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Roger McNamee is really sad about Facebook

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Re: Roger McNamee is really sad about Facebook

#61

Post by solveit »

simmanian wrote: post #37
Barrin92 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's no wonder that folks in the valley are so fascinated with AIs running amok and turning the world into a paperclip factory, because apparently that has been Facebooks business model from the start. A very relevant article from Ted Chiang: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tedchiang/the-real-dang... "Consider: Who pursues their goals with monomaniacal focus, oblivious to the possibility of negative consequences…

I guess in a way, these big valley companies are indeed turning themselves into superintelligent entities that do exactly what folks in the valley worry about.

This is not new. First it was the militaries and governments, then it was the financial institutions, now it's big tech companies, and eventually it will actually be AI (because firms will use AI to guide their actions).

Aligning anything with its stated goals has always been a hard problem, the superintelligent paperclip factory just happens to be sensational enough to grab attention.

Re: Roger McNamee is really sad about Facebook

#62

Post by 51lver »

kelnos wrote: post #47
smsm42 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, I though getting people to vote is a good thing? I am seeing a wave of propaganda to vote each time elections are near, registration drives, celebrity appeals, etc. Everybody is talking about how voting is good, not voting is bad and "suppressing" somebody's vote (including convincing them not to vote) is plain awful. There's a case where judge threatened a person with jail unless they vote: https://www.wkyc.co…

So if fake news drive people to vote it should be a good thing Absolutely not. I would rather people not vote at all than vote based on incorrect information.

Your vote is not worth more than a common idiot's vote.

Re: Roger McNamee is really sad about Facebook

#63

Post by nrb »

smsm42 wrote: post #58
nrb wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess that depends on whether you think appealing to outrage and fear through lies and disinformation is good for Democracy. When a candidate/politician tells a lie, they can be called out on it and are (until recently) accountable to their words and actions. However, fake news purveyors can practically anonymously blanket the internet to such a degree that mass manipulation can occur with no real way to counter it…

> I guess that depends on whether you think appealing to outrage and fear through lies and disinformation is good for Democracy Given how much it is done by top politicians, and they are still getting elected and re-elected for decades, I think most of the electorate is OK with that. > When a candidate/politician tells a lie, they can be called out on it and are (until recently) accountable to their words and actions…

You keep glossing over the fact that they are convincing people to vote entirely through deceit. Do the ends justify the means to you?

Re: blanketing the internet, an estimated 126 million Americans were exposed to this kind of content just on Facebook - https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/30/technology/facebook-googl...

Re: Roger McNamee is really sad about Facebook

#64

Post by smsm42 »

simmanian wrote: post #53
smsm42 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's "public interest"? Why do you think everybody among the public has the same interest and this interest is easily identified and not subject to gaming and corruption by whoever is selected to identify it?

I don't think we need to define what public interest is in a perfect way, because different ideas undergo competition and selection process to be classified as public interest by the society at large. This is what happens today. When people care about global warming, reducing homelessness, etc., it's because these ideas became selected. What I'm wondering is if there's a structural way for these to be seriously consi…

But the system already exists. Any company that thinks people care about global warming can start a global-warming related activities and people would support them. Any company that wants to reduce homelessness can start doing something about that, and if people think they are doing it right, they have ways to support this company, both by direct donations and by buying more of their products or services. Why any other system is necessary?

Re: Roger McNamee is really sad about Facebook

#65

Post by smsm42 »

nrb wrote: post #63
smsm42 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I guess that depends on whether you think appealing to outrage and fear through lies and disinformation is good for Democracy Given how much it is done by top politicians, and they are still getting elected and re-elected for decades, I think most of the electorate is OK with that. > When a candidate/politician tells a lie, they can be called out on it and are (until recently) accountable to their words and actions…

You keep glossing over the fact that they are convincing people to vote entirely through deceit. Do the ends justify the means to you? Re: blanketing the internet, an estimated 126 million Americans were exposed to this kind of content just on Facebook - https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/30/technology/facebook-googl...

> You keep glossing over the fact that they are convincing people to vote entirely through deceit

So what? First of all, politicians routinely use deceit to reach their goals, and aren't even ashamed about it. Second, if voting is always good, why achieving it through deceit is so bad? Let's say I know you have a bad diet, and I could through deceit convince you to eat healthier and add 5 years to your lifespan. Would you think it's a bad thing and it'd be better for you to be undeceived but die 5 years earlier?

> an estimated 126 million Americans were exposed to this kind of content just on Facebook

"Exposed" is a weasel word. They are just taking entire US audience of Facebook, and saying since any of those people could have seen this content, let's imply they all did and by implication were influenced by it. But it's baloney. If you take a moment to think, how likely it is that there are 136 million voters in the US, and almost every single one of them was influenced by Facebook? Moreover, you claim that main influence of the fake news is convincing people to vote. Do you imply that absent fake news, only about 10 million people would vote? That's clearly nonsense. So if we believed your hypothesis and NYT numbers, it would be obvious that there's no noticeable influence - we don't have sudden spike of voter turnout comparable to the number of 126 million, if fact we don't have any noticeable spike at all. So either 126 million number is nonsense, or voting turnout hypothesis is nonsense - I think likely both.

And all that for a campaign with a whopping $100K budget? If that were true, why politicians spend billions on their campaigns at all? If you want some more realistic numbers, look here: https://sci-hub.tw/10.1257/jep.31.2.211 - it's in hundredth of a percent. So, about 10-20 thousand people out of hundred millions. That's the likely size of the influence of this phenomenon, and maybe even less since this assumes fake news are as effective as fine-tuned political ads (and they are usually not, if you seen Russian fake news, they're utter crap). So probably around a thousand or so is the real size.

Re: Roger McNamee is really sad about Facebook

#66

Post by acct1771 »

ilovecaching wrote: post #36
simmanian wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly curious: what steps do you see that are being taken?

The company is slowing down revenue growth to ramp up more security measures. Zuck seems committed to fixing Facebook even if it hurts near term investments.

The data security, while deeply troubling, is not the most troubling thing about FB.

Re: Roger McNamee is really sad about Facebook

#67

Post by rock_hard »

orgop wrote: post #51
rock_hard wrote: post #2

Is there a official confirmation that he really mentored him? All I saw once is a statement that he knows him

Roger's a nice guy and a cool Deadhead, however it's hard to get the guy to stop talking at times. He was interested in a company I created at one point and in the few times we chatted (2-3) he dropped Zuck's name a few too many times in normal conversation. I don't know if it's true or not, but I frequently wondered to what extent he mentored him, like they chatted frequently for a few months? It seemed to me at the…

yeah, thats exactly what I imagined

Re: Roger McNamee is really sad about Facebook

#68

Post by smsm42 »

kelnos wrote: post #47
smsm42 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, I though getting people to vote is a good thing? I am seeing a wave of propaganda to vote each time elections are near, registration drives, celebrity appeals, etc. Everybody is talking about how voting is good, not voting is bad and "suppressing" somebody's vote (including convincing them not to vote) is plain awful. There's a case where judge threatened a person with jail unless they vote: https://www.wkyc.co…

So if fake news drive people to vote it should be a good thing Absolutely not. I would rather people not vote at all than vote based on incorrect information.

Note for example some politicians are going as far as creepily threatening to publicly shame non-voters: https://freebeacon.com/politics/wallace-campaign-uses-orwell...
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