own, and it got me thinking: when do we get to feel righteously outraged and when do need to take ownership of things?
The part I get to feel righteous outrage over are that Meta’s AI is both very stupid and very Orwellian. It can’t make the determination that “That guy needs a swift kick in the pants” isn’t an actual threat of violence, or that “They did nazi that coming” isn’t hate speech. (I suspect my ban-hammer was something like that, but I don’t actually know.)
And the part I have to own is that I know that the AI is like that, that there are no humans involved in these things, but I still posted and commented as though there was some sort of human intelligence involved. This has happened to a few of my friends for similarly dumb (and ultimately unknowable) reasons so I even have actual evidence, but I carried on anyway, not making threats of using hate speech but presumably using language that the system equates with those things.
So what do we do when we run up against something in which our actions may have played a role? First, of course, is that we have to recognize and acknowledge our actions. Is there a pattern that as repeated itself a few times? Do you have a bit of a pattern of feeling like a victim? Have you had relationships take a similar path in the past? If you look over your history and recognize any of this, take a moment and then take a breath. We all have blind spots and learned behavior patterns, so the important thing is to see them and take them in a bit. That’s the hard part. Again, it’s not blame, even though it will feel a bit like it at first. It’s human to have flaws, so take a long, hard look at the ones you have that may have played a role in the situation.
Once you’ve dealt with that harder stuff, you can set about working on improving things. This is probably equally difficult but not as emotionally taxing. If, for example, you realize you get really angry when someone corrects you, take a moment to see if you can track down why. Did you have a parent who was cruel when correcting you? Does that dark, secret part of your mind actually think you don’t know anything so a correction brings your range monster roaring forward? If you can find the root of your reactions, they’re easier to work on, but even if you can’t, you can catch yourself in the moment and pull back a little: Oh, wait, am I doing that thing again? I think I’m doing that thing again. It hasn’t worked well for me in the past. I’m going to stop and do something different. You may find you need to distract yourself first so you can gain a little emotional distance, so take a short walk or fix yourself a snack and then look the problem over again. This is harder if it happens while you’re in conversation with other people, but you can still close your eyes for a moment or run to the restroom or whatever works for you.
My annoying Facebook issue will be a relatively straightforward fix. I’m trying to get my account info downloaded, and I’ll eventually create another personal account that I use while bearing our AI overlords in mind. Other things may be harder, but you’ve done hard things before. You will face hard things again. And taking steps to improve your ways of interacting in the world will make things easier moving forward.
A quick caution here: don’t send yourself down a path of self-recrimination. If you find yourself hyper-focusing on a situation, try to give yourself some grace instead. Humans aren’t supposed to be perfect.
