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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'

#62
post #59
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m doing most complicated projects I ever work , I would not even try to implement them without AI. My brain is exploding of complexity every time , I passively learn lots of topics I only had a vague understanding in the past This sentence is very poorly written and ironically is undermining the very case you're trying to make.

It's pretty clearly not a native English speaker

That's fine; I wasn't referring to the academic quality the grammar. It's the ideas themselves that are muddled and unclear. Proficiency in given language and the ability to express oneself clearly are not as related as we typically think they are.

I know plenty of folks with poor English who are nonetheless very clear and concise when it comes to expressing their thoughts in English. I also know many native English speakers who, despite being proficient in the language, cannot express a lot their ideas clearly or concisely.

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

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

My favorite Reddit UX scam is that you tap on comments to collapse them along with their children, UNLESS they’re an ad that masks itself exactly like a comment in which case you tap it with the intent of collapsing it, but instead you inadvertently increase RDDT shareholder value (at the expense of the time you waste closing the webview)!

I refuse to use reddit with it's modern UI. Once old.reddit.com dies I'm hanging up my spurs

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

#64
post #16

Anything that contributes to you not needing to actually "think" and instead just "react" is going to be bad for you because it is simply engaging your reward system. The only way LLMs can be a net good is if they free you from drudgery and allow you to work harder on the things that actually matter. (Think dishwashers and laundry machines). If you are using them as an "easy button" so you can finish your work (poorl…

I think this is true of just about any technology. It will make lazy people lazier and help productive people get more done in less time. It's all about where the motivation is for each individual.

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

#65
post #44

I’m doing most complicated projects I ever work , I would not even try to implement them without AI. My brain is exploding of complexity every time , I passively learn lots of topics I only had a vague understanding in the past

You could add writing to that list of topics...

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

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found a page on Facebook that regularly posts single white mothers with black babies on supposed dating profiles with very demanding requirements for men. The comments are loaded with people saying that they deserve their current situation, enforcing racial stereotypes, etc. It's not hard to see that these are AI generated, as there are maybe 5-8 posts a day like this, and the images are pretty clearly AI genera…

Could you give me some searching clues to hunt down this or a similar profile?

Several of the Reddit "AmITheAsshole"-style subs have a significant number of posts which are either AI or sloppy creative writing.

Mass-produced outrage bait isn't new, and it's available in a thousand flavors. But AI has accelerated this process, at least for people who don't notice when they're getting played (or who don't want to notice).

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

#67

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?

How would such verification work at planetary scale?

Most platforms for the last decade have used phone numbers for real-human detection. Facebook is well known to quickly lock new signups' accounts until they give a phone number. Obviously that can be gamed by some people in some places, but all countries on earth have mobile phones now and purchase of a SIM card often requires showing ID to authorities.

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

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well yes, they are. It's just that a lot of legacy media is also bad. They can both be correct.

how many wars did LLMs and the social media instigate? the shitrag here did at least one.

> how many wars did LLMs and the social media instigate?

At least one already. I suspect your comment won't age well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_genocide

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-facebook...

> Marzuki Darusman, chairman of the U.N. Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, told reporters that social media had played a "determining role" in Myanmar.

You could probably count the war in Gaza to some extent.

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

#70

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…

> all the comments were "cute!" "adorable" and "love this!"

Probably bots?

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