Humans aren’t mentally ready for an AI-saturated ‘post-truth world’ • Hacker News Board

Re: Humans aren’t mentally ready for an AI-saturated ‘post-truth world’

#531

Post by carlosjobim » Thu, Jun 22, 2023, 8:54 PM UTC

synetic wrote: post #411

carlosjobim wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This change came already with the invention of radio. We have a century of radio and TV propaganda of the absolutely vilest kind behind us already. At least now there is an exchange with the instant communications, not only one-way.

It did not already come as you say. We are in a new era. It is now very easy to target specific people over a wide geographic region and to do so cheaply. It is easy for bad actors to hone in on those susceptible to the false beliefs they peddle. Hence the rise of morons who won’t vaccinate their children. I’ve read that around 50 percent of the posts online are bot driven. Soon that percentage will be a lot bigger.…

Broadcast radio has been a cheap way to target everyone over a wide geographic region. With catastrophic consequences seen in the massive wars in all continents that were fueled by radio propaganda.

I much prefer living with today's polarization and people disagreeing on minor things like those you mentioned, than in the age of one-way broadcasts where there is no arguing and no other perspective at all.

Re: Humans aren’t mentally ready for an AI-saturated ‘post-truth world’

#532

Post by dang » Thu, Jun 22, 2023, 9:40 PM UTC

youreincorrect wrote: post #229

pixl97 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, this is far messier than you're making it out to be and something that was never thought of when our laws were created. Had human level AI agents existed at the time we wrote the constitution I can assure you it would have been written different. For example, our conversation now. You take for granted it's between two humans, in fact you likely assume it's from someone in your own country. And based on the conten…

> Had human level AI agents existed at the time we wrote the constitution I can assure you it would have been written different. You can assure me of that? Really? Edit: If you're going to downvote me, how about you instead provide an explanation of how this can be assured? Or, you know, GFY.

Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

p.s. I agree with you about the word "whataboutism" in principle but you broke the site guidelines badly here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36408848

Re: Humans aren’t mentally ready for an AI-saturated ‘post-truth world’

#533

Post by mandmandam » Thu, Jun 22, 2023, 10:02 PM UTC

red-iron-pine wrote: post #509

mandmandam wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The differences that jump out at me are in cost, scale and accountability. It's work recruiting people to your cause. It's expensive, and takes time and attention and resources. People have consciences that might flare up, they have loose lips, they need training and guidance and oversight. Letting a bot loose for your cause costs pennies . It can be updated with a few clicks. You can reverse course or fine tune with…

it's not just cheaper, its eminently more reactive. your human recruiter is going to have their own biases, could be tired, may not know how to deal with personality X or Y, they may not learn. the bots can track how they do by upvote, react quickly, won't get tired or annoyed, and can use existing data to filter and target those who are extremely vulnerable. hell, with real-time analysis by data mining companies (co…

Interesting point..

I wonder how we could test to see if they are already doing this...

Re: Humans aren’t mentally ready for an AI-saturated ‘post-truth world’

#534

Post by lisasays » Fri, Jun 23, 2023, 3:09 AM UTC

kwooding wrote: post #466

legendofbrando wrote: post #326

Counter point: sure they are. Humans are highly adaptable and like other changes to information availability in the past they will adapt. This is what societal norms and cultural memes are for. “Don’t believe everything you hear” “Don’t believe what you see on TV” “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” These are all ways that the human species uses memes and cultural norms to teach ourselves how not to f…

Absolutely. Lots of humans live in a post-truth world. They learn not to trust anything they read or hear. Think totalitarian regimes wi try tight controls over media. A more painful and pertinent question might be: Can democracy adapt to a post-truth world, and the answer to that I fear is probably no. How can a democracy function if it’s citizenry can’t remain informed?

Lots of humans live in a post-truth world.

But as we saw on Jan 6, 2021 -- whether they are "ready" for it and able to manage their emotions accordingly seems very much open to question.

Re: Humans aren’t mentally ready for an AI-saturated ‘post-truth world’

#535

Post by tacocataco » Fri, Jun 23, 2023, 4:08 AM UTC

Havoc wrote: post #402

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #338

Humans spent thousands of years in a pre-truth world believing all sorts of crazy things, and many of those societies produced great things and had people living normal lives. It's only been the last 100 years or so that people's perception of reality has been anywhere close to accurate. And even then, most people believe plenty of things that are false. So basically people and civilization are going to muddle along…

>Humans spent thousands of years in a pre-truth world believing all sorts of crazy things, and many of those societies produced great things and had people living normal lives. Also burned a couple of people as witches in the process...

No internet, no cell phones. Just people being people, living in the moment.

Re: Humans aren’t mentally ready for an AI-saturated ‘post-truth world’

#536

Post by giardini » Fri, Jun 23, 2023, 4:50 AM UTC

synetic wrote: post #499

giardini wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The widely accepted axiomatic basis for the natural numbers is the first order Peano Axioms. Very few children are capable of understanding how to prove 1+1=2 in this axiomatic system. In this system an axiom says that each element has a successor. 1 is called the successor of 0. 2 is called the successor of 1. So on and so forth. Now we need to define a binary operation called +. Now show that the successor of 0 plu…

synetic says "The widely accepted axiomatic basis for the natural numbers is the first order Peano Axioms. Very few children are capable of understanding how to prove 1+1=2 in this axiomatic system."

Presumably the "first order Peano Axioms" were noted sometime after Giuseppe Peano's birth in 1858. By your logic no one born before 1858 would be "capable of understanding how to prove 1+1=2", which is nonsense.

You seriously underrate everyone except yourself.

Re: Humans aren’t mentally ready for an AI-saturated ‘post-truth world’

#537

Post by forgetfreeman » Fri, Jun 23, 2023, 6:15 AM UTC

carlosjobim wrote: post #530

forgetfreeman wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You assume this bidirectional communication is a benefit. I'm not so convinced. This permits the formation of echo chambers and allows people to nominate literally anyone, regardless of their position or credentials, as an authority on literally any topic (see also: anti-vax moms). This represents an assault on society's ability to function at the most basic level, as it is increasingly difficult for individuals to a…

I suggest you botanize a little in early and mid 20th century TV and radio broadcasts from around the world. You will find propaganda where the presenters are literally screaming like lunatics at the listener: Telling children to turn in their parents to the secret police, calling for war - and worse. That is what the majority of the population of the world had to listen to and watch. Mass media propaganda on the air…

I can absolutely compare that to online conversations as they have lead to at least one attempt to overthrow the US government and have convinced an alarming minority of armed citizens that lizard people are real and pose a threat to the children of the world. That propaganda has always existed is not in question, what you fail to address in your response is the caustic effects on society caused by the proliferation of information sources.

Re: Humans aren’t mentally ready for an AI-saturated ‘post-truth world’

#538

Post by forgetfreeman » Fri, Jun 23, 2023, 6:19 AM UTC

legendofbrando wrote: post #503

synetic wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. We did not evolve to adequately deal with this new reality.

Anything you think we could do to help people deal with it or in your view is this settled?

We're talking about lizard-brain deep subconscious human behavior here. That's not really something that lends itself to being tinkered with idly. So this seems pretty settled to me. I'm prepared to alter my view if new information comes to light.

Re: Humans aren’t mentally ready for an AI-saturated ‘post-truth world’

#539

Post by forgetfreeman » Fri, Jun 23, 2023, 6:25 AM UTC

carlosjobim wrote: post #531

synetic wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It did not already come as you say. We are in a new era. It is now very easy to target specific people over a wide geographic region and to do so cheaply. It is easy for bad actors to hone in on those susceptible to the false beliefs they peddle. Hence the rise of morons who won’t vaccinate their children. I’ve read that around 50 percent of the posts online are bot driven. Soon that percentage will be a lot bigger.…

Broadcast radio has been a cheap way to target everyone over a wide geographic region. With catastrophic consequences seen in the massive wars in all continents that were fueled by radio propaganda. I much prefer living with today's polarization and people disagreeing on minor things like those you mentioned, than in the age of one-way broadcasts where there is no arguing and no other perspective at all.

Do you really? Because at least in the US we are approaching an inflection point where a third of the country decides to kill a different third while the middle third starves to death or dies of disease. I question the notion that adding pundits, industry shills, and random-ass suburbanite influencers to the conversation balances that equation.

Re: Humans aren’t mentally ready for an AI-saturated ‘post-truth world’

#540

Post by GoblinSlayer » Fri, Jun 23, 2023, 9:10 AM UTC

rhaway84773 wrote: post #473

legendofbrando wrote: post #326

Counter point: sure they are. Humans are highly adaptable and like other changes to information availability in the past they will adapt. This is what societal norms and cultural memes are for. “Don’t believe everything you hear” “Don’t believe what you see on TV” “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” These are all ways that the human species uses memes and cultural norms to teach ourselves how not to f…

> This is what societal norms and cultural memes are for. “Don’t believe everything you hear” “Don’t believe what you see on TV” “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” All these memes tell you what not to believe. None of them provide a decent heuristic to know what to believe and where truth may lie. This is a recipe for a paranoid, conspiracy theory riddled society.

Gather information and infer truth from it.