We've looked at the company in question a half-dozen times, usually in relation to gaming or tech or other businesses that manipulate your physiology to trigger a dopamine cascade in your brain and when it dissipates, leaves you wanting another hit. Here's a post from 2017 that has quite a few links:
Dopamine Labs: "Meet the tech company that wants to make you even more addicted to your phone"
Well, Dopamine Labs changed its name, I'm guessing because, as they say in Hollywood it was a little too "on the nose"; they changed it to "Boundless Mind" and lo-and-behold we have this from one of Arianna Huffington's creations, Thrive Global via BusinessWire [note date: October 2019, I may not have made that clear enough]:
Thrive Global Acquires Boundless Mind, Neuroscience-based Artificial Intelligence Company to Power Health and Productivity Behavior Change
With acquisition of Boundless, the leader in behavior change AI, Thrive advances its core mission to help individuals and corporations unlock human potential and shape technology for good
Thrive also announces new funding round led by JAZZ Venture Partners, venture capital firm focused on human performance technology
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Thrive Global, the leading behavior change technology company founded by Arianna Huffington in November 2016, announced today the acquisition of Boundless Mind, the neuroscience-based artificial intelligence company and leader in behavioral design and engineering. The acquisition furthers Thrive Global’s commitment to building the leading behavior change technology platform that leverages data collection and the application of the latest science to end the stress and burnout epidemic and help individuals and organizations unlock their full potential.
Since its launch in 2016, Thrive Global has worked with some of the top employers and brands in the world – including Accenture, JPMorgan, Hilton, Bank of America and Procter & Gamble – to bring behavior change technology, content and people experience programs to employees and consumers to improve their well-being and performance. Earlier this month, Thrive announced a partnership with Stanford Medicine that combines Stanford’s research with Thrive’s behavior change expertise into a digital enterprise program designed to help companies unlock better mental health. Stanford researchers have also lent their expertise to a program to help parents navigate their journey with less stress and more joy.
Boundless Mind’s innovative technology fuses neuroscience and artificial intelligence to optimize, personalize and target recommendations to users to inspire positive behavior change. Boundless’s technology learns to predict – for every unique user – when and how to deliver technology-driven rewards to fuel healthy habit-formation. By integrating Boundless into Thrive’s behavior change technology platform, Thrive will be able to make meaningful behavior change more achievable and more sustainable for Thrive platform users.
The Boundless team will integrate immediately into Thrive Global’s product and engineering team and be based between Thrive Global’s San Francisco and Los Angeles offices.
“This acquisition is an exciting milestone for Thrive Global,” said Arianna Huffington, Founder and CEO of Thrive Global. “Since our founding in 2016, we have been committed to cracking the code on behavior change to help individuals and organizations end the stress and burnout epidemic and unlock their full potential. And it’s more important than ever that we leverage the latest technology to help people build healthy habits. Boundless Mind shares our mission to create a world where everyone can thrive At a time when preventable, lifestyle-related diseases account for 75% of healthcare costs and mental health problems are escalating, the only way to change health outcomes is to shift human behavior. The Boundless acquisition is a critical next step in scaling Thrive’s behavior change platform to millions of users around the world.”....
....MUCH MORE
This isn't immediately actionable but may prove to be important somewhere down the road.
Related:
Nov. 2017
Climateer Line of the Day: Neurotransmitters and Facebook Edition
Via The Verge:
"The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we've created are destroying how society works. No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mistruth. And it's not an American problem — this is not about Russians ads. This is a global problem."And the rest of the story:
—Former Facebook Vice Presidentfor Addicting Users, Chamath Palihapitiya
Former Facebook exec says social media is ripping apart society
‘No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mistruth.’
Another former Facebook executive has spoken out about the harm the social network is doing to civil society around the world. Chamath Palihapitiya, who joined Facebook in 2007 and became its vice president for user growth, said he feels “tremendous guilt” about the company he helped make. “I think we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works,” he told an audience at Stanford Graduate School of Business, before recommending people take a “hard break” from social media.Palihapitiya’s criticisms were aimed not only at Facebook, but the wider online ecosystem. “The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how society works,” he said, referring to online interactions driven by “hearts, likes, thumbs-up.” “No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mistruth. And it’s not an American problem — this is not about Russians ads. This is a global problem.”...MUCH MORE, including video
Possibly also of interest:
Founding Facebook President: ‘God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains’ (FB)
Want to Make Big Money? Engineer A Little Addiction Into Your Product
"'We're designing minds': Industry insider reveals secrets of addictive app trade"
"If you think your smartphone is addictive, you ain’t seen nothing yet."
And many more, use the 'Search blog' box if interested.
Engineer a Little Addiction Into Your Product - Redux
My work here is done.
From Dilbert.com:
December 15, 2017
December 21, 2017
There are three more in the series, very topical.
