Man oh man are the algos bringing me doom and gloom. Beginning of end times. I reserve judgment. Hell if i know. And yet i have to say that if AI is doing all of these unexpected things and changes are exponential and superintelligence is unavoidable with recursive learning then….

Then what? Then scenarios involving our dystopia or extinction…[Read more]

Fellow Unbelievers:

This thread also needs re-reading 25 years after 9/11/2001 and one year after Charlie Kirk’s murder.

Although my assessments of Charlie Kirk’s views have gone down, especially after platforming Christian Nationalist lunatic Victor Marx, I still say he and no one else deserves murder for mere words.

And as always, in this…[Read more]

Jake:

Ferguson says a borderline contradictory and stupid statement at end of vid in which he asserts something like ‘if we maintain our faith in god and uphold the values of a free society’.

You are indeed right here and it’s more than borderline contradictory. Like I said earlier:

Leaving aside insidental God-talk at the end, he has cha…

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I oughtn’t quibble when i see the ocean as it is and except a dribble.

Good stuff Reg. And now the dribble. If it is rebel with too many causes that seems inapposite when the predicate is algorithms driving the soon to be drowned in belief to one cause. And that susceptibility to that particular cause results in more of the same and therefore…[Read more]

Reg and Jake:

“Rebels with too many causes.”. That is genius! May I borrow that when suitable?

Perhaps what social media and AI need is an algorithm that detects and mines for opposing viewpoints and fallacies as well as provides fact-checking. It couldn’t save everyone from the rabbit hole, but could guide users to watch their step.

I think that Ferguson has characterized the mechanism correctly. Social Media rarely creates extremism from nothing. I like the term “activating” and it is aptly used. The algorithm finds susceptible people and supplies them with validating material  and then connects them to communities in which their prejudice is normalized. “You have found…[Read more]