10 ms·

Counter point: sure they are. Humans are highly adaptable and like other changes to information availability in the past they will adapt. This is what societal

Counter point: sure they are. Humans are highly adaptable and like other changes to information availability in the past they will adapt. This is what societal norms and cultural memes are for. “Don’t believe everything you hear” “Don’t believe what you see on TV” “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” These are all ways that the human species uses memes and cultural norms to teach ourselves how not to fall victim to false information. Of course some people are going to fall victim. They do so today through common scams. It is the right goal to bring this down to zero. But to say that the human species isn’t capable belies all prior history and shows little faith in the resilience that made us who we are. That’s the broad problem with this AI doom and gloom: it has so little knowledge of and respect for the humanities and humankind that it arrogantly assumes that our species has never faced challenges like this before. It throws up its hands instead of asking what lessons from history we should take and what actions we should be focused on. If I'm being generous, I think that these pieces attempt to stir panic as a means for spurring action for change and investment in these problems. That’s a meaningful goal, but one that also might be more meaningfully achieved if it wasn’t expressing the problem with such gloom.

systems_glitch 3y ago
It is estimated that between 50% and 70% of folks have no inner monologue.
- interstice 3y ago
  How is that an issue?
- mrtranscendence 3y ago
  That seems insane to me. I'm always chattering away up there, I can't imagine it otherwise.
  - jackjeff 3y ago
    Wow. I had no idea that was a thing. I thought that’s just something they do in movies. But I don’t have a mind’s eye either (aphantasia). So I guess that’s on brand for me. That doesn’t mean I can’t “talk to myself” in a way or think about stuff. I just have no auditory sensation whatsoever. It’s just abstract/immaterial reasoning. I’d wager if I did an FMRI the audio part would not light up but the speech part would.
    - dr_dshiv 3y ago
      You don’t have visual dreams? If I say “pink elephant,” you don’t one? Or better yet, if i say “Dumbo,” you don’t see the ears? You don’t hear songs in your head? If I write “I’ll be back” you don’t hear it now in a thick German accent? Inconceivable! (As they say)
      - pxc 3y ago
        For me, the aural examples you gave are much more vivid than the visual ones. Some people have one of those forms of imagination but not the other at all!
        dr_dshiv 3y ago
        I guess i just doubt the complete absence. Maybe people have different expectations of what imaginations would be. When I “see” a pink elephant, it is extremely fragmentary. If it were output directly, it’d be a mess. Also, not all at the same time. It might also be that there are differences in the amount of attention given to different kinds of imagination. But the way the brain is structured, everything is firing all the time… or at least, that’s why it is so hard for me to conceive
      - generic92034 3y ago
        > If I write “I’ll be back” you don’t hear it now in a thick German accent? Now you have made me curious. Where would the thick German accent be, when pronouncing those words? I can imagine other sentences (anything with "th", for example) where you would hear a German accent. But with "I'll be back"?
  - aerfio 3y ago
    For me it's insane that some people "talk" to themselves in their heads, expressing your ideas as words seems so slow in comparison to "thinking in ideas"
    - ben_w 3y ago
      I can think in ideas pure non-verbal ideas, and have on occasion noticed that my inner monologue is just describing the idea I've already had. When I try to shortcut the monologue on the grounds I already know what I'm thinking about, it feels wrong. This hasn't been much of a problem recently, possibly because my inner monologue has sped up to match that I watch and listen to YouTube and podcasts and audiobooks in ~ double speed.
    - salawat 3y ago
      Your thinking in ideas is you thinking in your own internal mental vernacular. What do you do when it comes time to get your point across to others? That's my Achilles heel. If people aren't prepared to really dig in and go through the motions/look things up and vonnect or pick up ideas that I have (that are the sum of many years diving esoteric topics), I might as well just throw my hands up and just do whatever myself. As it's generally a shorter time to materialization than trying to explain it.
  - at-fates-hands 3y ago
    I also talk a lot to myself so my inner dialogue becomes an external dialogue when I'm alone doing mindless stuff like cleaning or putting groceries away - I find it just keeps my mind active and in the present without tuning out. One of the funniest things was when I was working at a bike shop. The owner was a really cool guy and would visit the store from time to time. I was stocking some bike rack stuff on one side of a dual display, talking about an app I was essentially brainstorming over out loud while I was doing this mindless task. I walked around the display and owner was standing there. He looked at me with a smile and says, "That was quite the discussion you were having with yourself. Sounds like a great idea for an app." We both started laughing and I had to explain him why I did this.
    - mrtranscendence 3y ago
      I do the same thing, though weirdly enough less than I used to. Sometimes it really helps me work through a problem -- maybe it slows me down to a better pace? Who knows. Talking to pets also works. They've never been able to offer a very useful response, alas.
  - strken 3y ago
    I have an inner monologue, but it's just one of many different ways to think and I don't always choose to use it. What happens when you consider a spatial problem like an IQ test? Do you have to talk your way through it? If you see an art piece, do you only appreciate it through the monologue, or does it feel beautiful in a non-verbal way too?
    - mrtranscendence 3y ago
      I do tend to talk through spatial problems, yes, though I'm not so aphantasiac that I can't visualize, say, the image that would match a simple pattern of lines demonstrated in prior images. I can also situate things with relative position in my head without having to visualize them (if that makes sense). > If you see an art piece, do you only appreciate it through the monologue, or does it feel beautiful in a non-verbal way too? I appreciate it both ways, yeah. But the visual in that case would mostly be just "this is pretty" or "that's disturbing" etc. Any kind of genuine art critique (such as I am even capable of doing) would be talked through mentally.
- Karawebnetwork 3y ago
  Inner monologue refers to the experience of perceiving one's thoughts as auditory. People who do not have an inner monologue are still capable of thinking.
- tick_tock_tick 3y ago
  CPU savings for the simulation they aren't "real" like the rest of us.
  - bazeblackwood 3y ago
    so by your logic, it's the "real" entities which will inevitably experience pain, suffering, and death; meanwhile I will reincarnate eternally as part of the program's grand design, simply because my thoughts are abstract instead of an auditory hallucination? ever consider maybe your "internal dialogue" is actually the instructions the programmers have to keep ramming in your face so you actually complete your quests?
    - johnchristopher 3y ago
      Sweet Jesus, how sensitive are the NPCs today... edit: they are downvoting ! they are getting sentient !
      - junon 3y ago
        HN just isn't really the most receptive crowd when it comes to playfulness. I wouldn't take it personally.
- dan_quixote 3y ago
  Got a decent citation? I can't even fathom what that would be like. I'd bet my daily inner monologue is 100X what I actually speak out loud.
  - systems_glitch 3y ago
    Random search results from a non-clickbait source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/inner-monologue-experience-science-1.5486969 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/inner-monologue-...
- mkl 3y ago
  One of them was Albert Einstein: "The words of the language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought." -- https://www.creativitypost.com/article/aping_einstein#:~:text=The%20words%20of%20the%20language%2C%20as%20they%20are%20written%20or%20spoken%2C%20do%20not%20seem%20to%20play%20any%20role%20in%20my%20mechanism%20of%20thought https://www.creativitypost.com/article/aping_einstein#:~:tex... Your comment seems like a non sequitur.
  - dr_dshiv 3y ago
    Wow, it’s a sourced quote too (rare for Einstein on the internet). How do you write a paper without thinking in words? I need to talk to someone who doesn’t think in words, I just can’t believe it otherwise.
    - dqh 3y ago
      For me it’s almost like ‘seeing’ or ‘knowing’ the ‘shape’ of things and the relationships between them. Translating to words is sort of a seperate step at output. It’s difficult for me to describe.
    - yusefnapora 3y ago
      Well, I can do math, but I very rarely "think in mathematics." Rather, I approach most math problems linguistically, by essentially making up a little word problem in my head and reasoning through it. However, I know other people who approach math in a completely different way. They seem to have an intuitive "calculating sense," and only use language "after the fact" to record the result or explain it to others. So in the same sense that I can use math without it being central to my thinking, it doesn't seem hard to believe that others can use language without it being central to their thinking.
    - contravariant 3y ago
      You can draw without thinking in drawings, similarly you can speak without thinking in speech. Personally I've tried to become less dependent on language for thought, because I noticed I kept getting stuck on how to verbalize some thoughts even when there was no real need to. I think it's had an effect but it's hard to tell if I'm just imagining it or if imagining it is precisely the point (and I still get stuck on how to explain stuff in some imaginary context, but I suppose that's progress?) My best guess is that an internal monologue may simply be an intermediate step as we internalize speech into our thoughts, so the need to keep verbalizing thought could eventually reduce, but it's hard to notice these kinds of changes in yourself because the skills don't disappear they just become something else.
- systems_glitch 3y ago
  The responses to this statement illustrate the point I intended to make: we all process stuff very differently. FWIW I often throw this random factoid out there when someone presents an overly broad "humans in general" argument/observation. The reaction is usually polarized :P
- GoblinSlayer 3y ago
  Because textual thought is abysmally inefficient and inadequate.
agloe_dreams 3y ago
This is a hilariously naive take. We, as humans, are well beyond being mentally ready for the internet and social media alone. Most of the key communication of the 20th Century was based on a tradition of duty and service in reporting and, generally, leadership. The Natzis of the 40s died not because the idea was 'wrong' (which it was) but because bad leadership and greed caused extinction. Before Poland, Europe was plenty happy letting Hitler be. Why was Hitler successful? Because he told people what they wanted to hear. You are better. We are better. We deserve more. It's their fault we are like this. Self bias is the critical failure of the human mind. Tell someone that they deserve more and that they are better than others and they will believe you. In a world where politicians and companies (same thing really) can use AI to collect your online persona and then fill your day with advertising designed just for you, telling you that you are right and it is 'them' who are wrong will work on nearly everyone. It already does. People watch news channels and follow influencers that make their feeds echo chambers, it drives extremism. How does a society tell you that you are wrong, that the other person is right? Humanity and humankind made Hitler. Humanity and human kind will make tools that succeed at their goals to make others do what they want. We are already in freefall, this is a rocket booster on our back.
- goatlover 3y ago
  How is that any different form the past several thousand years of civilization? Hitler wasn't the first or only genocidal dictator. He wasn't alone in the 20th century either. Colonization and the slave trade were worse, albeit spread over several centuries. But empires waging war, conquering, enslaving, eradicating other groups and manipulating citizens has been going on for a long, long time. Plato wrote to counter the sophists and skeptics of his day. The gospels have Pilate asking Jesus a philosophical question, "What is truth?" This is hardly new, just the technology is better.
  - forgetfreeman 3y ago
    How is it any different? Are you serious? For the overwhelming majority of our time on this planet communications were limited to word of mouth over geographically limited areas. Now it is trivial for any form of bullshit to spread worldwide in minutes. The stakes have changed.
Cullinet 3y ago
>Humans are highly adaptable and like other changes to information availability in the past they will adapt. This is what societal norms and cultural memes are for. “Don’t believe everything you hear” “Don’t believe what you see on TV” “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” These are all ways that the human species uses memes and cultural norms to teach ourselves how not to fall victim to false information. But who is parsing all the reciprocal new false and fallacios "truths" in this wonderful human way to sanitise the inputs to the next model that's evaluated? If humans could scale so easily there wouldn't be this problem in the first place.
- legendofbrando 3y ago
  In 1800 there were around 1 billion people and today there are around 8 billion. Humans do seem to scale rather easily. https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth
personjerry 3y ago
50 years ago humans weren't prepared for a smartphone, internet "post-connected" world and here we are. We adapt and grow.
- dv_dt 3y ago
  And before that people had worries about TV(dancing and rock and roll), and radio (war of the worlds), multiple music related scares sprinkled throughout.
  - the-printer 3y ago
    This is a popular rebuttal and I don’t think that it’s a good one. The detrimental effects of the media forms you’ve listed are better considered in ways other than through events that themselves are (ironically) pop culture tropes today (moral panic over music, the “war of the worlds” panic myth). It’s hard to even compare technology as pervasive as AI, smartphones and social media to TV and music (which are pervasive in their own right by definition, but not so much by comparison). The former is capable of subsuming and manipulating the forms of the latter and its effects are far more direct than the latter’s in respect to the present age.
- pjerem 3y ago
  No hasty conclusions. We switched to this always connected world only 10-15 years ago and I think we are far from having seen all the consequences. Algorithmic bubbles, mass surveillance, addictive algorithms and applications are fairly recent and we can already see really disgusting consequences. Our civilization is resilient so it takes time to erode but since a few years, I have hard time imagining a positive technological future. All I see is technology made to exploit human breaches for money. Humans don’t look like they are adapting to Tik Tok properly so I’m not confident they’ll understand this new AI powered world. (I have no doubt that powerful and dominant humans will adapt)
  - highwaylights 3y ago
    The sum of all human knowledge in every pocket and all we use it for is to view fake photos of fake people living their fake lifestyles. We were gonna cure cancer and explore space. It’s shameful.
machina_ex_deus 3y ago
Disinformation is the narrative constructed by crumbling authorities of mainstream media desperately trying to preserve their power. You might think like their narrative is "think critically, and consider everything critically". But the actual message is, your fellow humans are stupid, they fall for misinformation and fake sources. Ignore all alternative sources of information and most importantly, do not trust your friends and people you know, instead assume they are stupid and when they contradict the authority, be sure to put up a firewall and stop the propagation of dangerous thoughts. Truth is always more powerful than lies. Don't underestimate your own reasoning capabilities, and if you do underestimate them, the most important thing to do is to train them. I'm not saying to argue against an anonymous bot, but if you meet in person, if your friends have non standard ideas, don't assume they are stupid and fell for misinformation. Not everyone on the other side is stupid, or heartless, or bad. They are trying to inject faults into various alternative information sources just to turn around and catch them and say "see? This podcaster is a conspiracy theorist and unreliable!". It's mainstream media which benefits the most from efficient fault and spam injection into alternative information sources, because it makes them relatively more trustworthy. And it is actually against the interests of alternative news sources to be caught in a lie because it is likely to erode their reputation. If you're confused by the whole disinformation phenomenon, ask the simple question, who benefits. And remember that the media's willingness to intentionally lie and deceive their readers is directly proportional to the cost to your reputation, and the likeliness of your readers to discover the truth.
- bcrl 3y ago
  Well, yesterday Youtube served me up an ad for an "AI" algorithmic trading service "only available to Canadians" and "backed by Elon Musk. It used "AI" generated audio and video of Musk to peddle an unregistered securities trading firm that tries to prey on the uninformed. That video is clearly disinformation / misinformation. There is zero chance that video would be played on a conventional broadcaster. Why? They have to be accountable for the content they put in front of viewers. Conventional broadcasters have to participate in advertising standards councils and answer to regulators. On the other hand, platforms are unaccountable and unwilling to act in the public interest. Profit trumps all. The average person has no idea how to record an ad that was just shown to them by a "platform". That video that was in the corner of the webpage that turns out to be scammy? Ooops, you scrolled too far or used the back button and it's now gone. There's a large swath of problems online that are clearly misinformation and / or disinformation. Nothing is going to improve on this front so long as "platforms" are wholly unaccountable to the general public. And we're running blindly forward into making this far, far worse before anything will change now that generative AI lowers the bar to produce bullshit that looks convincing on the first pass. Big tech disappoints me to no end.
subsection1h 3y ago
Most humans aren't even ready for the Internet as it has existed for decades. Thirty years ago, we were discussing science papers on Usenet. I recall writing a message expressing optimism about a future in which everyone uses the Internet to consume high quality information directly from relevant specialists, rather than low quality information from nonspecialists. For example, I imagined Americans basing their voting decisions on an understanding of public policy issues developed by reading the journals of the American Economic Association, the American Society of Health Economists, the American Society of Criminology, the American Geophysical Union, the National Academy of Sciences, etc. Instead, Donald Trump was elected president.
- giardini 3y ago
  Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden were also elected President during that time.
  - rbreaves 3y ago
    So… 2-3 out of 5 wasn’t a total waste, I’m sure at least 2 or 3 of those presidents read the journals even if the voters didn’t.
nagonago 3y ago
I liked how the Hard Fork Podcast compared it to Wikipedia. When Wikipedia first came out, people were up in arms about how dangerous and untrustworthy it was. Wikipedia is going to ruin society with widespread misinformation! Then we adapted. People learned about Wikipedia's strengths and weaknesses. People use Wikipedia as a useful tool for research but don't trust it blindly. I think the same will happen with LLMs.
kwooding 3y ago
Absolutely. Lots of humans live in a post-truth world. They learn not to trust anything they read or hear. Think totalitarian regimes wi try tight controls over media. A more painful and pertinent question might be: Can democracy adapt to a post-truth world, and the answer to that I fear is probably no. How can a democracy function if it’s citizenry can’t remain informed?
- lisasays 3y ago
  Lots of humans live in a post-truth world. But as we saw on Jan 6, 2021 -- whether they are "ready" for it and able to manage their emotions accordingly seems very much open to question.
- GoblinSlayer 3y ago
  People ask how to manage information sources, so this problem wasn't solved before.
rhaway84773 3y ago
> This is what societal norms and cultural memes are for. “Don’t believe everything you hear” “Don’t believe what you see on TV” “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” All these memes tell you what not to believe. None of them provide a decent heuristic to know what to believe and where truth may lie. This is a recipe for a paranoid, conspiracy theory riddled society.
- GoblinSlayer 3y ago
  Gather information and infer truth from it.

systems_glitch 3y ago

It is estimated that between 50% and 70% of folks have no inner monologue.

interstice 3y ago
How is that an issue?
mrtranscendence 3y ago
That seems insane to me. I'm always chattering away up there, I can't imagine it otherwise.
- jackjeff 3y ago
  Wow. I had no idea that was a thing. I thought that’s just something they do in movies. But I don’t have a mind’s eye either (aphantasia). So I guess that’s on brand for me. That doesn’t mean I can’t “talk to myself” in a way or think about stuff. I just have no auditory sensation whatsoever. It’s just abstract/immaterial reasoning. I’d wager if I did an FMRI the audio part would not light up but the speech part would.
  - dr_dshiv 3y ago
    You don’t have visual dreams? If I say “pink elephant,” you don’t one? Or better yet, if i say “Dumbo,” you don’t see the ears? You don’t hear songs in your head? If I write “I’ll be back” you don’t hear it now in a thick German accent? Inconceivable! (As they say)
    - pxc 3y ago
      For me, the aural examples you gave are much more vivid than the visual ones. Some people have one of those forms of imagination but not the other at all!
      - dr_dshiv 3y ago
        I guess i just doubt the complete absence. Maybe people have different expectations of what imaginations would be. When I “see” a pink elephant, it is extremely fragmentary. If it were output directly, it’d be a mess. Also, not all at the same time. It might also be that there are differences in the amount of attention given to different kinds of imagination. But the way the brain is structured, everything is firing all the time… or at least, that’s why it is so hard for me to conceive
    - generic92034 3y ago
      > If I write “I’ll be back” you don’t hear it now in a thick German accent? Now you have made me curious. Where would the thick German accent be, when pronouncing those words? I can imagine other sentences (anything with "th", for example) where you would hear a German accent. But with "I'll be back"?
- aerfio 3y ago
  For me it's insane that some people "talk" to themselves in their heads, expressing your ideas as words seems so slow in comparison to "thinking in ideas"
  - ben_w 3y ago
    I can think in ideas pure non-verbal ideas, and have on occasion noticed that my inner monologue is just describing the idea I've already had. When I try to shortcut the monologue on the grounds I already know what I'm thinking about, it feels wrong. This hasn't been much of a problem recently, possibly because my inner monologue has sped up to match that I watch and listen to YouTube and podcasts and audiobooks in ~ double speed.
  - salawat 3y ago
    Your thinking in ideas is you thinking in your own internal mental vernacular. What do you do when it comes time to get your point across to others? That's my Achilles heel. If people aren't prepared to really dig in and go through the motions/look things up and vonnect or pick up ideas that I have (that are the sum of many years diving esoteric topics), I might as well just throw my hands up and just do whatever myself. As it's generally a shorter time to materialization than trying to explain it.
- at-fates-hands 3y ago
  I also talk a lot to myself so my inner dialogue becomes an external dialogue when I'm alone doing mindless stuff like cleaning or putting groceries away - I find it just keeps my mind active and in the present without tuning out. One of the funniest things was when I was working at a bike shop. The owner was a really cool guy and would visit the store from time to time. I was stocking some bike rack stuff on one side of a dual display, talking about an app I was essentially brainstorming over out loud while I was doing this mindless task. I walked around the display and owner was standing there. He looked at me with a smile and says, "That was quite the discussion you were having with yourself. Sounds like a great idea for an app." We both started laughing and I had to explain him why I did this.
  - mrtranscendence 3y ago
    I do the same thing, though weirdly enough less than I used to. Sometimes it really helps me work through a problem -- maybe it slows me down to a better pace? Who knows. Talking to pets also works. They've never been able to offer a very useful response, alas.
- strken 3y ago
  I have an inner monologue, but it's just one of many different ways to think and I don't always choose to use it. What happens when you consider a spatial problem like an IQ test? Do you have to talk your way through it? If you see an art piece, do you only appreciate it through the monologue, or does it feel beautiful in a non-verbal way too?
  - mrtranscendence 3y ago
    I do tend to talk through spatial problems, yes, though I'm not so aphantasiac that I can't visualize, say, the image that would match a simple pattern of lines demonstrated in prior images. I can also situate things with relative position in my head without having to visualize them (if that makes sense). > If you see an art piece, do you only appreciate it through the monologue, or does it feel beautiful in a non-verbal way too? I appreciate it both ways, yeah. But the visual in that case would mostly be just "this is pretty" or "that's disturbing" etc. Any kind of genuine art critique (such as I am even capable of doing) would be talked through mentally.
Karawebnetwork 3y ago
Inner monologue refers to the experience of perceiving one's thoughts as auditory. People who do not have an inner monologue are still capable of thinking.
tick_tock_tick 3y ago
CPU savings for the simulation they aren't "real" like the rest of us.
- bazeblackwood 3y ago
  so by your logic, it's the "real" entities which will inevitably experience pain, suffering, and death; meanwhile I will reincarnate eternally as part of the program's grand design, simply because my thoughts are abstract instead of an auditory hallucination? ever consider maybe your "internal dialogue" is actually the instructions the programmers have to keep ramming in your face so you actually complete your quests?
  - johnchristopher 3y ago
    Sweet Jesus, how sensitive are the NPCs today... edit: they are downvoting ! they are getting sentient !
    - junon 3y ago
      HN just isn't really the most receptive crowd when it comes to playfulness. I wouldn't take it personally.
dan_quixote 3y ago
Got a decent citation? I can't even fathom what that would be like. I'd bet my daily inner monologue is 100X what I actually speak out loud.
- systems_glitch 3y ago
  Random search results from a non-clickbait source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/inner-monologue-experience-science-1.5486969 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/inner-monologue-...
mkl 3y ago
One of them was Albert Einstein: "The words of the language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought." -- https://www.creativitypost.com/article/aping_einstein#:~:text=The%20words%20of%20the%20language%2C%20as%20they%20are%20written%20or%20spoken%2C%20do%20not%20seem%20to%20play%20any%20role%20in%20my%20mechanism%20of%20thought https://www.creativitypost.com/article/aping_einstein#:~:tex... Your comment seems like a non sequitur.
- dr_dshiv 3y ago
  Wow, it’s a sourced quote too (rare for Einstein on the internet). How do you write a paper without thinking in words? I need to talk to someone who doesn’t think in words, I just can’t believe it otherwise.
  - dqh 3y ago
    For me it’s almost like ‘seeing’ or ‘knowing’ the ‘shape’ of things and the relationships between them. Translating to words is sort of a seperate step at output. It’s difficult for me to describe.
  - yusefnapora 3y ago
    Well, I can do math, but I very rarely "think in mathematics." Rather, I approach most math problems linguistically, by essentially making up a little word problem in my head and reasoning through it. However, I know other people who approach math in a completely different way. They seem to have an intuitive "calculating sense," and only use language "after the fact" to record the result or explain it to others. So in the same sense that I can use math without it being central to my thinking, it doesn't seem hard to believe that others can use language without it being central to their thinking.
  - contravariant 3y ago
    You can draw without thinking in drawings, similarly you can speak without thinking in speech. Personally I've tried to become less dependent on language for thought, because I noticed I kept getting stuck on how to verbalize some thoughts even when there was no real need to. I think it's had an effect but it's hard to tell if I'm just imagining it or if imagining it is precisely the point (and I still get stuck on how to explain stuff in some imaginary context, but I suppose that's progress?) My best guess is that an internal monologue may simply be an intermediate step as we internalize speech into our thoughts, so the need to keep verbalizing thought could eventually reduce, but it's hard to notice these kinds of changes in yourself because the skills don't disappear they just become something else.
systems_glitch 3y ago
The responses to this statement illustrate the point I intended to make: we all process stuff very differently. FWIW I often throw this random factoid out there when someone presents an overly broad "humans in general" argument/observation. The reaction is usually polarized :P
GoblinSlayer 3y ago
Because textual thought is abysmally inefficient and inadequate.

agloe_dreams 3y ago

This is a hilariously naive take. We, as humans, are well beyond being mentally ready for the internet and social media alone. Most of the key communication of the 20th Century was based on a tradition of duty and service in reporting and, generally, leadership. The Natzis of the 40s died not because the idea was 'wrong' (which it was) but because bad leadership and greed caused extinction. Before Poland, Europe was plenty happy letting Hitler be. Why was Hitler successful? Because he told people what they wanted to hear. You are better. We are better. We deserve more. It's their fault we are like this. Self bias is the critical failure of the human mind. Tell someone that they deserve more and that they are better than others and they will believe you. In a world where politicians and companies (same thing really) can use AI to collect your online persona and then fill your day with advertising designed just for you, telling you that you are right and it is 'them' who are wrong will work on nearly everyone. It already does. People watch news channels and follow influencers that make their feeds echo chambers, it drives extremism. How does a society tell you that you are wrong, that the other person is right? Humanity and humankind made Hitler. Humanity and human kind will make tools that succeed at their goals to make others do what they want. We are already in freefall, this is a rocket booster on our back.

goatlover 3y ago
How is that any different form the past several thousand years of civilization? Hitler wasn't the first or only genocidal dictator. He wasn't alone in the 20th century either. Colonization and the slave trade were worse, albeit spread over several centuries. But empires waging war, conquering, enslaving, eradicating other groups and manipulating citizens has been going on for a long, long time. Plato wrote to counter the sophists and skeptics of his day. The gospels have Pilate asking Jesus a philosophical question, "What is truth?" This is hardly new, just the technology is better.
- forgetfreeman 3y ago
  How is it any different? Are you serious? For the overwhelming majority of our time on this planet communications were limited to word of mouth over geographically limited areas. Now it is trivial for any form of bullshit to spread worldwide in minutes. The stakes have changed.

Cullinet 3y ago

>Humans are highly adaptable and like other changes to information availability in the past they will adapt. This is what societal norms and cultural memes are for. “Don’t believe everything you hear” “Don’t believe what you see on TV” “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” These are all ways that the human species uses memes and cultural norms to teach ourselves how not to fall victim to false information. But who is parsing all the reciprocal new false and fallacios "truths" in this wonderful human way to sanitise the inputs to the next model that's evaluated? If humans could scale so easily there wouldn't be this problem in the first place.

legendofbrando 3y ago
In 1800 there were around 1 billion people and today there are around 8 billion. Humans do seem to scale rather easily. https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth

personjerry 3y ago

50 years ago humans weren't prepared for a smartphone, internet "post-connected" world and here we are. We adapt and grow.

dv_dt 3y ago
And before that people had worries about TV(dancing and rock and roll), and radio (war of the worlds), multiple music related scares sprinkled throughout.
- the-printer 3y ago
  This is a popular rebuttal and I don’t think that it’s a good one. The detrimental effects of the media forms you’ve listed are better considered in ways other than through events that themselves are (ironically) pop culture tropes today (moral panic over music, the “war of the worlds” panic myth). It’s hard to even compare technology as pervasive as AI, smartphones and social media to TV and music (which are pervasive in their own right by definition, but not so much by comparison). The former is capable of subsuming and manipulating the forms of the latter and its effects are far more direct than the latter’s in respect to the present age.
pjerem 3y ago
No hasty conclusions. We switched to this always connected world only 10-15 years ago and I think we are far from having seen all the consequences. Algorithmic bubbles, mass surveillance, addictive algorithms and applications are fairly recent and we can already see really disgusting consequences. Our civilization is resilient so it takes time to erode but since a few years, I have hard time imagining a positive technological future. All I see is technology made to exploit human breaches for money. Humans don’t look like they are adapting to Tik Tok properly so I’m not confident they’ll understand this new AI powered world. (I have no doubt that powerful and dominant humans will adapt)
- highwaylights 3y ago
  The sum of all human knowledge in every pocket and all we use it for is to view fake photos of fake people living their fake lifestyles. We were gonna cure cancer and explore space. It’s shameful.

machina_ex_deus 3y ago

Disinformation is the narrative constructed by crumbling authorities of mainstream media desperately trying to preserve their power. You might think like their narrative is "think critically, and consider everything critically". But the actual message is, your fellow humans are stupid, they fall for misinformation and fake sources. Ignore all alternative sources of information and most importantly, do not trust your friends and people you know, instead assume they are stupid and when they contradict the authority, be sure to put up a firewall and stop the propagation of dangerous thoughts. Truth is always more powerful than lies. Don't underestimate your own reasoning capabilities, and if you do underestimate them, the most important thing to do is to train them. I'm not saying to argue against an anonymous bot, but if you meet in person, if your friends have non standard ideas, don't assume they are stupid and fell for misinformation. Not everyone on the other side is stupid, or heartless, or bad. They are trying to inject faults into various alternative information sources just to turn around and catch them and say "see? This podcaster is a conspiracy theorist and unreliable!". It's mainstream media which benefits the most from efficient fault and spam injection into alternative information sources, because it makes them relatively more trustworthy. And it is actually against the interests of alternative news sources to be caught in a lie because it is likely to erode their reputation. If you're confused by the whole disinformation phenomenon, ask the simple question, who benefits. And remember that the media's willingness to intentionally lie and deceive their readers is directly proportional to the cost to your reputation, and the likeliness of your readers to discover the truth.

bcrl 3y ago
Well, yesterday Youtube served me up an ad for an "AI" algorithmic trading service "only available to Canadians" and "backed by Elon Musk. It used "AI" generated audio and video of Musk to peddle an unregistered securities trading firm that tries to prey on the uninformed. That video is clearly disinformation / misinformation. There is zero chance that video would be played on a conventional broadcaster. Why? They have to be accountable for the content they put in front of viewers. Conventional broadcasters have to participate in advertising standards councils and answer to regulators. On the other hand, platforms are unaccountable and unwilling to act in the public interest. Profit trumps all. The average person has no idea how to record an ad that was just shown to them by a "platform". That video that was in the corner of the webpage that turns out to be scammy? Ooops, you scrolled too far or used the back button and it's now gone. There's a large swath of problems online that are clearly misinformation and / or disinformation. Nothing is going to improve on this front so long as "platforms" are wholly unaccountable to the general public. And we're running blindly forward into making this far, far worse before anything will change now that generative AI lowers the bar to produce bullshit that looks convincing on the first pass. Big tech disappoints me to no end.

subsection1h 3y ago

Most humans aren't even ready for the Internet as it has existed for decades. Thirty years ago, we were discussing science papers on Usenet. I recall writing a message expressing optimism about a future in which everyone uses the Internet to consume high quality information directly from relevant specialists, rather than low quality information from nonspecialists. For example, I imagined Americans basing their voting decisions on an understanding of public policy issues developed by reading the journals of the American Economic Association, the American Society of Health Economists, the American Society of Criminology, the American Geophysical Union, the National Academy of Sciences, etc. Instead, Donald Trump was elected president.

giardini 3y ago
Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden were also elected President during that time.
- rbreaves 3y ago
  So… 2-3 out of 5 wasn’t a total waste, I’m sure at least 2 or 3 of those presidents read the journals even if the voters didn’t.

nagonago 3y ago

I liked how the Hard Fork Podcast compared it to Wikipedia. When Wikipedia first came out, people were up in arms about how dangerous and untrustworthy it was. Wikipedia is going to ruin society with widespread misinformation! Then we adapted. People learned about Wikipedia's strengths and weaknesses. People use Wikipedia as a useful tool for research but don't trust it blindly. I think the same will happen with LLMs.

kwooding 3y ago

Absolutely. Lots of humans live in a post-truth world. They learn not to trust anything they read or hear. Think totalitarian regimes wi try tight controls over media. A more painful and pertinent question might be: Can democracy adapt to a post-truth world, and the answer to that I fear is probably no. How can a democracy function if it’s citizenry can’t remain informed?

lisasays 3y ago
Lots of humans live in a post-truth world. But as we saw on Jan 6, 2021 -- whether they are "ready" for it and able to manage their emotions accordingly seems very much open to question.
GoblinSlayer 3y ago
People ask how to manage information sources, so this problem wasn't solved before.

rhaway84773 3y ago

> This is what societal norms and cultural memes are for. “Don’t believe everything you hear” “Don’t believe what you see on TV” “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” All these memes tell you what not to believe. None of them provide a decent heuristic to know what to believe and where truth may lie. This is a recipe for a paranoid, conspiracy theory riddled society.

GoblinSlayer 3y ago
Gather information and infer truth from it.