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AI: Markets for Lemons, and the Great Logging Off

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Re: AI: Markets for Lemons, and the Great Logging Off

#221

Post by monksy »

moffkalast wrote: post #122
angarg12 wrote: post #25

Regarding 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…

> I'd be happy to pay a fee to become a member of a community with vetted participants You better start believing in vetted online communities Miss Turner, you're in one! It may not be vetting by moderators, but HN's dated frontend definitely acts as a forcefield against many kinds of people.

Reddit when they had their old frontend and bad mobile expierence was much better than it is now.

Re: AI: Markets for Lemons, and the Great Logging Off

#222

Post by wanderingbit »

anselm wrote: post #156

Authors 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…

Context: I've been working in the cryptocurrency space for a decade.

One of the most interesting technologies the crypto space is working on are the SSI (self-sovereign identities).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-sovereign_identity

Even if the whole idea of cryptocurrencies is found to be a dead-end, the fact that it invigorated the research and development of SSI will change some important things about how we operate online.

There exist prototypes of tech that allows you to prove you are indeed a unique human being online [1], and reveal nothing else about your identity. Most importantly, this tech is not owned or controlled by any FAANG or government, it's an open protocol just like email.

I have listened to a podcast with an expert researcher in AI, and I remember him saying that he predicts some form of cryptographic identity will arise in order to help deal with the bot problem

[1] https://worldcoin.org/ (note, I don't work for them, and have no idea if this will be the tech that finally breaks out, I just think they're the furthest along of any of their competitors)

Re: AI: Markets for Lemons, and the Great Logging Off

#223

Post by throw10920 »

px43 wrote: post #192
rocqua wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 techn…

How about we let people generate their own keys, then use those keys to make identity claims, when people can generate on their own, or which can be generated by a third party. That gives multiple options to bind identities to arbitrary social media accounts etc without needing some monolithic root of trust. I also really like the idea of using the keys to hold some amount of value, such that if the keys ever get lea…

> How about we let people generate their own keys, then use those keys to make identity claims, when people can generate on their own, or which can be generated by a third party. That gives multiple options to bind identities to arbitrary social media accounts etc without needing some monolithic root of trust.

You hit the nail on the head. Matching keys to real people can be done in-person for direct friends, then through a web of trust for indirect friends. For accounts/keys/personas you find on the internet where you don't have a chain of friends, you can either rely on "trusted" third-party attestation ("holder of key 0xdeadbeef earned a degree from this university") - you may never know with complete certainty if that's a real human, a bot, or an alt account for someone you already know, and that's totally fine.

The "problem" of matching keys 1-to-1 with identities for everyone globally (brought up by grandparent post) is a massive red herring that doesn't need to be "solved".

Re: AI: Markets for Lemons, and the Great Logging Off

#224

Post by angarg12 »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #148
angarg12 wrote: post #25

Regarding 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…

> I'd be happy to pay a fee to become a member of a community with vetted participants. FreeMasons and premium golf clubs!

Golf clubs do the job, but I don't think I'll find many like-minded folks in there.

Re: AI: Markets for Lemons, and the Great Logging Off

#225

Post by spaceman_2020 »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #193

> What happens when most "people" you interact with on the internet are fake? I think people start logging off. I don't necessarily think that's the case. Remember the old "nobody on the internet knows you're a dog" cartoon? Well, I think that for a lot of things, nobody cares if they're talking to a dog. People only care about people on the internet being fake in certain contexts. They'll very much care if all of th…

Some of the most popular platforms online are largely anonymous (Reddit and Twitter). Most of the time, you don’t even notice the username of the person responding to you. They might as well be bots, but people don’t care.

Heck, Reddit threads are often so predictable that they might as well be written by bots.

So yeah, most people just want to talk and feel that someone, something is listening to them. People rejecting your idea need to recalibrate their understanding of the depth and breadth of human loneliness.

The original New Yorker cartoonist forgot that people talk to their dogs too.

Re: AI: Markets for Lemons, and the Great Logging Off

#226

Post by calvinmorrison »

blueridge wrote: post #199
angarg12 wrote: post #25

Regarding 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…

I ran a private online bookclub a few years ago, really tried to filter and vet the people who wanted to join. Ended up with a decently sized group of wonderful people and lots of long form written discussion—we read good books and talked about good books, it was lovely. I approached the screening/vetting process as if I was hiring. I got some angry emails about the approach, made it seem "exclusive" and elitist, but…

Paying a fee is a great barrier for weeding people out. I was a on a pool team for several years and one season I drew the unlucky lot of being the captain. This mostly involves texting everyone on a weekly basis to ensure they would come out, and they had the $10 they needed in cash on hand to pay me when they showed up. I hated it and chased people all the time to pay, they owed me from last week, didn't show up, etc.

The next season I told everyone to pay up front. $120 dollars, cash. Same price as every week in total, but up front.

Turns out when people paid up front they came more often and we had no payment issues from there out.

Re: AI: Markets for Lemons, and the Great Logging Off

#227

Post by theFletch »

nisegami wrote: post #125
michaelt wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've long had a theory that services that demand an upfront payment for an ongoing service will find the payment works against their growth goals and remove it. For example, businesses that involve $$$ reusable delivery containers don't work well because they want to give first-time customers a discount not a surcharge . Whatsapp was ridiculously cheap - something like $1/year - but they still decided that worked aga…

>will find the payment works against their growth goals and remove it Their mistake is having growth as a goal rather than a happy community.

Quality over quantity. Not everything has to appeal to the masses to make a good business.

Re: AI: Markets for Lemons, and the Great Logging Off

#228

Post by OkayPhysicist »

arthurcolle wrote: post #202
mikewarot wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is largely the same as HN

Except HN is a mix of tech-bro entrepreneur types and developers, whereas the other site is exclusively developers (with an emphasis on open source).

Re: AI: Markets for Lemons, and the Great Logging Off

#229

Post by WindyLakeReturn »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #193

> What happens when most "people" you interact with on the internet are fake? I think people start logging off. I don't necessarily think that's the case. Remember the old "nobody on the internet knows you're a dog" cartoon? Well, I think that for a lot of things, nobody cares if they're talking to a dog. People only care about people on the internet being fake in certain contexts. They'll very much care if all of th…

I don't think they care who it is, but they care who is a who. They aren't concerned about it being an AI because that concern hasn't crossed their mind. If it becomes common knowledge that the people responding are bots, I think we will see others begin to react.

I've seen similar reaction in communities around enjoying art, even though I find those have less reason to care where the art comes from.

Re: AI: Markets for Lemons, and the Great Logging Off

#230

Post by pavel_lishin »

WindyLakeReturn wrote: post #229
pavel_lishin wrote: post #193

> What happens when most "people" you interact with on the internet are fake? I think people start logging off. I don't necessarily think that's the case. Remember the old "nobody on the internet knows you're a dog" cartoon? Well, I think that for a lot of things, nobody cares if they're talking to a dog. People only care about people on the internet being fake in certain contexts. They'll very much care if all of th…

I don't think they care who it is, but they care who is a who. They aren't concerned about it being an AI because that concern hasn't crossed their mind. If it becomes common knowledge that the people responding are bots, I think we will see others begin to react. I've seen similar reaction in communities around enjoying art, even though I find those have less reason to care where the art comes from.

As a member of one of those communities, I definitely have a good reason to care - AI art has flooded some of them, to the point where it's all "noise", and there's not much value in reading things until it dies down.
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