Biggest Challenges Faced by an IT Manager at an Industry Leader
As an IT Manager, the biggest challenge is translating technical concepts to non-technical audiences, particularly regarding the manipulative nature of technology and social media; having worked at Meta, it is difficult to help people "protect themselves" and disconnect from strategically engineered applications increasingly geared towards AI replication of human interaction, making "authenticity" crucial.
Communication, Technology Ethics, AI Impact, User Awareness, Digital Wellbeing
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Freida Kreitzer
IT Manager
Industry leader
UC Berkeley
Philosophy
Technology
Cyber Security and IT
Scholarship Recipient, Took Out Loans, Worked 20+ Hours in School
Video Highlights
1. Translating technical concepts to non-technical audiences is a significant challenge.
2. Protecting people from the manipulative aspects of social media and encouraging them to disconnect is a key concern.
3. Maintaining authenticity and differentiating oneself from AI-driven interactions is increasingly important.
Transcript
What is your biggest challenge in your role?
Translating technical concepts to non-technical audiences is challenging. The deeper I get into my expertise and the more I learn, the more I realize how complex and manipulative the landscape has become, especially nowadays. Almost every corporation with social media is gearing toward complete attention hijacking.
I speak as someone who is fully manipulated by this. I'm on social media, and it's difficult to avoid. There are also a lot of downsides to not having social media at all.
My focus is on figuring out how to help people protect themselves from this and disconnect a little. I worked at Meta for a while, and the people controlling these applications are very strategic with how they do it; it's all manipulated.
The amount of advertising and what global leaders are pushing for is more AI. It's being encouraged, especially in social media, to replicate actual people, because according to some, AI treats us better than real people.
Authenticity is really important to me, and I think it should be to everyone now. That is what's going to differentiate us from all of this AI stuff out there. So that's very important, and also very difficult.