Lack of technological literacy

Despite their reputation as tech-savvy early adopters, many Filipinos (especially those from less privileged backgrounds such as those with limited education, older generations, and rural areas with restricted internet access) lack the skills or understanding to fully grasp the technologies they use. This paradox could be partly because they commonly embrace new technologies out of necessity, which usually does not require a deep understanding.

This is primarily exemplified by GCash, which became widely adopted during the pandemic because it was needed for essential transactions. This utilitarian perspective led to perception of technology as a black box: a tool that serves a specific purpose without requiring a full understanding of its inner workings. Multiple consequences can spring from this black box perception, such as vulnerability to scams and hacks. Activist Maded Batara stated that it is common for Filipinos to trust online requests for money transfers from family members without verifying the authenticity of these requests.

This lack of technological literacy, combined with high trust in family members (a deeply ingrained aspect of Filipino culture) results in Filipinos being taken advantage of.

This black box perception can also be applied to AI. For instance, when GMA introduced their AI sportscasters, they received a ton of public backlash about future job displacement. However, according to AI thought leader Dominic Ligot, these sportscasters were just AI avatars operated by people behind the scenes, designed to complement the work of human courtside reporters by summarizing their games and providing supplementary trivia. This incident shows the widespread ignorance about AI’s capabilities and limitations among the masses.

This lack of understanding can also be seen in how Filipinos characterize AI.

The masses associate AI with representations they see on local TV, such as robots from mecha anime or gimmicky holograms used in the news.

Meanwhile, Filipinos from more educated backgrounds (i.e. those with adequate internet access and Western upbringings) associate AI with popular characters from sci-fi series, like Space Odyssey's HAL 9000 and Halo’s Cortana.

However, all of these characterizations are quite limited and abstract; they can lead to the misconception that AI is a technology of the distant future, rather than something already integrated into our daily lives. But many Filipinos have these perceptions due to limited exposure to tangible applications, along with a lack of awareness of AI’s capabilities. As a result, Filipinos either stigmatize AI (believing that they need to be experts to use it) or underestimate it (e.g. not many are aware of the capabilities of the GPT-4 Pro model).

Inadequate technological literacy is not only rooted in a lack of education and representation, but also a cultural gap. As an example, a lot of the interviewed experts brought up how the concept of privacy does not seem to exist in Filipino culture. This lack of understanding could be rooted in the experience of physical space.

In an interview with Logic Magazine, activist Maded Batara described the difference between Western and Filipino experiences:

“When you’re in a suburb in America...no one is allowed to intrude in your home or go to your house without permission. But here, if you go to a poorer community in Manila for example, the concept of personal space is so blurry. The houses are right beside each other, and there are no lawns. Every street is a collective. Every street is a place where people chat, where kids play, and the houses are so close together that people are more open to going into other people’s houses.”

MADED BATARA
DEPUTY PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICER, COMPUTER PROFESSIONALS' UNION

Furthermore, artist Czyka Tumalian also mentioned how houses in these communities are often cramped single rooms shared by entire families. So even in their own places, Filipinos are unable to experience what it is like to have their own space. Thus, since Filipinos are so used to sharing, the closest conception of privacy they would have could be: “What is it like to keep things for myself?”

Filipinos' limited understanding of privacy makes it easy for them to sacrifice it in exchange for the benefits offered by the technologies they use.

[Hindi] pa tayo nagbabasa ng mga privacy or confidentiality agreement pag nagsisign up tayo sa mga apps, kasi mas importante sa atin bumili sa Shopee or gumamit ng Facebook kesa sa privacy natin…[Tsaka] bilang nanay, mas importante na matrack ko anak ko today para hindi siya marape, maholdap. Parang yung reasons of monitoring [are] more important, tapos...sa apps mas importante yung function niya kesa sa privacy ko.

CZYKA TUMALIAN
FOUNDER, KWAGO BOOKSTORE & PUBLISHING LABORATORY

As a result, Filipinos are either unaware or apathetic about how much of their privacy is compromised by all kinds of technology: smart home devices collect their data physically, while social media platforms like Facebook surveil them virtually. They even struggle to grasp the risks posed by data breaches, such as the ones that happened to PhilHealth and the Philippine Statistics Authority. Filipinos’ lack of data protection is enabled by the country's loose privacy regulations; the aforementioned examples would have encountered more significant legal obstacles in other regions, like Europe and North America.

This approach to privacy can even be seen in Filipinos’ perceived futures. Surveillance and data privacy were themes that came up in the technologists’ pessimistic scenario, showing that there are concerns about these issues. However, they also desired for stewardship and personalization in their optimistic scenario, which could be argued to be two sides of the same coin.

An anonymous interviewee brings up this tension by illustrating a possible image
of the future:

…I think...the image of…EDSA [highway] and like a thousand billboards …[is] gonna be a more present image into the future...The EDSA billboard…[is] such a public site. And there's like a lot of advertisements. But then, the…billboards would actually [be]...personalized…and everybody would see different things in these billboards. Yeah...I think it's interesting to think about how we strive for privacy. But then the future that we could potentially see is like a highly personalized media landscape where you would be tempted to think that this is like a perfect personal private space, but in reality, you really don't have shared spaces anymore. Which is ironic, because Filipino culture is...a more sharing kind of culture.

ANONYMOUS INTERVIEWEE

What would differentiate an oversight committee from an authoritarian government, or personalized recommendations from intrusive advertisements? The boundary is truly a fine line.

So how can we get Filipinos to care about privacy? One solution suggested by activist Maded Batara is to localize the conversation of privacy, introducing it to Filipinos in the context of what they already understand:

“A factory worker’s interest in privacy may be to ensure the right to organize within their factory...”

“...A farmer’s conception of privacy might be that they just don’t want anyone to go into their house or steal their crops.”

Another solution he brought up is teaching Filipinos how to use tools like encrypted messaging services. This also requires meeting them where they are at. Many willingly allow their data to be harvested, not only due to unawareness but also as a trade-off for using 'free' apps. Companies make it so easy too; Facebook zero-rated its services through the Free Basics initiative, leading the majority of the Philippines’ population to get a Facebook account and use Facebook Messenger as their primary means of communication.

People really have to be personally educated in order to escape this level of data extraction. All of these solutions can apply to tangible technologies too, such as fintech and AI. It is not too late for Filipinos to get empowered.

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