We've been living in an I-saturated 'post-truth world' since at least the time the coffeeshop was invented, and likely since the dawn of time. We'll be fine.
Humans aren’t mentally ready for an AI-saturated ‘post-truth world’
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Re: Humans aren’t mentally ready for an AI-saturated ‘post-truth world’
#252[deleted]
Re: Humans aren’t mentally ready for an AI-saturated ‘post-truth world’
#253The comment by Yuval Noah Harari seemed insightful to me. If you argue against a bot about a political matter, not knowing it’s a bot - you always lose on a long enough timeline. ie you can never pursuade the bot but it can wear you down / eventually find an argument that works. The only winning move is not to play. So I could see this having a chilling effect on all discourse Aside from the whole skynet thing the ab…
> If you argue against a bot about a political matter, not knowing it’s a bot - you always lose on a long enough timeline. i.e. you can never persuade the bot, but it can wear you down / eventually find an argument that works.
That's a useful insight. The one on one wearing-down process came from theology. It's sometimes called Jesuitry. Members of the Society of Jesus were trained to do that sort of thing, and they got so good at it that the whole organization was suppressed in the 1700s.[1] There are still Jesuit-run schools in the US, and they do tend in that direction. "Never argue with a Jesuit", said Richard Nixon.
Since mass media, large scale use of one on one convincing has gone out of fashion. It's not cost-effective. With large language models, it's back.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppression_of_the_Society_of_...
Re: Humans aren’t mentally ready for an AI-saturated ‘post-truth world’
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do we need to keep changing who we are? Why can't we just be who we are and people learn to be more accepting of how others are? This sounds immensely boring, shifting everyone to use the same/similar body language, tonality, word choice, etc. Maybe I'm strange, but I must prefer the diversity of people as they are.
> Why do we need to keep changing who we are? > Why can't we just be who we are and people learn to be more accepting of how others are? Which is more reasonable and realistic: the 20% Weirdos learn how to behave to fit in with the 80% Normies, or the 80% Normies learn how to handle ("accept") the 20% Weirdos? In most systems, the minority adapts to the majority; this is especially true when the majority is fairly un…
How does that seem to be going with for example transgenderism or various sexualities?
It just seems like a double standard and that there are a lot of problems with this line of thought to me. I have trouble understanding it.
Re: Humans aren’t mentally ready for an AI-saturated ‘post-truth world’
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it was originally high value and made life easier. However, we have adjusted. My parents talked about having fast food/restaurant food as a treat. It was too expensive to have more than once a month/birthdays. Heck, even school lunches were too expensive and they had to make food at home. Today, we have more disposable income than my parents, so its easy to afford restaurant food AND get it delivered. The peo…
> There are even people so confused about food prices that they make claims that fast food is cheaper than groceries. I live in an expensive part of NYC and have to go decently far out (by subway, I don't have a car) to find groceries that are cheaper than local fast food unless I want to eat mostly rice and beans. Add in the costs of my time to shop, transport groceries, cook, and clean, it's significantly cheaper t…
>Add in the costs of my time to shop, transport groceries, cook, and clean, it's significantly cheaper to eat out most of the time
You can get overtime whenever you want? Because if you are salary, your after-work time pays 0$/hr.
>unless I want to eat mostly rice and beans.
Seems like you don't want to cook, and have justified it with time costs. Prepared food is not going to be cheaper than unprepared food.
Re: Humans aren’t mentally ready for an AI-saturated ‘post-truth world’
#256'Oxford Dictionaries popularly defined it as "relating to and denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief."' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-truth Since when did objective facts drive or shape public opinion? When did humans ever live in a "truth world"? Take the title and the content of the article itself. Does it aim t…
I don't think political or cultural issues are particularly amenable to objective truth anyway. You can't run randomised control trials for most of the main political or cultural points of contention.
Yeah they are tangental concepts. Truth is only useful politically to inform decision making. Political frameworks and decisions are fundamentally subjective and would still vary wildly even if we could all agree on fundamental truths. It's the main reason I'm skeptical of technocracy.
Re: Humans aren’t mentally ready for an AI-saturated ‘post-truth world’
#257Humans weren't and still aren't mentally ready for a 'post-steam engine world', but here we are. BTW, I've used both ChatGPT and Bard enough to know there's a lot they don't know, but boy are they confident in their wrong answers! Reminds me of some people I know!
Re: Humans aren’t mentally ready for an AI-saturated ‘post-truth world’
#258Really don’t like the idea that we will act as interfaces for the AI, I honestly believe it will only many the majority of people lazier and dumber. I’m also incredibly shocked that no one is talking about AI as a friend/companion, that has to not be good for you in the long run. Humans need real human connection, AI is too artificial for that (duh). Having AI friends will be equivalent to consuming fast food instead…
More than interfaces. To quote McLuhan: "Man becomes, as it were, the sex organs of the machine world, as the bee of the plant world, enabling it to fecundate and to evolve ever new forms. The machine world reciprocates man's love by expediting his wishes and desires, namely, in providing him with wealth." The AI thing has been jarring but it's nothing new. All part of the same process.
Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens:
“Within a couple of millennia, humans in many parts of the world were doing little from dawn to dusk other than taking care of wheat plants. It wasn't easy. Wheat demanded a lot of them. Wheat didn't like rocks and pebbles, so Sapiens broke their backs clearing fields. Wheat didn't like sharing its space, water and nutrients with other plants, so men and women labored long days weeding under the scorching sun. . . . The body of Homo sapiens had not evolved for such tasks. It was adapted to climbing apple trees and running after gazelles, not to clearing rocks and carrying water buckets. Human spines, knees, necks and arches paid the price. Studies of ancient skeletons indicate that the transition to agriculture brought about a plethora of ailments, such as slipped discs, arthritis and hernias. Moreover, the new agricultural tasks demanded so much time that people were forced to settle permanently next to their wheat fields. This completely changed their way of life. We did not domesticate wheat. It domesticated us.”
Re: Humans aren’t mentally ready for an AI-saturated ‘post-truth world’
#259Humans are never "ready" for the next crazy technological advance. I'm fond of this concept that I heard a while back, that I'm probably going to butcher:
If a technology comes out before you were born, or while you're very young, it's always existed. If it comes out when you're in your 20s, it's new and exciting. If it comes out after you're 35, it's scary and is a harbinger of ensuing disaster.
We always manage to figure it out. It's a cat & mouse game, and the next generation will probably manage it.
I don't mean to be casual about this, but does anyone think of how miraculous it is that in the past 80 years we haven't had a nuclear war?
Re: Humans aren’t mentally ready for an AI-saturated ‘post-truth world’
#260Really don’t like the idea that we will act as interfaces for the AI, I honestly believe it will only many the majority of people lazier and dumber. I’m also incredibly shocked that no one is talking about AI as a friend/companion, that has to not be good for you in the long run. Humans need real human connection, AI is too artificial for that (duh). Having AI friends will be equivalent to consuming fast food instead…
I love the fact your sentence lamenting the dumbification and impending laziness has a typo in it. It sort of undercuts your argument. That is of course unless the AI Boogeyman has already gotten to you...