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The coming automation of propaganda

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Re: The coming automation of propaganda

#11

Post by zxcmx »

joe_the_user wrote: post #5

The idea is that something like the (formerly) OpenAI text generator could be used to enhance "boiler room" propaganda operations. The idea is one person could decide on a message and hundred of articles pushing the message could be generated. Maybe that would work. Maybe you'd see so much of this people would start to get more selective. Maybe it wouldn't matter because people believe what suits them rather than jus…

IMO the end state is way worse.

Imagine campaigns that:

Have a general idea of your life stage, interests, career, personality etc, based on advertising profile and commercial surveillance.

Can tailor each message to the recipient.

Can a/b test the crap out of every message for target groups, optimising for best response.

Can deliver fully customised messages in a natural voice (aka google duplex). Conversational ai not required, but can understand some stock phrases and responses.

The future is robots calling you, messaging you, infiltrating social media groups, probing your personality and beliefs, finding YOUR buttons and pushing them, repeatedly.

Re: The coming automation of propaganda

#12

Post by mc32 »

basementcat wrote: post #8
IIAOPSW wrote: post #4

I never got around to finishing the Muller Report, but from what I recall and what was made public, Russia's influence campaign was largely traditional and human powered. Here's a bitter pill for everyone. If it turns out that a large fraction of people really can have their opinion changed by bots that wouldn't even pass a Turing test, maybe its time to rethink the idea that everyone gets to vote.

> Here's a bitter pill for everyone. If it turns out that a large fraction of people really can have their opinion changed by bots that wouldn't even pass a Turing test, maybe its time to rethink the idea that everyone gets to vote. It isn't clear to me if this is necessarily a bitter pill as much as a possible direction for education reform. If unsophisticated bots are able to efficiently disseminate information to…

I think you're too much an optimist. If some of the most educated people can be anti-vaxx, which is something which affects their families intimately and in the utmost serious way... Moreso that one election cycle. I don't think there is hope for regularly educated people.

Re: The coming automation of propaganda

#13

Post by jlawson »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #4

I never got around to finishing the Muller Report, but from what I recall and what was made public, Russia's influence campaign was largely traditional and human powered. Here's a bitter pill for everyone. If it turns out that a large fraction of people really can have their opinion changed by bots that wouldn't even pass a Turing test, maybe its time to rethink the idea that everyone gets to vote.

The thing about voting is, the purpose is not to increase the quality of the decision. The practical purpose of voting is simply to avoid civil war. Without voting, a large group of people who are being acted against have no choice but to use force to get what they want. Democracy is a pressure release valve (same with free speech).

If I can't use the soapbox I use the ballot box. If I can't use the ballot box, I use the ammo box.

So it doesn't matter how dumb the voters are. What matters if is if they can generate violence.

Re: The coming automation of propaganda

#14

Post by GuiA »

im3w1l wrote: post #9

Imagine you go to an online forum and that there is a 99.99% chance that a given message was written by a bot. Imagine further they are sufficiently well written you can't tell from the post itself whether it was made by a bot or not How would people respond to that? Well the obvious consequence is that you have to stop paying attention to random posts. You have to depend on something outside of the forum itself to f…

What you are describing is already ongoing. Many comments in eg widely shared Facebook political posts are likely to be posted by bots, or people paid to be representing a certain agenda (ie human bots).

And in that light I disagree with your “obvious consequence” that people will stop paying attention to forum posts, because we know that people do engage with trolls/bots on Twitter/Facebook/etc.

People are also fine watching cable TV for hours, which is content that is entirely designed by people whose intentions we do not know. What fundamental difference does it make whether candidate Doe’s agenda is pushed by bots on forums vs TV anchors paid to read off a teleprompter, when people are so eager to sit in front of it and engage with it?

Human attention is the new commodity, and the average person just does not have the means to fight the billions of dollars collectively poured into exploiting their eyeballs.

Re: The coming automation of propaganda

#15

Post by IIAOPSW »

mynameishere wrote: post #10
IIAOPSW wrote: post #4

I never got around to finishing the Muller Report, but from what I recall and what was made public, Russia's influence campaign was largely traditional and human powered. Here's a bitter pill for everyone. If it turns out that a large fraction of people really can have their opinion changed by bots that wouldn't even pass a Turing test, maybe its time to rethink the idea that everyone gets to vote.

Does it matter if a bot passes the Turing test? What if I had a bot that merely said the following: "Democratic candidate XYZ wants to give free healthcare to illegal immigrants with your tax dollars." Such a bot would not pass the Turing test, but it would be speaking the truth (for many of the candidates) and that truth would be relevant to many voters' interest. So what? I think people need to understand that the…

Yes. Yes it does matter. A bot that isn't passing the Turing test isn't making a logical argument. Therefore a voter voting based on that isn't basing their vote on a logical considerations. If voters aren't voting on facts, the entire premise of Democracy is flawed.

>"Democratic candidate XYZ wants to give free healthcare to illegal immigrants with your tax dollars."

>Such a bot would not pass the Turing test, but it would be speaking the truth (for many of the candidates) and that truth would be relevant to many voters' interest. So what?

Ironically, I'm pretty sure such a statement is exactly False. No serious candidate (polling >1%) has proposed unconditional healthcare for illegal immigrants. So no, such a bot wouldn't be speaking the truth. By all means prove me wrong. Find any written or recorded instance of a Democratic Candidate saying this.

>Now they control...95 percent. And they don't like it. So...Russia Russia Russia Squirrel! Russia Russia Russia Squirrel!

By thinking this is what the media does, aren't you implicitly admitting that crude repetition of non-arguments work? Just a moment ago didn't you say such tactics are perfectly fine so long as the statements are truth that are relevant to many voters interests? Russian interference is relevant to my interests.

Re: The coming automation of propaganda

#16

Post by CamperBob2 »

jlawson wrote: post #13
IIAOPSW wrote: post #4

I never got around to finishing the Muller Report, but from what I recall and what was made public, Russia's influence campaign was largely traditional and human powered. Here's a bitter pill for everyone. If it turns out that a large fraction of people really can have their opinion changed by bots that wouldn't even pass a Turing test, maybe its time to rethink the idea that everyone gets to vote.

The thing about voting is, the purpose is not to increase the quality of the decision. The practical purpose of voting is simply to avoid civil war. Without voting, a large group of people who are being acted against have no choice but to use force to get what they want. Democracy is a pressure release valve (same with free speech). If I can't use the soapbox I use the ballot box. If I can't use the ballot box, I use…

Seems like the same infrastructure that supports omnipresent chatbots will serve adequately for interdicting and dispensing with the protesters^Wrevolutionaries^Wterrorists.

Re: The coming automation of propaganda

#17

Post by a3n »

olivermarks wrote: post #6

'As U.S. policymakers remain indecisive over how to prevent a repeat of the 2016 election interference' Was this ever proven? all I ever heard about was conspiracy theories around 100k of Facebook ads and Cambridge Analytica being accused of various things. Nothing concrete was ever seriously discussed and the Mueller team findings were inconclusive.

The Mueller team indicted N Russian individuals for that activity. They are not likely to show up for trial.

The intelligence community leadership testified to Congress that this was so.

The leadership of both parties in both houses of Congress believe it was so, though they differ in what if anything should be done, and the level of downplay or up-play differs depending on party and how close or far to leadership a person is. Or if you're Trump.

Re: The coming automation of propaganda

#18

Post by IIAOPSW »

jlawson wrote: post #13
IIAOPSW wrote: post #4

I never got around to finishing the Muller Report, but from what I recall and what was made public, Russia's influence campaign was largely traditional and human powered. Here's a bitter pill for everyone. If it turns out that a large fraction of people really can have their opinion changed by bots that wouldn't even pass a Turing test, maybe its time to rethink the idea that everyone gets to vote.

The thing about voting is, the purpose is not to increase the quality of the decision. The practical purpose of voting is simply to avoid civil war. Without voting, a large group of people who are being acted against have no choice but to use force to get what they want. Democracy is a pressure release valve (same with free speech). If I can't use the soapbox I use the ballot box. If I can't use the ballot box, I use…

>The thing about voting is, the purpose is not to increase the quality of the decision. The practical purpose of voting is simply to avoid civil war.

Actually its both. Voting is a legitimacy mechanism (aka avoiding civil war) and a competence mechanism (aka making quality decisions). It is much better at the former, and typically better than historical systems (re: monarchy) at the latter.

It is perfectly reasonable to consider a trade-off that buys us higher competence at a loss of 10%-15% legitimacy. That's a small enough fraction of the population that I wouldn't worry too much about them starting a civil war. Especially if homogeneously distributed.

Re: The coming automation of propaganda

#19

Post by a3n »

im3w1l wrote: post #9

Imagine you go to an online forum and that there is a 99.99% chance that a given message was written by a bot. Imagine further they are sufficiently well written you can't tell from the post itself whether it was made by a bot or not How would people respond to that? Well the obvious consequence is that you have to stop paying attention to random posts. You have to depend on something outside of the forum itself to f…

The strategy you describe is for someone who wants the truth.

If you instead want your assumptions reinforced, you pay attention to whatever source does that.

Re: The coming automation of propaganda

#20

Post by ryandrake »

mc32 wrote: post #12
basementcat wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Here's a bitter pill for everyone. If it turns out that a large fraction of people really can have their opinion changed by bots that wouldn't even pass a Turing test, maybe its time to rethink the idea that everyone gets to vote. It isn't clear to me if this is necessarily a bitter pill as much as a possible direction for education reform. If unsophisticated bots are able to efficiently disseminate information to…

I think you're too much an optimist. If some of the most educated people can be anti-vaxx, which is something which affects their families intimately and in the utmost serious way... Moreso that one election cycle. I don't think there is hope for regularly educated people.

Nothing new here though. For as long as I’ve been living, public opinion on any topic is roughly a function of media saturation. You can get the majority of people to believe grass is red and Elvis is still alive if you spend enough money and shout it through enough channels.
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