Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Why Your AI Girlfriend Keeps Telling You To Drink More Ovaltine" Coming to a NYT Opinion column any day now
Thanks, now I'm craving Ovaltine for the first time in 20 years.
I miss her too. :(
The Coming Enshittification of AI
21–26 of 26 posts
Re: The Coming Enshittification of AI
#22I dispute that. Enshitification happens when the user does not pay for the product. The provider of the service has to find alternative ways of monetization. As a user, this feels shitty, but you get what you pay for. With AI, if you pay for usage, you can demand that the service provided not be shitty. You can even litigate, but the most important leverage is the threat to take your business elsewhere. Enough people…
How many providers do you have to pay for to watch your favorite teams play in all their competitions now vs 20 years ago?
How different is the experience booking an economy flight today vs 20 years ago?
Re: The Coming Enshittification of AI
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
The vast majority of people don't know what an Open model is or how to use one, or even that it is an option
For now! Even if not, there's pricing pressure between chat, gemini, and claude. The products seem to be comparable for laypeople which is why OpenAI has been investing a ton in their memory feature to try to lock in users
That’s only one away from being a classic tech duopoly
Re: The Coming Enshittification of AI
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's very true that successive generations of technology innovate qualitatively worse hostilities that people accept in exchange for the surface convenience or novelty. Regular TV has non-targeted commercials you can skip. Streaming has surveillance and unskippable ads. AI can take it a step further and make promoted editorial content a seamless part of a conversation, without disclosure. It's the holy grail of adver…
"Claude, integrate this mini advertisement into my blog post as if it was part of the story", is that WYM?
"Claude, devise a dark patterned ad network for a recursive death cult centered around my god given right to be a pedophile."
Re: The Coming Enshittification of AI
#25The article assumes that AI will get shitty the same way search, social media, etc. did. I don't think this is the case at all. It's pretty clear that LLMs will rapidly discover entirely new and innovative ways to be shitty.
I'm not so sure. The market is very competitive and trust/reputation is a huge factor. People will notice if someone introduced ads, no matter how innovative they are; and once they do that, it's game over.
Re: The Coming Enshittification of AI
#26> I’m in constant awe at what LLMs have brought us in terms of speed and how they act as a force multiplier when used cleverly, but previous experiences with disruptive technologies that shaped society (like the Internet, search engines and social networks) show us that these will inevitably be turned into ad-selling machines, enshittified like everything before them.
IMO, if that's the case, then it's yet another example of "We can't get anyone to pay for this stuff"
So, it sediments and is used to sell "real" things, ones that people actually pay money for, like phones. Thinking about this, phones, computers, toasters, thermostats, you name it, becomes not a "bicycle for the mind" but a "chauffeur for the mind" ... you don't have to think; just go along, and "things" just become gateways to some replacement mind out there.
Being such, their value decreases to roughly zero, and (oops) that external mind out there makes all your decisions for you, including what to buy that's of real value, or political decisions.
It all starts with ceding decisions to some outside source rather than using an outside source for information with which to make decisions. Let's face it, trusting humans to help make decisions has always been risky business. Trust is earned, and you can at least look a human in the face, for what that's worth.
Now, humans compete for your dollar, and depending on your politics/philosophy, that either gets you better products and services through competition or is a giant waste that depletes resources through duplication and leads to exaggerated claims (lies at times). Now, extend that to AI "agents" that left unchecked, can steer you wrong. So you set up a competing agent, and the world fills up with "AI wars".
"AI, find a way to swindle Pop out of his home and belongings"
"AI, find a way to protect Pop from swindlers"
This Pop just needs friends he can trust. We are problem-solvers by nature. It keeps us sharp. If we could just cooperate more, life would be better. Don't forget, the forces of racism, nationalism, religious enmity are propaganda, with no basis in our fundamental nature, and they create "stories" and color facts. Oh, that's advertising. In French, avertissement means warning.
Cooperation implies and requires trust. Competition usually involves coercion of some sort.
First, they poison information (Google, you bastards) and then "steer" you wrong. I use that word because, much as I could use a fully self-driving auto, I also believe that if I ask it to go to the place I like for pizzas, it will lock the doors and take over steering, and head out to the one it is paid to.
With trust, you don't need "control"
When will we learn that?