The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful

How can infinite AI content be strictly awful if it forces us to fix issues with our trust and reward systems? Short term, sure. But infinite (also) implies long term.

I wish I had a really smart game theorist friend who could help me project forward into time if for nothing other than just fun.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to reduce the value of "ouch, it hurts right now" stories and responses.

But damned if we don't have an interesting and engaging problem on our hands right now. There's got to be some people out there who love digging in to complicated problems.

What's next after trust collapses? All of us just give up? What if that collapse is sooner than we thought; can we think about the fun problem now?

The modern software market actually seems like a total inversion of normal human bartering and trade relationships, actually…

In Ye Olden Days, you go to the blacksmith, and buy some horseshoes. You expect the things to work, they are simple enough that you can do a cursory check and at least see if they are plausibly shaped, and then you put them on your horse and they either work or they don’t. Later you sell him some carrots, buy a pot: you have an ongoing relationship checkpointed by ongoing completed tasks. There were shitty blacksmiths and scummy farmers, but at some point you get a model of how shitty the blacksmith is and adjust your expectations appropriately (and maybe try to find somebody better when you need nails).

Ongoing contracts were the domain of specialists and somewhat fraught with risk. Big trust (and associated mechanics, reputation and prestige). Now we’re negotiating an ongoing contracts for our everyday tools, it is totally bizarre.

That is false. You build a different type of trust: people need to trust that when they buy something from you it is a good product that will do what they want. Maybe someone else is better, but it won't be enough better as to be worth the time they would need to spend to evaluate that. Maybe someone else is cheaper, but you are still reasonably priced for the features you offer. They won't get fired for buying you because you have so often been worthy of the trust we give you that in the rare case you do something wrong it was nobody is perfect not that you are no longer trustworthy (you can only pull this trick off a few times before you become untrustworthy)

The above is very hard to achieve, and even when you have it very easy to lose. If you are not yet there for someone you still need to act like you are and down want to lose it even though they may never buy from you often enough to realize you are worth it.