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There's a sort of hidden weakness to "losing": it's extremely difficult for people to correctly filter out BS at scale. I'm not talking about on an individual

There's a sort of hidden weakness to "losing": it's extremely difficult for people to correctly filter out BS at scale. I'm not talking about on an individual encounter level - BS almost always loses to truth. But the percentage isn't so high that smart and/or successful people never fall for BS in their lifetime. Especially since BS is under evolutionary pressure to be extremely believable. That's a big part of the benefit of being part of the mainstream of knowledge. It's almost certain that large swaths of the mainstream are BS. But the mainstream is also exposed to the most criticism (at least the parts where criticism is acceptable), which means that BS tends to get filtered out more quickly as well. In contrast, looking at "alternative" knowledge communities, they all generally have that whiff of being scammy. There's probably some truth in there, at least in some of those communities, but there's also a lot more BS. So, I'm not saying to never lose. Losing is generally good. Just take care to make sure that you're actually losing.

The_Colonel 4y ago
> But the mainstream is also exposed to the most criticism (at least the parts where criticism is acceptable), which means that BS tends to get filtered out more quickly as well. This is what I worry in relation to ChatGPT. Producing quality, believable BS is currently expensive, and the price of exposing it is relatively manageable. But with ChatGPT, it will be possible to produce huge amounts of BS which will be extremely believable and simply uneconomical to critique and expose. BS can be tailored to the audience, imagine a Wikipedia written by ChatGPT specifically for your which takes into account your own biases. It doesn't even have to be factually wrong, it can just modify the writing style, a word here and there to evoke a different sentiment, play on your personal preconceptions to move slightly your political position in a certain direction. People will claim they are immune to such subtle manipulations, but I don't believe that.
- concordDance 4y ago
  It's also worth noting that ChatGPT is a BS generator that's only allowed to generate BS for one side of a number of modern arguments.
concordDance 4y ago
> at least the parts where criticism is acceptable This is an important effect to note. If criticism of an idea is not socially allowed then you cannot rely on mainstreamness as a proxy for truth. There's also another effect worth noting: if an idea is relies on building blocks outside daily experience (e.g. anything about the large scale) and requires quantification as part of the argument then its going to struggle to propagate (both the guys with the megaphones and your average Joe are bad at thinking quantatively). Incorrect ideas about the dangers of nuclear power being the classic example.

The_Colonel 4y ago

> But the mainstream is also exposed to the most criticism (at least the parts where criticism is acceptable), which means that BS tends to get filtered out more quickly as well. This is what I worry in relation to ChatGPT. Producing quality, believable BS is currently expensive, and the price of exposing it is relatively manageable. But with ChatGPT, it will be possible to produce huge amounts of BS which will be extremely believable and simply uneconomical to critique and expose. BS can be tailored to the audience, imagine a Wikipedia written by ChatGPT specifically for your which takes into account your own biases. It doesn't even have to be factually wrong, it can just modify the writing style, a word here and there to evoke a different sentiment, play on your personal preconceptions to move slightly your political position in a certain direction. People will claim they are immune to such subtle manipulations, but I don't believe that.

concordDance 4y ago
It's also worth noting that ChatGPT is a BS generator that's only allowed to generate BS for one side of a number of modern arguments.

concordDance 4y ago

> at least the parts where criticism is acceptable This is an important effect to note. If criticism of an idea is not socially allowed then you cannot rely on mainstreamness as a proxy for truth. There's also another effect worth noting: if an idea is relies on building blocks outside daily experience (e.g. anything about the large scale) and requires quantification as part of the argument then its going to struggle to propagate (both the guys with the megaphones and your average Joe are bad at thinking quantatively). Incorrect ideas about the dangers of nuclear power being the classic example.