Political ads serve no meaningful purpose at this point; it would be better to ban all of them, most do more harm than good by presenting missleading information, or using fear, hyperbole, etc to provote an emotional reaction. When I receive any political adverstisements in the mail I don't look at them, they go straight into the recycling bin - even for issues, politicians I would vote for.
AI Generated Propaganda
61–70 of 113 posts
Re: AI Generated Propaganda
#62Political ads serve no meaningful purpose at this point; it would be better to ban all of them, most do more harm than good by presenting missleading information, or using fear, hyperbole, etc to provote an emotional reaction. When I receive any political adverstisements in the mail I don't look at them, they go straight into the recycling bin - even for issues, politicians I would vote for.
> Political ads serve no meaningful purpose at this point; it would be better to ban all of them...When I receive any political adverstisements in the mail I don't look at them
You're proposing to ban speech that, by your own admission, you do not read.
Re: AI Generated Propaganda
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
A healthy amount of skepticism is good. You can easily take your skepticism too far and turn into a tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist who doesnt believe anything and has a completely cynical view on the world. I know a few of these...
What about the tinfoil hatters that believe everything just because it's on some 2h YT video?
> What about the tinfoil hatters that believe everything just because it's on some 2h YT video?
Classic contrarianism. Where evidence of pushback is used as evidence of the argument itself. It's commonly used by cults to increase cohesion, e.g. sending members into the world to get rejected.
Re: AI Generated Propaganda
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed, we’ve been hoodwinked by photos and video and this is the wake up call we need for everyone to realize that seeing an image of something is in no way comparable to actually being there. We’re about to enter a much more skeptical world and that’s a good thing.
A healthy amount of skepticism is good. You can easily take your skepticism too far and turn into a tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist who doesnt believe anything and has a completely cynical view on the world. I know a few of these...
A healthy amount being defined as 90%
Re: AI Generated Propaganda
#65Plot twist: how do we know this isn't AI generated, AI generated propaganda?
No, the horror would be to be human generated "AI generated propaganda".
Re: AI Generated Propaganda
#66This is off topic, but holy hell the tweets underneath this. This is like taken from the front page of Fox News.
Re: AI Generated Propaganda
#67To those saying "Oh I can tell it's fake, obviously!", consider: will your parents/grandparents? And will you still be able to tell in five years, when this tech has had 20 new iterations, each addressing the very tells that right now let you notice it's fake? I know, I know, photoshop and fake pictures have always been around. But now, everyone can do it in 30 seconds. That changes things.
If the Trump era has shown anything, whether the piece of information is real or fake, people will believe and act based on ideals.
That is explictly the idea of a lot of propaganda: "the firehose of falsehood".
Keep hammering them with facts, details, allegations, baseless claims, even slivers of truth. The average person doesn't have the time, interest, or capabilities to dig through all of those claims, and will eventually settle on consuming the facts they want to hear. Keep em too confused to do anything except what feels right to their gut.
Unsurprisingly, this was pioneered by the Soviets, and heavily used by the Russians, both via foreign agit-prop, but also heavily on their domestic audience.
See also: The Russian "Firehose of Falsehood" Propaganda Model https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html
Re: AI Generated Propaganda
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Were you around when Internet 2.0 was supposed to bring democracy all over the world? It has brought a slew of right wing populists. We need to stop viewing technology as neutral, and "oh it will all turn out nice, like the railways did". These are tools which manipulate the human psyche, and not the same as stagecoaches to be disposed of.
"Populism refers to a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of "the people" and often juxtapose this group against "the elite". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populism I can't think of anything more democratic then appealing to the majority of the people...
> can't think of anything more democratic then appealing to the majority of the people
Populism, pejoratively, means rampant majoritarianism, a known failure mode of democracies. Unfortunately it’s a term, like liberal, that’s been expanded to the point of meaningless.
Re: AI Generated Propaganda
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, everybody does propaganda. When they say they don't do propaganda, that's propaganda. Governments engaged in geopolitical conflicts do it 24x7x365.
One of the things that an adult has to face growing up, is that at least some of the ideas that you hold in your head, have been cooked up in a think-tank or secret government bureau. EDIT: If you haven't realized this, then change some to a lot .
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Re: AI Generated Propaganda
#70I have a theory that propagandists' jobs are safer than they would seem.
Thing is, when you're arguing online with some political consultant who four years ago was convinced Joe Biden was senile (because they supported Amy Klobuchar), who is now just as convinced he's sharp as a razor and ready for another term, are they really trying to convince you with their arguments?
No, I don't think so. I think the whole point is what they're doing to themselves. Look at me, how loyal I am. I won't stop at anything to win. I don't care if my past words indict me, that was then, this is now and everything is at stake! Winners never quit! Never mind what you think, don't you feel my determination?
So it's not about the quality of the words that come out of their mouth. GPT4 can surely produce much better words, but that's not what's supposed to convince. It's the example, the example of fanatical organizational-personal loyalty, that's supposed to convince. GPT4 would need to lie and convince people it's a real person - or rather, many real people - in order for that sort of thing to work. But political consultants are already doing that at scale. It's probably not any better at lying, and even if it is, what they have is good enough.
Substitute Biden and Klobuchar for any other politicians, obviously. It's not a left/right thing.