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The internet is slipping out of our reach

injuly.in

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Re: The internet is slipping out of our reach

#61

Post by brabel »

richrichie wrote: post #39

> Today, you get paid search results, ads, third-party cookies, trackers, newsletter prompts, notification requests It is worse. You get curated political opinions that you must have, referrals to government agencies, etc.

I disagree, there seems to be no "agenda" Google is pushing. For example, on YouTube, I tend to get a lot of suggestions for things I've watched recently - but that may be on either side of the current political divide. If I watch a single alt-right video, I get inundated with more alt-right video, seemingly getting more and more radicalized content as I follow... but all I seem to need to do to counter that is watch one or two videos from some leftist denouncing the patriarchy - and then I get, again, more and more radical content going the other direction!

It is kind of good in a way: it doesn't seem to be trying to push me in any direction in particular, it's just trying to push me in whatever direction I was already heading on by myself.

Re: The internet is slipping out of our reach

#62

Post by mikewarot »

pjc50 wrote: post #55
mikewarot wrote: post #5

The root cause is the failure of the ambient authority model of computer software. This is the hill I'm willing to die upon. Requiring that the user of software absolutely trust it to do exactly what it says on the tin, is insane. All manner of ill follow from that in a most predictable manner. Enshittification is a consequence of people not being able to host their own shit on machines connected to the internet.

Could you explain "ambient authority model of computer software"?

When you run a program under almost any operating system, the operating system assumes you trust it. The code can open any file you've got permission to access, open network ports, etc. The code is you as far the operating system is concerned, and carries with it all of your authority. The assumption that code can just do whatever it wants is baked into everything.

There are permission flags on your Smartphone and other places that curtail this a bit, but those are rather course grained all or nothing decisions. Those are like either handing over your wallet, or not, to the clerk at a store to make your payment.

There are better alternatives possible, I'm hoping they get here soon. Genode[1] is one such system, that offers capability based security, where you chose what resources to hand off to code, instead of giving it everything. This model of computing is called Capability Based Security[2].

[1] https://genode.org/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability-based_security

Re: The internet is slipping out of our reach

#63

Post by brabel »

iteygib wrote: post #38
rpigab wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and if you want a movie review and don't know where to find it, just go door-to-door and ask strangers if they watched the movie and what they thought of it. Do it in different countries to get different opinions too. I wish there was a way to get the same results in less than 3 years per movie... Wait

Do you not have any friends or family?

Don't ask questions like that on the Internet. The OP may well not have any. Are you going to ridicule them for that or what's your point?

Re: The internet is slipping out of our reach

#64

Post by renegade-otter »

throw_m239339 wrote: post #58
renegade-otter wrote: post #2

AI is just one facet of the issue, and it only exacerbates the real problem. Algorithmification, enshitification, etc. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/why-the-in... The old guards of Amazon and Google are gone - no one is there to nurture the product . The new business school jocks are there to juice it, juice it to the max, bro! Quarter to quarter, so that the vaunted SHAREHOLDER does not get all m…

Investors demand infinite growth. So when your company is already very lucrative, how do you make it even more lucrative? By taking financial risks in new product creation? No, by squeezing as much profitability as you can from existing products... edit:grammar

By providing dividends. Investors who seek high risk and high growth can then go elsewhere, or maybe catch a flight to Vegas for some real gambling. There will always be investors looking for "slow and steady".

As a company grows, its culture changes, but so should its approach to growth and to investors.

Re: The internet is slipping out of our reach

#65

Post by devb »

roenxi wrote: post #14

This reads to me like a rant. Good material for a blog post but I don't think there is anything particularly profound going on. The internet is not a static place, and parts are always being born and dying. Maybe today is going to be Google search. There was an interesting question early on in the internet of whether content would be aggregated by corporate entities or whether people would self-host and communicate p…

> The question has been answered - corporate entities do a much better job of curating spaces.

Do you have a citation for this, or are you just asserting it as a fact?

Re: The internet is slipping out of our reach

#66

Post by suoduandao3 »

nstart wrote: post #54

Someone once asked a question online about what each person's biggest fear was regarding the future of AI generated content. I thought about it. While the fears of not being able to earn money for creative pursuits are a concern, my biggest concern remains around anonymity. At some point, I fear that participating online with other humans will require "proof of self" and as AI becomes more and more able to generate c…

I dunno, I like the idea of 'quality content' being gamified as a kind of upward filter. Online communication has degraded in-person communication to some degree* and it would be nice if there was a gamelike quality to getting access to the best communities which aligned with the quality of thought and communication - an excellent training ground. The major worry I'd have is that midwit communities can't tell an imbecile from a genius and it'd be hard for a lot of actual geniuses to 'graduate' once they're being judged by midwits. But I'm sure the genius communities would have the means to put a workaround in place.

*I suspect this is at least in part due to memetic contagion rate being selected for at a higher rate online than in close reationships, but does anyone have their own pet theory as to why this is?

Re: The internet is slipping out of our reach

#67

Post by sanitycheck »

vouaobrasil wrote: post #15

That is definitely true about search. Google ruined it, like they ruin most things. The more hand-curated style of the old Yahoo was far superior. Yes, Google was superior in search in the short-term, but their automated algorithms came with the inevitable attachment of the future of gaming their algorithms. The modus operandi of Google is to provide a highly-centralized automated service that at first appears superi…

I agree, somewhat. Wikipedia is hand-curated and it works.

Perhaps it's time for a new DMOZ/ODP type effort from Wikimedia/Mozilla/similar.

Re: The internet is slipping out of our reach

#69

Post by jajko »

nstart wrote: post #54

Someone once asked a question online about what each person's biggest fear was regarding the future of AI generated content. I thought about it. While the fears of not being able to earn money for creative pursuits are a concern, my biggest concern remains around anonymity. At some point, I fear that participating online with other humans will require "proof of self" and as AI becomes more and more able to generate c…

The parallel concern - we saw how too open communities just don't work in modern world. Way too many sides have their own 'pitch', be it marketing, politics, propaganda, always to manipulate opinions via emotions to steered goal which is never actual simple truth. Truth doesn't need much marketing among reasonable people.

This is how flat earthers, climate change deniers, blind supporters of putin's war on ukraine etc spawn out of blue and suddenly it feels like half of the world got mentally disabled. Well, they didn't. There was either once a nice community say about patriotism for XYZ, which was gradually subverted into whatever fringe stupid position they hold now, via various negative emotions us-vs-them of participants. Or such a community was already created with such purpose.

Good old Prigozhin's and GRU troll farms well running full steam for past 2 decade, always subverting western countries, especially those former communist ones. All it takes is 1 skilled manipulator, all 3-letter agencies everywhere have whole departments for doing exactly this (and counter-attack it too, but that's far less effective).

With realistic videos, russians can pop out any video of zelensky or biden being a pedophile, and those photos of putin riding a bear will look 100% perfect which is enough for most older russian population.

I will gladly be part of some more closed community, trust is a very important item and currently we already severely lack it. There are of course numerous issues with such communities, ie including new members and anyway steering away from actual truth, but thats 100% problem now already. But some friction is not a bad thing per se, it works the same way in real life in smaller villages everywhere. Clearly good enough model for past 10k years.

Re: The internet is slipping out of our reach

#70

Post by GeoAtreides »

nstart wrote: post #54

Someone once asked a question online about what each person's biggest fear was regarding the future of AI generated content. I thought about it. While the fears of not being able to earn money for creative pursuits are a concern, my biggest concern remains around anonymity. At some point, I fear that participating online with other humans will require "proof of self" and as AI becomes more and more able to generate c…

> I fear that participating online with other humans will require "proof of self"

I fear something worse: that it WON'T require proof of self, because the LLMs will be able to tell if you're human... and your age, wants, needs, everything else; that's the nightmare scenario for me: LLMs integrating all the little bits and pieces of yourself you shed online, all the information you leak, from the speed your mouse movements to how long you read an article -- and what articles you read -- and the words and style of your comments -- everything building into an accurate and detailed profile of yourself.

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