3 ms·
Is it different than prior mis/disinformation or than addictive media like computer games? It's just a way to spin your wheels endlessly, in a way that satisfie
by wolverine876 3y ago
Is it different than prior mis/disinformation or than addictive media like computer games? It's just a way to spin your wheels endlessly, in a way that satisfies some neural perception of activity.
Play that game all night - you know the feeling, so intense and addictive as you are playing, and then in the morning the bizarre empty feeling that you are nowhere; you are living nowhere and have gotten nowhere.
You feel sick or you are concerned about something, and you Google some mis/disinformation (who can tell the difference?) on someone's blog, Twitter, etc. Just like playing that game, while you're doing it you feel like you are doing something. But you are just as sick, your concern is unresolved (though with mis/disinfo, you don't always realize it).
Now we have immersive 3D worlds and AI illusions to occupy us even better. Our technologists are innovating ways for us to go nowhere and stay nowhere ever better. Apple's choice to make their goggles transparent, with reality visible to the user and vice-versa (the user's eyes visible to others), is an interesting philosophical choice in this context.
... In fairness, it doesn't have to be nowhere. Art can be an alternate reality that is somewhere and gets us somewhere.
- 13years 3y ago"Is it different than prior mis/disinformation or than addictive media like computer games?" Substantially so. Nothing prior became indistinguishable from reality. Yes, illusions have existed in some form, but they were still discernable with effort and good illusions had significant production cost. This massively scales up that capability, not in just production, but in the parameters of influence as well. It will be capable of understanding, predicting and influencing behavior far more precisely and deliberately. All the data exists for this and will be analyzed for such effect.
- wolverine876 3y agoSure, though my point is the similarities and that AI is just the next step in that sense. And a quibble: > Nothing prior became indistinguishable from reality. Mis/disinfo is indistinguishable, practically, for at least a large segment of the population.
- 13years 3y agoWhich is why I followed with "Yes, illusions have existed in some form". Illusions for which it is possible to pierce the veil even though some might not. The new illusions will not be possible for anyone. OpenAI already abandoned its project of AI content detection.
- akomtu 3y agoI bet it's very similar to how drug addicts feel: "intense feeling" during consumption, and the empty feeling afterwards. This must be the reason why CCP doesn't allow its subjects to play online games too much. A sufficiently advanced AI will be able to create super addictive games, that drain the user's energy many times faster. On the other hand, I've noticed that something as simple as watching a tree grow for a few minutes with all attention is an oddly fulfilling experience, that weeks later still stays in memory as a moment of high significance. Mindless gaming seems the opposite of that.
- 13years 3y agoYes, slow down and observe the world is the heightened human experience that we have left behind as we have plundered into an algorithmically run society fueled on attention engagement.