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A.I. and Social Media Contribute to 'Brain Rot'

nytimes.com

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Re: A.I. and Social Media Contribute to 'Brain Rot'

#31

Post by rurp »

HeinzStuckeIt wrote: post #15
randycupertino wrote: post #7

I'm in a local facebook group for my town where people post hiking pics, bird pics, local business updates, contractor recommendations etc. I am annoyed to see "brain rot" videos starting to take over the page. There is one dude promoting his succulent repotting/resale business and he's posted like 5-8 ai generated surfer dude monkey surfing and partying with his potted succulents just in the last week. I opened the…

On modern social media, even if you had a group full of smart and reasonable people, the platform itself is injecting crap that may well drive out many of them. I rececently returned to Reddit since there are no other remaining discussion venues for one of my hobbies. I looked at the new-Reddit interface and shuddered: ads are being shown among comments, and many comments are hidden by defaul because apparently discu…

I don't know how anyone can use the official reddit mobile app for more than 5 minutes. Between the ads and terrible interface it's an awful experience. But I also hate facebook so I'm clearly not the target audience for this stuff.

RedReader is a much better interface but lately has been having issues for me so I just haven't been using reddit. If and when they kill that client I'll be done with the platform.

Re: A.I. and Social Media Contribute to 'Brain Rot'

#33

Post by HeinzStuckeIt »

dingnuts wrote: post #25
HeinzStuckeIt wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using a HN post to talk about something unrelated you wanted to talk about anyway, has been part of HN for years. Probably because a lot of people feel with the rise of 140-character type social media, there are fewer and fewer venues on the internet where you can substantially talk to educated and non-brand-hustling people about the things that you think about.

this website exists as an advertisement for a brand. the people here are hustling harder than anywhere! it's worse than LinkedIn! that's why this website is a constant dick measuring contest -- it's a news site run by a venture capitalist firm about startups! Why would you think this place is not absolutely full of shills? the Internet is so dead, I'm sure I'm arguing with a bot. I need to go outside..

HN is definitely founded by a creepy VC firm and some of the posts get comments by startup-culture hustlers. But most posts don't. Instead you find the same broad population of people looking for news for nerds that used to be on Slashdot etc.

HN's interface, and showing just a username in a tiny font, honestly gives me less of that tiring feeling of people around me hustling a personal brand, than even the fediverse which is supposedly "healthy social media".

Re: A.I. and Social Media Contribute to 'Brain Rot'

#34

Post by lm28469 »

cramsession wrote: post #2

[flagged]

> it leaves people less susceptible to manipulation

less ?

We went from a few selected and hand crafted local propaganda sources to world wide fully automated propaganda machines...

If I had to choose I'd chose the former personally. Information is always opinionated but i'd rather have my local flavor of propaganda over 3 channels and 2 newspapers rather than having foreign propaganda from all around the world drilling in the heads of my neighbours and family members 24/7.

Re: A.I. and Social Media Contribute to 'Brain Rot'

#35

Post by api »

Mabusto wrote: post #30

I think we'll start to see AI as any other tool that can atrophy your natural faculties. You can use a wheelchair to get everywhere, but your leg muscles will start to wither, but a wheeled vehicle for going longer distances is a genuinely useful tool. Reaching for AI as a _substitute_ for thinking is bad, but reaching for it as a tool to assist thinking is good; you just need to be honest about whether it's your bra…

Ancient Egyptians on writing:

"For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them."

https://www.anthologialitt.com/post/the-god-thoth-and-the-in...

This discourse is as old as humanity. Every tool makes us stronger but also paradoxically weaker.

Re: A.I. and Social Media Contribute to 'Brain Rot'

#36

Post by dfxm12 »

chaseadam17 wrote: post #28

Why hasn't a social media platform with mandatory verification to prove users are unique humans taken off yet? Still too hard to break the existing network effects?

Anonymity is more important, and verification systems can always be gamed. To add, given what you see well known people post under their real name, including Trump posting a video of himself shitting all over Americans, I don't understand what benefit you're expecting to get.

Re: A.I. and Social Media Contribute to 'Brain Rot'

#39

Post by afavour »

Mabusto wrote: post #30

I think we'll start to see AI as any other tool that can atrophy your natural faculties. You can use a wheelchair to get everywhere, but your leg muscles will start to wither, but a wheeled vehicle for going longer distances is a genuinely useful tool. Reaching for AI as a _substitute_ for thinking is bad, but reaching for it as a tool to assist thinking is good; you just need to be honest about whether it's your bra…

Yes, IMO this is going to start becoming visible sooner rather than later. College students that defer to ChatGPT to form arguments for them are going to graduate, sit for an in-person job interview and discover they haven't had to think fast, with their own brain, in years. It won't be pretty.

Re: A.I. and Social Media Contribute to 'Brain Rot'

#40

Post by Der_Einzige »

dingnuts wrote: post #25
HeinzStuckeIt wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using a HN post to talk about something unrelated you wanted to talk about anyway, has been part of HN for years. Probably because a lot of people feel with the rise of 140-character type social media, there are fewer and fewer venues on the internet where you can substantially talk to educated and non-brand-hustling people about the things that you think about.

this website exists as an advertisement for a brand. the people here are hustling harder than anywhere! it's worse than LinkedIn! that's why this website is a constant dick measuring contest -- it's a news site run by a venture capitalist firm about startups! Why would you think this place is not absolutely full of shills? the Internet is so dead, I'm sure I'm arguing with a bot. I need to go outside..

I hear you about being very sad about the internet "dying" and real engagement being gone.

HN is full of bullshit, shills, charlatans, and extremely bad moderation/rules. Yet it, like Linkedin, dramatically increases your earning potential if you post here.

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