3 ms·

There's a lot of predictions in this article I'd happily call dystopian, but this quote sticks out to me: > As we gain trust in the guidance of agent-assisted

There's a lot of predictions in this article I'd happily call dystopian, but this quote sticks out to me: > As we gain trust in the guidance of agent-assisted experiences, will the impact of brand, referral, and relationships in purchase decisions be diminished? I can't really put my finger on why, but thinking about the frame of mental reference that you'd need to write a question like that makes me very weary.

gnarlouse 3y ago
Can you elaborate? What is the mental frame of reference you refer to? I’m not saying I’d disagree with you recreationally, I’m just curious to understand your meaning.
NikolaNovak 3y ago
Can you try to elaborate? Because... I'm not honestly sure which option sounds more dystopian to me. Follow our AI overlords sounds dystopian, but having a personalizable automated agent I can train and control that can eliminate guesswork and undesired influences sounds good. Having trusted friends provide advice sounds great, but reality of brand and advertising impact, clueless people offering unexamined advice, and the fake relationships between an incentivized salesperson and a consumer, also sound (and are!) awful. I know my brain is weird sometimes :), and I generally have no internal taboos to asking any kind of question; so I wonder what you find about mental reference that wrote the question, as it doesn't trigger anything to me; do you feel they're overly optimistic about AI's ability to provide helpful assistance, or that humans will rely on them, or they're overly optimistic about current methods of purchasing decisions? Or something completely different? :)
- lexicality 3y ago
  > having a personalizable automated agent I can train and control that can eliminate guesswork and undesired influences sounds good How do you ensure it eliminates undesired influences though? Say for example you need to find a new brand of dish soap to buy because the one you were buying becomes unacceptable for whatever reason, how is your agent going to compare them? Unless you have carefully programmed it with pre-checked dish soap data it's going to need to go and get that from all the manufacturers, and they are going to try extremely hard to work out ways to game the system. Maybe brand X describes their soap as "sumptuous and delicious" and the AI goes "hey that sounds great! Those are the kind of words my human loves!" Until LLMs have evolved to the point that they're not susceptible to the grandma exploit, trusting them to remain sane and safe in the presence of outside input is a really bad idea in my view
  - NikolaNovak 3y ago
    Oh, all of that I agree 10,000% I just got struck with your "I cannot fathom the mind who would ask this question", that's the part that I was hoping you can elaborate, as it goes (to me!:) far beyond "I kinda disagree with this person's conclusion" and reads like "to even ask this very question is a taboo or insanity of highest kind, which my mind would struggle to even formulate!" ... maybe I just read too much into your comment? In which case, squirrel :->

gnarlouse 3y ago

Can you elaborate? What is the mental frame of reference you refer to? I’m not saying I’d disagree with you recreationally, I’m just curious to understand your meaning.

NikolaNovak 3y ago

Can you try to elaborate? Because... I'm not honestly sure which option sounds more dystopian to me. Follow our AI overlords sounds dystopian, but having a personalizable automated agent I can train and control that can eliminate guesswork and undesired influences sounds good. Having trusted friends provide advice sounds great, but reality of brand and advertising impact, clueless people offering unexamined advice, and the fake relationships between an incentivized salesperson and a consumer, also sound (and are!) awful. I know my brain is weird sometimes :), and I generally have no internal taboos to asking any kind of question; so I wonder what you find about mental reference that wrote the question, as it doesn't trigger anything to me; do you feel they're overly optimistic about AI's ability to provide helpful assistance, or that humans will rely on them, or they're overly optimistic about current methods of purchasing decisions? Or something completely different? :)

lexicality 3y ago
> having a personalizable automated agent I can train and control that can eliminate guesswork and undesired influences sounds good How do you ensure it eliminates undesired influences though? Say for example you need to find a new brand of dish soap to buy because the one you were buying becomes unacceptable for whatever reason, how is your agent going to compare them? Unless you have carefully programmed it with pre-checked dish soap data it's going to need to go and get that from all the manufacturers, and they are going to try extremely hard to work out ways to game the system. Maybe brand X describes their soap as "sumptuous and delicious" and the AI goes "hey that sounds great! Those are the kind of words my human loves!" Until LLMs have evolved to the point that they're not susceptible to the grandma exploit, trusting them to remain sane and safe in the presence of outside input is a really bad idea in my view
- NikolaNovak 3y ago
  Oh, all of that I agree 10,000% I just got struck with your "I cannot fathom the mind who would ask this question", that's the part that I was hoping you can elaborate, as it goes (to me!:) far beyond "I kinda disagree with this person's conclusion" and reads like "to even ask this very question is a taboo or insanity of highest kind, which my mind would struggle to even formulate!" ... maybe I just read too much into your comment? In which case, squirrel :->