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AI Destroys Institutions

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Re: AI Destroys Institutions

#151

Post by terminalshort »

greggoB wrote: post #145
terminalshort wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you lie and say he "tried to dismantle" Wikipedia when what he actually did was start a competitor?

My apologies, I forgot how far he actually went [0] [0] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/02/elon-... > start a competitor Very charitable way of referencing an observably-obvious disinformation generator

Ok, that's a little better. The first link was just referring to him starting his own. I still think "dismantle" is not an accurate description for asking people not to fund it, but it's within margin of error. I'm paywalled, though, so can't read the whole thing.

"Charitable" is irrelevant to my reference because "competitor" is a term completely devoid of any indication of the quality of the product.

Re: AI Destroys Institutions

#152

Post by rpdillon »

UncleMeat wrote: post #148
rpdillon wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love some clarity on that. The linked page says this: ``` How AI Destroys Institutions 77 UC Law Journal (forthcoming 2026) Boston Univ. School of Law Research Paper No. 5870623 40 Pages Posted: 8 Dec 2025 Last revised: 13 Jan 2026 ``` What exactly is this document? It reads like a heavily cited op-ed, but is coming out of a law school from a professor there and calls itself a "research paper". Very strange. EDIT…

> So this is congruent with the Journal's normal content (it's an essay), but having the document call itself a "research paper" conjured an inflated expectation about the rigor involved in the analysis, at least for me. Right. And I think it is weird that people immediately leapt to this being some sort of deception by the authors and I think it was weird that when a lawyer who has experience in both domains clarifi…

Yep, I agree that jumping to the "deception" angle would be pretty far down on my list. I always admired the simplicity of HN's guideline to focus on curiosity, since it has far-reaching effects on the nature of the discourse.

Re: AI Destroys Institutions

#153

Post by greggoB »

t0bia_s wrote: post #149
greggoB wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if I can identify it, which I fear is going to become a harder task in the future. > If AI leads to decentralisation of press, it sounds better to me. Seems optimistic to me, given the trend with pretty much everything AI since ChatGPT was announced is concentrating as much power as possible in the hands of a few big tech companies. As an added example: decentralization was a big promise of crypto; at present, ha…

Local AI exist as well. It's just hard to measure it. Whats wrong with crypto decentralisation?

> Local AI exist as well. It's just hard to measure it.

Yeah but you're not going to get your news from local AI, are you? you have to connect it to the internet and look up news for you, but if a lot of what's found online is AI generated and there isn't a clear way to distinguish it, then how are you better off?

> Whats wrong with crypto decentralisation?

It hasn't really happened? To my knowledge, a large proportion of crypto volumes are going through a handful of centralised exchanges. Traditional finance sector is also increasing its presence/hold.

Re: AI Destroys Institutions

#154

Post by somebehemoth »

rpdillon wrote: post #121
somebehemoth wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no criticism. He did not read the paper.

I read the entire paper, and his criticism is spot on. I even read through many of the references, which, in my spot checks, don't support the claims in the paper. Very disappointing work, IMHO.

Cool. Perhaps you should have criticized the paper and requested feedback instead of defending someone who did not read the paper!

Re: AI Destroys Institutions

#155

Post by rpdillon »

somebehemoth wrote: post #154
rpdillon wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the entire paper, and his criticism is spot on. I even read through many of the references, which, in my spot checks, don't support the claims in the paper. Very disappointing work, IMHO.

Cool. Perhaps you should have criticized the paper and requested feedback instead of defending someone who did not read the paper!

I did both! I'm not concerned with defending anyone, I'm interested in truth. His criticism was sound, and your comments contribute even less to the discussion than his. Very disappointing.

Re: AI Destroys Institutions

#156

Post by greggoB »

terminalshort wrote: post #151
greggoB wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My apologies, I forgot how far he actually went [0] [0] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/02/elon-... > start a competitor Very charitable way of referencing an observably-obvious disinformation generator

Ok, that's a little better. The first link was just referring to him starting his own. I still think "dismantle" is not an accurate description for asking people not to fund it, but it's within margin of error. I'm paywalled, though, so can't read the whole thing. "Charitable" is irrelevant to my reference because "competitor" is a term completely devoid of any indication of the quality of the product.

> The first link was just referring to him starting his own.

He's pushing a platform that uses AI to generate content that's riddled with far-right misinformation. The context for him doing this is because he didn't like that Wikipedia now chronicles the very real fact that he made a Nazi salute. This doesn't constitute just starting an alternative, this is actively pushing an agenda of misinformation, while demonizing platforms that he doesn't like. He can't buy Wikipedia like he did with Twitter, so he's pushing to undermine & harm it, via defunding or other means (see government threats to "investigate" while Musk was running DOGE).

> "Charitable" is irrelevant to my reference because "competitor" is a term completely devoid of any indication of the quality of the product.

I was being nice; your characterizing of Musk's platform as a genuine "competitor" is BS. Every indication is that he's doing this because he wants to choose what constitutes fact and what doesn't.

Re: AI Destroys Institutions

#157

Post by somebehemoth »

rpdillon wrote: post #155
somebehemoth wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool. Perhaps you should have criticized the paper and requested feedback instead of defending someone who did not read the paper!

I did both! I'm not concerned with defending anyone, I'm interested in truth. His criticism was sound, and your comments contribute even less to the discussion than his. Very disappointing.

> Is he incorrect that the paper is speculating about future events? I don't think it's completely uninformed either.

Most people would say this is a defense of the person, or at least a defense of the person's choice to not read the full paper. It is no fun to debate with intellectual dishonesty.

Re: AI Destroys Institutions

#158

Post by contrarian1234 »

DannyBee wrote: post #43
contrarian1234 wrote: post #27

Just from reading the abstract, it feels like the authors didn't even attempt at trying to be objective. It hard to take what they're saying seriously when the language is so loaded and full of judgments. The kind of language you'd expect in an Op-Ed and not a research paper

I think you may be confused. This is not a research paper, it's an op-ed in a law journal. SSRN is where most draft law review/journal articles are published, which may be the source of confusion. For most other fields, it is a source of draft/published science papers, but for law, it's pretty much any kind of article that is going to show up in a law review/journal.

Ah okay, thanks for explaining it! Just based on the name, journal and metadata it seemed like a research paper.. and I was honestly a bit surprised. But I obviously don't publish law research :))

From what you're saying it seems that for an insider this is clear. I guess that makes more sense then

Re: AI Destroys Institutions

#159

Post by i-blis »

> Civic institutions—the rule of law, universities, and a free press—are the backbone of democratic life.

I disagree. The backbone of democratic life are the rule of law and freedom of speech, which makes a big difference. The press has historically been a counter-power inquiring into privileges and breaches of the rule of the law and thus promoted freedom of speech but almost only inasmuch it served the interest of the emerging merchant bourgeoisie . And we are long past that. Universities never have been liberal forces: they backed the Church and refused paradigm shifts. They still are very conservative even though in a peculiar sense, as leftist conservatives.

Re: AI Destroys Institutions

#160

Post by rpdillon »

somebehemoth wrote: post #157
rpdillon wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did both! I'm not concerned with defending anyone, I'm interested in truth. His criticism was sound, and your comments contribute even less to the discussion than his. Very disappointing.

> Is he incorrect that the paper is speculating about future events? I don't think it's completely uninformed either. Most people would say this is a defense of the person, or at least a defense of the person's choice to not read the full paper. It is no fun to debate with intellectual dishonesty.

Anyone with experience reading research papers professionally will tell you that one of the responsibilities of a paper's abstract is to meaningfully convey the level of evidence and certainty that the paper is backed by. This paper did very well at that, by having the abstract indicate its more of an essay/opinion piece than an a more scientific piece. This is blindingly obvious, and was a simple observation that everyone for some reason dismissed not on merit, but because the person who said it hadn't read the whole paper, which for a 40 page document is an incredibly high bar that is likely not met by 90% of the people commenting here.

Anyway, I'm tired of this now.

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