People go to social media sites for engagement. If AI bots provide good interaction, most people will be happy and won't care if they are chatting with a bot. Hell, the best social site would be one in which I could create a couple of AI companions with whom I could chat about things that interest me that day. The companions would scour the Internet for related news and topics, bring them to my attention, and we'd chat. Kinda like HN but customizable.
AI: Markets for Lemons, and the Great Logging Off
171–180 of 292 posts
Re: AI: Markets for Lemons, and the Great Logging Off
#172Authors making this argument (which we see often now) really need to sketch out why cryptographic solutions will fail. The entire thesis rests on this erroneous sentence in the second point: “This can be done in two ways – just move to invite-only silos where you already know everybody, or big platforms where the owners do the vetting for you.” There are more options. We employ them when we are forced to; when it bec…
The same problem we have with other networks of trust: Signing works alright if you already know the people you expect messages from (but in that case, it's also no better than the invite-only social networks the OP talked about).
However, the real problem is getting to know new people or vetting messages from people you don't know. In the future the OP sketched, you can never be sure that an interesting new person isn't actually a bot. Knowing the public key of that person won't solve that problem.
Re: AI: Markets for Lemons, and the Great Logging Off
#173Authors making this argument (which we see often now) really need to sketch out why cryptographic solutions will fail. The entire thesis rests on this erroneous sentence in the second point: “This can be done in two ways – just move to invite-only silos where you already know everybody, or big platforms where the owners do the vetting for you.” There are more options. We employ them when we are forced to; when it bec…
One of the biggest problems in actually using cryptography in the real world is matching keys to identities.
Using cryptography to solve the fake persona problem only works if the key-identity matching problem is solved. It would be great if the fake persona problem was the impetus that managed a solution to the key-identity matching problem. But I have my doubts.
Notably the key-identity matching problem isn't technical. Its societal. "just do government provided keys" is technically easy, but society (rightfully so) is suspicious of this. Other solutions exist, with other trade-offs. SSL certificates have centralization, revocation, and weakest-link problems. PGP-keys have spoofing, verification, and usability problems (though I liked key-base's approach here). European E-id is an interesting step, one to watch, though I fear the EU bureaucratic system might make a crucial mis-step. I really like SSI based approaches, but SSI is mostly about using crypto when the key-identity matching problem has been solved, and less about solving the actual problem.
Some technical aspects that need solutions that tend to be un-acceptable are handling key-revocation, key-theft, key-loss (as in forgetting), and key-duplication.
Re: AI: Markets for Lemons, and the Great Logging Off
#174For me this feels spot-on. But I wanted to comment on one thing: > Fourth, we'll see a resurgence and even fetishization of explicitly "offline" culture, where the "Great Logging Off" becomes literal I actually think the author undersold this a bit, because even once you've siloed into social buckets with people you already know- as long as it's digital communication, you can't quite be sure it's really them . Even i…
With cryptographic signatures I could at least verify that something stems from the same account that I previously agreed with, but this would require people to be able to manage their own private keys. Actually nothing would stop people from signing their own comments today and sometimes it is done. With e2ee messengers I feel pretty confident that a message comes from the right / real person after I verified their…
How does one really verify someone’s public key in this situation? E.g. a fake account would presumably be able to generate a fake website of themselves that looks at least semi-legit, and use it to post their pubkey. What would give us confidence the key comes from a legit person?
Re: AI: Markets for Lemons, and the Great Logging Off
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
Was lobster.rs ways invite only? I thought I remembered having an account a long time ago...but my email isn't registered when I go to reset my PW. Because it's a much smaller community it does suffer from low comment counts on posts. Comments are the best part of HN.
Invite only to write, open to read. But the main trick is tracking the invite tree - if the person that invited you gets banned, you get banned too (or need to appeal to have your “branch” of the invite tree adopted by someone else).
So if jcs somehow gets banned, the whole place shuts down?
I find the idea of the site intriguing yet I'm not sure what I could contribute.
Re: AI: Markets for Lemons, and the Great Logging Off
#176To piggyback off of this, I predict we'll be hearing (not seeing) the phrase "the internet is fake" a lot more.
“The internet is a place where absolutely nothing happens.” - Strongbad Seems to ring true more and more :)
This was true when written, and then reality inverted itself in 2015/2016 when internet culture became mainstream culture.
Re: AI: Markets for Lemons, and the Great Logging Off
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
but it s exclusionary which defeats the purpose of the internet as an open forum
> the purpose of the internet as an open forum The purpose of the internet hasn't been to be an open forum since sysadmins were blocking the talk.* hierarchy and kicking entire nodes off of usenet for spam or abuse.
yet here we are
Re: AI: Markets for Lemons, and the Great Logging Off
#178Regarding the Third point, I can already see part of this movement. I've become disenchanted with the quality of the discourse. Specifically as I've entered a more senior stage of my career, I'm looking to mingle with like-minded folks in similar situations. Thing is, these folks don't usually lurk online, and even if they do, their voices get overwhelmed by the flood of (mostly low quality) content. I'd be happy to…
If you want a sustainable vetted community, pick a channel, build a funnel, skim the cream.
Like startups, communities are growth and sucessful ones grow at an incremental replacement+ rate, where ones that grow explosively fall over on their own weight, and ones that sustain a base level just die. A plan for a vetted community is a system of harmonious growth that requires a funnel and conversion scheme that yields vetted members. I see orgs spinning their wheels and arguing over the merits of individual candidates when their real problem is they have no funnel to simply select the best n% from.
Re: AI: Markets for Lemons, and the Great Logging Off
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> Doominess and gloominess is the real disease of our times Seems more like extremely wealthy sociopaths & psychopaths that thrive in a capitalistic system are. Don’t think people would be so doomy & gloomy if it weren’t for those with the means to do so trying to shape society into their dystopian dreams. Two examples if needed: Thiel & Davos family
What about society being shaped in the dreams of other wealthy people, like Karl Schwab or George Soros? Is that OK?
They are all WEF cronies.
Re: AI: Markets for Lemons, and the Great Logging Off
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> Doominess and gloominess is the real disease of our times Seems more like extremely wealthy sociopaths & psychopaths that thrive in a capitalistic system are. Don’t think people would be so doomy & gloomy if it weren’t for those with the means to do so trying to shape society into their dystopian dreams. Two examples if needed: Thiel & Davos family
Have a look inside Mao's China or Soviet Russia to cure you of the notion that capitalism is special here. Doom and gloom have been around for longer than a money based economy, too.
They arrive at the same endpoint through different means. Too much concentrated power and wealth.