Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A.I. and Social Media Contribute to 'Brain Rot'

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 200 posts

Re: A.I. and Social Media Contribute to 'Brain Rot'

#71

Post by throwaway106382 »

Contribute? That's basically its only purpose now, rot your brain with a dopamine drip and show you a bajillion ads. Now with AI slopgen being baked right into most of them it's been set into overdrive.

Deleted all my social media accounts except Youtube (but I use Unhook to remove everything except my subscriptions and the search). Haven't felt better. I use Telegram and Whatsapp and SMS to keep in touch with friends and family, nothing connected to any social app. I avoid all of the social-media-lite features in those apps like the plague.

Re: A.I. and Social Media Contribute to 'Brain Rot'

#72

Post by [deleted] »

tharne wrote: post #52
api wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ancient Egyptians on writing: "For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them." https://www.anthologialitt.com/post/the-god-thoth-and-the-in... This discourse is as old as humanity. Every…

> This discourse is as old as humanity. Every tool makes us stronger but also paradoxically weaker. Of course that statement is true for every tool, but what's missing from the discussion is whether the trade off is worth it. Even truly terrible things have benefits. Smoking cigarettes makes it easier to maintain a healthy weight, this is well documented. Smoking has also been shown to reduce anxiety in some people.…

[deleted]

Re: A.I. and Social Media Contribute to 'Brain Rot'

#75

Post by gregates »

tharne wrote: post #47
Mabusto wrote: post #30

I think we'll start to see AI as any other tool that can atrophy your natural faculties. You can use a wheelchair to get everywhere, but your leg muscles will start to wither, but a wheeled vehicle for going longer distances is a genuinely useful tool. Reaching for AI as a _substitute_ for thinking is bad, but reaching for it as a tool to assist thinking is good; you just need to be honest about whether it's your bra…

> Reaching for AI as a _substitute_ for thinking is bad, but reaching for it as a tool to assist thinking is good; you just need to be honest about whether it's your brain in the driver's seat or the chat bot. I think this is generally true, but human nature being what it is, the vast majority of people will use AI as a substitute for thinking rather than a tool to assist thinking. You can already see this from casua…

Unfortunately, "X is just a tool and is super useful when used properly, all things are both bad in excess and good in moderation, what you gonna do?" is exactly the type of conclusion that a chat bot is likely to reach. Doesn't really say anything, appears to express sophistication and wisdom by being more "nuanced" than an actual position, demands nothing of your audience, not likely to get downvotes on social media, etc.

Re: A.I. and Social Media Contribute to 'Brain Rot'

#76

Post by HeinzStuckeIt »

stuartjohnson12 wrote: post #27
knicholes wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found a page on Facebook that regularly posts single white mothers with black babies on supposed dating profiles with very demanding requirements for men. The comments are loaded with people saying that they deserve their current situation, enforcing racial stereotypes, etc. It's not hard to see that these are AI generated, as there are maybe 5-8 posts a day like this, and the images are pretty clearly AI genera…

Could you give me some searching clues to hunt down this or a similar profile?

I don't have a link, but I have seen exactly what he's talking about, which probably means that it is an established business model and multiple actors are doing it.

A similar thing I have randomly come across multiple times on YouTube are videos consisting of a still AI image of a white person mistreating a black person (e.g. a white police officer screaming with rage at a black man eating in a diner) and an AI voiceover text telling a GPT-generated story hashtagged #heartwarming, e.g. "The white police officer was violent against the black man... What he didn't know was this was a highly decorated veteran!"

Some of these are clearly getting picked up by the algorithm and drawing hundreds of thousands of views. The factories behind these are probably halfway around the world but realized the race relations of a large economy can be exploited for profit or geopolitics.

Re: A.I. and Social Media Contribute to 'Brain Rot'

#77

Post by ryandrake »

randycupertino wrote: post #7

I'm in a local facebook group for my town where people post hiking pics, bird pics, local business updates, contractor recommendations etc. I am annoyed to see "brain rot" videos starting to take over the page. There is one dude promoting his succulent repotting/resale business and he's posted like 5-8 ai generated surfer dude monkey surfing and partying with his potted succulents just in the last week. I opened the…

I'm pretty surprised by how fooled normal people are by all this AI-sludge, and/or how accepting they are of all this low-effort content. My reaction to this stuff is the same as yours: please don't clog the internet up with all this fake content! But everyone else in my life thinks it's great, and sometimes don't believe me when I point out it's obviously AI generated. I think people are already totally fooled and think it's real.

Re: A.I. and Social Media Contribute to 'Brain Rot'

#78

Post by Karrot_Kream »

HeinzStuckeIt wrote: post #19
monospacegames wrote: post #13

It's funny how multiple commenters here are reacting to this article by saying that older media is also bad when the article itself is about specific observations about how relying on AI and overengaging in social media can lead to detrimental outcomes. Ironically this tendency to form an opinion without investing time might also be a form of brain rot.

Using a HN post to talk about something unrelated you wanted to talk about anyway, has been part of HN for years. Probably because a lot of people feel with the rise of 140-character type social media, there are fewer and fewer venues on the internet where you can substantially talk to educated and non-brand-hustling people about the things that you think about.

Yes and it's largely made the site lose the rigor it used to have. You compare it to Slashdot downthread which I don't think is a good thing. The reason I joined this site so long ago is because Slashdot was more interested in tech culture shibboleths than actual tech or business. Natalie Portman!! Hot grits! Embrace, extend, extinguish!!

Unfortunate to see the same happen here but that's life I guess. The fact that the news for nerds group is so desperate to find community that they glom onto every IRC and website they can is a bit sad but I guess it's the nature of online cultures. But oh yeah enshittificiation and the year of the Linux desktop is tomorrow and Meta is going down down down or something right?

On the other hand it's funny how folks who like that culture keep putting it on a pedestal. Why? It contains little predictive power. It teaches little. It's just about opining. Is it that fulfilling to find online bytes that share your opinions? I guess I use my real life friends and family for that.

It's social media in a nutshell. We're more interested in finding people like us than confronting reality. When that happens at scale, you lose mass consensus. HN is but one piece of that.

Re: A.I. and Social Media Contribute to 'Brain Rot'

#79

Post by MSFT_Edging »

tharne wrote: post #47
Mabusto wrote: post #30

I think we'll start to see AI as any other tool that can atrophy your natural faculties. You can use a wheelchair to get everywhere, but your leg muscles will start to wither, but a wheeled vehicle for going longer distances is a genuinely useful tool. Reaching for AI as a _substitute_ for thinking is bad, but reaching for it as a tool to assist thinking is good; you just need to be honest about whether it's your bra…

> Reaching for AI as a _substitute_ for thinking is bad, but reaching for it as a tool to assist thinking is good; you just need to be honest about whether it's your brain in the driver's seat or the chat bot. I think this is generally true, but human nature being what it is, the vast majority of people will use AI as a substitute for thinking rather than a tool to assist thinking. You can already see this from casua…

Proper use of anything that has a big downside is in direct opposition to making money, sadly.

Re: A.I. and Social Media Contribute to 'Brain Rot'

#80

Post by ryandrake »

afavour wrote: post #39
Mabusto wrote: post #30

I think we'll start to see AI as any other tool that can atrophy your natural faculties. You can use a wheelchair to get everywhere, but your leg muscles will start to wither, but a wheeled vehicle for going longer distances is a genuinely useful tool. Reaching for AI as a _substitute_ for thinking is bad, but reaching for it as a tool to assist thinking is good; you just need to be honest about whether it's your bra…

Yes, IMO this is going to start becoming visible sooner rather than later. College students that defer to ChatGPT to form arguments for them are going to graduate, sit for an in-person job interview and discover they haven't had to think fast, with their own brain, in years. It won't be pretty.

But who is going to crack first? Will job applicants somehow remove their borg implants and learn to think on their own? Or will businesses give in and admit that nobody can think for themselves anymore, allowing applicants to use ChatGPT during their interviews (knowing that they're probably going to need to use it on the job, too).
Post reply on HN