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The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful

arnon.dk

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Re: The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful

#121

Post by AndrewKemendo »

heddycrow wrote: post #78
arnon wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suggest we go back to before and be human about things - and build trust in-person.

Dunbar's number leaps to mind. I wonder what our systems look like at large when we have cause to strengthen our 150 meaningful connections. Would this truly be a move back? I've met people outside my social class and disposition who seem to rely quite heavily on networking this way.

This is exactly the reason

Human biological limits prevent the realization of stable equilibrium at the scale of coordination necessary for larger emergent superstructures

Humans need to figure out how to become a eusocial superorganism because we’re past the point where individual groups don’t produce externalities that are existential to other groups/individuals

I don’t think that’s possible, so I’m just building the machine version

Re: The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful

#122

Post by wazoox »

As Hannah Arendt said : "The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth, and truth be defamed as lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world - and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end - is being destroyed."

Re: The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful

#123

Post by heddycrow »

oblio wrote: post #74
heddycrow wrote: post #51

I wish we were talking about what's next versus what's increasingly here. 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…

> How can infinite AI content be strictly awful if it forces us to fix issues with our trust and reward systems? You're assuming they can be fixed. > 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. I'm sure the peasants during Holomodor also thought: "wow, what an interesting problem to solve".

I don't have the time to read all four stories that ChatGPT turned up right this minute, but I now have cause to believe that at least some minority of those peasants you refer to did find fun in solving their problems.

I'm with that group of people. What was your point in bringing this up?

Wait, was I just trolled? If so, lol. Got me!

Re: The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful

#124

Post by jgeada »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #103
Sharlin wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How very inconvenient it is, then, that at the same time intentional efforts to spread uncertainty and to erode trust in traditional institutions are at an all-time high! Must be a coincidence.

It's a feedback loop; you need things like freedom of speech and press to get a functional and free democracy, but you need a functional and free democracy to have freedom of speech / press. Infringe on one and you take down the other. But you need to strip down the legal branch of a free democracy first, because the democracy and freedom of speech/press is protected by a constitution in most cases.

The odd thing is that in the US we we deliberately do not differentiate free speech from other things such as dollars, lies, propaganda and outright manipulation. This is a relatively new thing, forced upon us in the last few decades, and it is causing a spectacular crash in trust towards all our institutions.

But billionaires are making and keeping ever more money than before, so it isn't a problem.

Re: The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful

#125

Post by 8474_s »

vesche wrote: post #105
everdrive wrote: post #7

Doesn't matter. We must keep building more and more technology no matter the cost. Have an idea for a business? Build it. Does your business make the lives of people worse? Doesn't matter, keep pushing. Could some new technology ruin the lives and relationships that people have? Doesn't matter, just build it. We always need more, need to do more. Every experiment is valid, every impulse must be followed. More complex…

Relevant: https://geohot.github.io/blog/jekyll/update/2025/07/05/are-w...

> Release the hypnodrones

If you are not building the next paperclip optimizer the competition already does!

Re: The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful

#126

Post by swader999 »

WhyOhWhyQ wrote: post #99
everdrive wrote: post #7

Doesn't matter. We must keep building more and more technology no matter the cost. Have an idea for a business? Build it. Does your business make the lives of people worse? Doesn't matter, keep pushing. Could some new technology ruin the lives and relationships that people have? Doesn't matter, just build it. We always need more, need to do more. Every experiment is valid, every impulse must be followed. More complex…

The world will be a soulless hell, but Dario Amodei promises we'll live forever in it.

And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.

Re: The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful

#127

Post by mv4 »

bgwalter wrote: post #5

It is becoming unbearable. YouTube now has "AI" slop ads for Freenow (Lyft brand in the EU) with fake cars that move without the wheels turning and "AI" "actors" that look like plastic. This of course means that Freenow is now on the personal blacklist. People should not engage with companies who advertise with "AI" slop.

I was just looking at Instagram's promoted shopping ads, and 9 out of 10 are AI slop, pretending to be actual physical products. It is quite shocking.

Re: The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful

#128

Post by heddycrow »

m0llusk wrote: post #111
everdrive wrote: post #7

Doesn't matter. We must keep building more and more technology no matter the cost. Have an idea for a business? Build it. Does your business make the lives of people worse? Doesn't matter, keep pushing. Could some new technology ruin the lives and relationships that people have? Doesn't matter, just build it. We always need more, need to do more. Every experiment is valid, every impulse must be followed. More complex…

This is ignoring the Marketing to Engineering ratio. For most recent history technology companies have had to spend at least as much on marketing as engineering in order to survive, and two to ten times as much spent on marketing as engineering is common for successful companies. Who is going to buy the thing is the most important question and without solid answers there is nothing, no matter how much technology was…

I want to keep reading your thoughts on this. How can I get more or can you source your influences?

Re: The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful

#129

Post by visarga »

I think the claim is wrong, depends on many things. In most cases AI content is better than web content, especially if you use Deep Research to ground it in multiple sources. It is a problem when content is generated to capture traffic (SEO, content feeds), but in those venues we were already neck deep in slop before 2022. If anything AI slop might improve the quality of old SEO and feed bait.

When I need to be sure about something, I check it manually in trusted sources. If I am not sure, I check all the sources I can. More recently I run deep research on 3 agents (Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini) and then compare between the reports.

Re: The trust collapse: Infinite AI content is awful

#130

Post by turnsout »

We're finally getting the "pure" capitalism that economists dream about. An infinite number of sellers with perfectly commoditized products, driving margins asymptotically to zero.

If you want to get ahead, you'll need to find the 1% edge and exploit it for 15 minutes until a competitor erases your lead.

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