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It’s a fair question, but one we should be asking about all models, perhaps especially our own. It’s of course easier to see the propaganda of foreign cultures,

It’s a fair question, but one we should be asking about all models, perhaps especially our own. It’s of course easier to see the propaganda of foreign cultures, and this should be investigated, but let’s not let ourselves believe that a model is more likely to contain propaganda because it is Chinese. It will just contain propaganda that is easier for us to see as propaganda. Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman wrote extensively about propaganda in democratic societies in their 1988 book Manufacturing Consent. A nice introductory excerpt is here, and the first two or three paragraphs are enough to begin to see the argument: https://chomsky.info/consent01/ https://chomsky.info/consent01/ Put as briefly as possible: propaganda in totalitarian societies is simpler. They just use force to remove people who say the wrong things, and state media to broadcast the “right things”. In democratic societies, institutional power still wants to protect itself, and this is achieved through more complex means, but it is nonetheless still rather effective.

yumraj 3y ago
> It’s a fair question, but one we should be asking about all models, perhaps especially our own. It’s of course easier to see the propaganda of foreign cultures, and this should be investigated, but let’s not let ourselves believe that a model is more likely to contain propaganda because it is Chinese. It will just contain propaganda that is easier for us to see as propaganda. Yes, but in this particular case I'm coming from a viewpoint where I view China as a hostile power. So, at the moment, my worry is about that. In future, if US slips into authoritarianism, which TBH it might depending on the outcome of the next election, what you note would become a very real problem. So, putting it differently and more neutrally, is there any research being done on evaluating a political, and other, bias in a model or is it just being all put in the bucket of hallucination?
- TaylorAlexander 3y ago
  > if US slips into authoritarianism The point of Chomsky’s work in this case is to show that authoritarianism does not make propaganda more or less likely, it just changes the means by which propaganda is created and reinforced. Chinese propaganda is easier to identify as a foreigner, but the propaganda of your home country has a much more significant effect on your life. The nature of living with pervasive propaganda is that it is hard to see or consider how your life would be different without the propaganda, and that’s what makes it so dangerous. > is there any research being done on evaluating a political, and other, bias in a model or is it just being all put in the bucket of hallucination? It’s a better question, and again one that we should ask regardless of the model’s origins.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    Wouldn’t have more to do with propaganda that reinforces and caters to your cognitive biases being less detectable than propaganda that doesn’t? Even inside America, I’m pretty resistant to FoxNews propaganda but if CNN has any, it isn’t registering much on my propaganda detectors.
    - TaylorAlexander 3y ago
      Yes, certainly. When I say that foreign propaganda is easier to detect, it is because of the biases you mention. And yes it makes sense that you don’t see the propaganda in the news you watch. My dad is a very smart man who has always liked Fox News and he genuinely can’t see the propaganda in it. There are also ways that both Fox and CNN share the same views, and this narrow window of thought on the specific subjects they share in common is a key aspect of Chomsky’s Propaganda Model. In areas that get the left and the right emotionally charged at each other, there can be a pretty wide range of opinions expressed. And then in areas that affect certain ways that state and corporate power influence our lives, there is often complete agreement and zero discussion of dissenting ideas. These ideas are represented as base assumptions about the fabric of society that are considered so obviously true as to melt in to the back drop of the discussion, and be invisible to regular viewers. Those are the ideas that are so vital for us to understand. Nothing will ever change as long as we keep arguing about trans people in bathrooms, gay marriage, and Taylor Swift’s political opinions. That lack of change is what the institutions in power want. What we need to understand to truly change things is ideas of radical democracy, worker power, equitable distribution of resources and universal rights for people and nature. Those subjects will never be seriously discussed on Fox News or CNN.
      - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
        FoxNews has gone straight tabloid, but CNN still looks somewhat like news. It’s when they get into the tabloidy stories that I begin to see something is off. But CNN is just trying to make money, and ironically, is copying FoxNews’s formula in preaching to the child and stoking biases to rake in that ad money (because at the end of the day, both really only care about making money, and changing minds rather than reinforcing them isn’t very profitable).

yumraj 3y ago

> It’s a fair question, but one we should be asking about all models, perhaps especially our own. It’s of course easier to see the propaganda of foreign cultures, and this should be investigated, but let’s not let ourselves believe that a model is more likely to contain propaganda because it is Chinese. It will just contain propaganda that is easier for us to see as propaganda. Yes, but in this particular case I'm coming from a viewpoint where I view China as a hostile power. So, at the moment, my worry is about that. In future, if US slips into authoritarianism, which TBH it might depending on the outcome of the next election, what you note would become a very real problem. So, putting it differently and more neutrally, is there any research being done on evaluating a political, and other, bias in a model or is it just being all put in the bucket of hallucination?

TaylorAlexander 3y ago
> if US slips into authoritarianism The point of Chomsky’s work in this case is to show that authoritarianism does not make propaganda more or less likely, it just changes the means by which propaganda is created and reinforced. Chinese propaganda is easier to identify as a foreigner, but the propaganda of your home country has a much more significant effect on your life. The nature of living with pervasive propaganda is that it is hard to see or consider how your life would be different without the propaganda, and that’s what makes it so dangerous. > is there any research being done on evaluating a political, and other, bias in a model or is it just being all put in the bucket of hallucination? It’s a better question, and again one that we should ask regardless of the model’s origins.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  Wouldn’t have more to do with propaganda that reinforces and caters to your cognitive biases being less detectable than propaganda that doesn’t? Even inside America, I’m pretty resistant to FoxNews propaganda but if CNN has any, it isn’t registering much on my propaganda detectors.
  - TaylorAlexander 3y ago
    Yes, certainly. When I say that foreign propaganda is easier to detect, it is because of the biases you mention. And yes it makes sense that you don’t see the propaganda in the news you watch. My dad is a very smart man who has always liked Fox News and he genuinely can’t see the propaganda in it. There are also ways that both Fox and CNN share the same views, and this narrow window of thought on the specific subjects they share in common is a key aspect of Chomsky’s Propaganda Model. In areas that get the left and the right emotionally charged at each other, there can be a pretty wide range of opinions expressed. And then in areas that affect certain ways that state and corporate power influence our lives, there is often complete agreement and zero discussion of dissenting ideas. These ideas are represented as base assumptions about the fabric of society that are considered so obviously true as to melt in to the back drop of the discussion, and be invisible to regular viewers. Those are the ideas that are so vital for us to understand. Nothing will ever change as long as we keep arguing about trans people in bathrooms, gay marriage, and Taylor Swift’s political opinions. That lack of change is what the institutions in power want. What we need to understand to truly change things is ideas of radical democracy, worker power, equitable distribution of resources and universal rights for people and nature. Those subjects will never be seriously discussed on Fox News or CNN.
    - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
      FoxNews has gone straight tabloid, but CNN still looks somewhat like news. It’s when they get into the tabloidy stories that I begin to see something is off. But CNN is just trying to make money, and ironically, is copying FoxNews’s formula in preaching to the child and stoking biases to rake in that ad money (because at the end of the day, both really only care about making money, and changing minds rather than reinforcing them isn’t very profitable).