‘Dark patterns’ are design techniques used to weaponise user behaviour and manipulate us into delivering on a company’s goals. They have become so common that they are even namechecked in the EU’s new legislation to clamp down on nefarious user design in tech. Even though understanding them won’t make you impervious to their influence, we certainly think it’s best to know when your taking action for your sake, or for tech’s sake.

In this episode, we also spoke to Prof Owen Conlan, a research lead at Adapt, the Science Foundation Ireland research centre for AI-driven digital content technology. He told us what he thinks about dark patterns, as well as how they might be amped up with AI.

You can follow Owen @oconlan on Twitter and the Adapt centre at @AdaptCentre. You can also read more about Empushy on SiliconRepublic.com: https://www.siliconrepublic.com/careers/empushy-notifications-productivity

All of Silicon Republic’s fascinating AI coverage can be found here:https://www.siliconrepublic.com/topics/ai/

And you can learn a lot more about the EUs Digital Services Act here:https://www.siliconrepublic.com/business/eu-digital-services-act-illegal-content-moderation

This episode of For Tech’s Sake was hosted by Elaine Burke and Jenny Darmody, and brought to you by Silicon Republic and The HeadStuff Podcast Network. Thank you to Amy O’Dwyer for production, Matt Mahon and Dall-E for our graphics, Claudia Grandez for her social mediasupport, and all at the HeadStuff team.

If you want to support The HeadStuff Podcast Network, for our sake, for tech’s sake and for many more great podcasts, visit HeadStuffPodcasts.com.

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