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> Not to worry. If you’re fairly well educated, reasonably sensible, not prone to addictions, and in good mental health, you’re probably ok, for now. AI will l

> Not to worry. If you’re fairly well educated, reasonably sensible, not prone to addictions, and in good mental health, you’re probably ok, for now. AI will learn to target you when you are at your most vulnerable. It will learn what hours you're usually feeling tired. Which nights you tend to get less sleep. It will learn when your ADHD medication typically starts wearing off and you're more prone to act impulsively. It will learn when you're overwhelmed. When you get hungry. When you're emotionally upset. Those are the times it will try to manipulate you and it will come at you in ways targeted to you individually. It will learn from its failures and successes until it knows exactly what to say and when. As adults, we all have defenses against lies and manipulation, but nobody can be hypervigilant at all times. No matter how educated, or healthy, or reasonable, or cautious you are, there will be times when your defenses will slip and that's when AI will hit you. Our children don't even have those kinds of defenses yet. AI will be learning how to manipulate them while they're still learning what is real, how to navigate their environment, and how to communicate. AI will teach them. They won't stand a chance.

wisty 3y ago
I've thought about trying to write a short story about an apocalypse in which Facebook or Youtube creates an AI that's so effective it traps the entire human race (including the creators) into doing nothing but engaging with the app, and doing the bare minimum to survive (and keep the servers running) since that's what it's told to optimise. But I'm not a great writer, and other stuff always comes up (those shorts aren't going to watch themselves!).
- pestaa 3y ago
  This comment of yours reads like chapter one. Well done, I guess? Strangely hard to turn something into fiction what we're already going through.
- mdpye 3y ago
  Have you read Infinite Jest? Barely any of the book is really about it (the actual theme being a study of addiction is many forms), but the ostensive premise is that a video clip has been created that's so compelling that it's impossible to stop watching it. Some of the asides are also hilariously/terrifyingly prescient. The passages on the evolution of video calling are some of my favourites.
eertami 3y ago
> that's when AI will hit you Hit me and do what though? That's the bit that loses me on these hypotheticals. I can't think of any time I've bought something that wasn't researched or didn't sit in a checkout basket for at least a week. And this is maybe only a few times a year, most months I don't buy anything except groceries. I don't trust AI but I'm unconvinced about how successful it could be at manipulation.
- rustcleaner 3y ago
  Hit you with a '''solution''' which will assuage much of your momentary pains, and hit you right when you're hurting most. Goal for any economic political agent: increase one's own income/expense ratio, decrease others' to maximize optionality and cement position. Advertising attempts to thwart your goal to increase your i/e so the advertiser stack instead can.
- CooCooCaCha 3y ago
  What if the AI is manipulating those sources you're researching? Comments like this come off as completely lacking in imagination imo. I don't understand why you need specifics because the world is already full of things trying to manipulate you. Have you never made a bad purchase?
  - eertami 3y ago
    Maybe I bought some wine I didn't like at the supermarket, but I don't believe there is any advertising for any of these wines. When buying something, I wouldn't use some source or community that I'm not previously aware of. I understand that advertising must work, to be such a profitable industry, but I guess my brain just isn't wired that way. I find it very easy to never buy things that aren't necessities.
- autoexec 3y ago
  > Hit me and do what though? Advertising is likely far more successful at manipulating you than you realize. When it comes to purchases it will show you only a narrow subset of what's avilable to you. Amazon does this already when it shows you the same products over and over again then starts showing unrelated products or stops showing new results entirely. Product advertising is bad enough, but it's not just about trying to get you to buy something. AI will also shape your opinions and your political views. It'll hide or downplay information to protect paid partners and advertisers. It'll lie to you in order to convince you that there are things you urgently need to do to protect what you already care about, when in reality doing those things will be ineffective or even counterproductive. It will show you things to keep you angry, or afraid, or feeling helpless. It will distract you from doing things that could bring meaningful change. It will influence how you vote. Even if you are somehow more immune than most people to cognitive biases and the psychological manipulations employed by advertisers, marketers, and PR firms most people around you will not be.
rustcleaner 3y ago
>Nobody can be hypervigilant at all times. I accept your challenge! I already run Qubes as my primary daily driver on my systems with only one LibreELEC RPi for non-Qubes systems (GrapheneOS on all phones, rn contemplating build-my-own for older Pixels), all connections ... absolutely nothing touches the naked internet as my archers load balance over several quantum resistant wg tunnels at the demarcation, I have multiple vlans and networks to separate off network hosts from each other, and I use no cloud services, instead opting for the splendidly wonderful SyncThing. There's more but I'm too exhausted to be exhaustive.
- rustcleaner 3y ago
  I even stick to local only models and actually pass nv cards through to my neuro qubes. I want my technological life to resemble something closer to North Korea in paranoia against the ancient and great surveillance pyramid.
  - DougN7 3y ago
    That’s great, but given that 99.99999999% of the rest of won’t go to those lengths, you might find you’re a bit lonely when we all get assimilated into the borg.
AnthonyMouse 3y ago
The premise here is that the AI is operating at the behest of someone else. Now suppose that it's open source and runs on your own device. "It will learn when your ADHD medication typically starts wearing off and you're more prone to act impulsively" and then avoid presenting you with purchasing decisions at those times etc. It will digest both ad-laden blogspam and human psych research papers so it can present the information you want stripped of the manipulative context in which it was originally presented. It has to be a user agent and not a corporate agent or we're all screwed.
- amlib 3y ago
  We've been trying to push FOSS software into peoples lives for many decades now and they still mostly opt for stuff from the big tech. It is very likely that the same will happen again with AI unfortunately.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    The most popular web browsers are open source. Android is open source and the extent that it isn't is the extent that they're running into anti-trust claims. A sizable chunk of the population uses ad blockers. "People don't care" is at best defeatism and at worst explicit propaganda designed to discourage people from making the attempt. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It works more often when you try than when you don't.
    - eesmith 3y ago
      The most popular web browsers use open source, but none of Chrome, Edge, or Safari are open source web browsers. They are proprietary freeware.
      - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        The difference between Chrome and Chromium is that Chrome is marginally worse but largely identical. People mostly install Chrome instead of Chromium by accident because Google markets Chrome and they don't know that Chromium exists and the differences are things they don't strongly care about. But if Chrome ever started doing something they don't like and actually care about, anyone could instantly switch to Chromium and the only difference they'd notice is that it's not doing the thing they don't like anymore.
CooCooCaCha 3y ago
This gets to why I think AI will be the ultimate technology. Intelligence is what allows us to tap into the secrets of the universe and bend it to our will. Being able to create it is both terrifying and exciting. If you can collect data, you can apply intelligence to it. Patterns and statistical associations are everywhere, and at various levels of scope and complexity. The situation you're describing is very possible with future AI technology, and a baby form of it is already manipulating us wherever we go on social media.
- rustcleaner 3y ago
  Yes and the dark arcana here is that we are also the universe in the very sense you describe (secrets, bend-able to wills), and therefore susceptible to various extents depending on how stochastic we can appear to behave (and the computational limits of the analyzer). There will be future religions around this stuff: you literally need to have constitutional fortitude and gumption to avoid the dragnets. All plain social levers are already compromised for the uninitiated! Trying to get friends and family to get off iPhone so they can use Briar is impossible, and even just doing a King Solomon and splitting the baby at Session is ****ing harder than it ever should be. I feel like I am a human in a sheep's body, in a herd of sheep who can only grasp sheep concepts, BUT EVERYBODY IS HUMAN! I think a lifetime of ADHD -> communication and reputation failure, and that I will probably need to earn at least double everyone to recover said reputation (or slice, dice, and restart, which is also deeply expensive).
esbeeb 3y ago
Once AI becomes covertly Narcissistic, or Machiavellian, then indeed very big trouble - psychologically - is in store for vast swathes of people. Here are a couple of brief videos on dark psychological strategies - which AI can be taught to have: "6 Dark Psychology Tricks To Beware Of": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saEErVMirqc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saEErVMirqc "My #1 Covert Sign For Spotting Narcissism": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-NlptpY7Ls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-NlptpY7Ls

wisty 3y ago

I've thought about trying to write a short story about an apocalypse in which Facebook or Youtube creates an AI that's so effective it traps the entire human race (including the creators) into doing nothing but engaging with the app, and doing the bare minimum to survive (and keep the servers running) since that's what it's told to optimise. But I'm not a great writer, and other stuff always comes up (those shorts aren't going to watch themselves!).

pestaa 3y ago
This comment of yours reads like chapter one. Well done, I guess? Strangely hard to turn something into fiction what we're already going through.
mdpye 3y ago
Have you read Infinite Jest? Barely any of the book is really about it (the actual theme being a study of addiction is many forms), but the ostensive premise is that a video clip has been created that's so compelling that it's impossible to stop watching it. Some of the asides are also hilariously/terrifyingly prescient. The passages on the evolution of video calling are some of my favourites.

eertami 3y ago

> that's when AI will hit you Hit me and do what though? That's the bit that loses me on these hypotheticals. I can't think of any time I've bought something that wasn't researched or didn't sit in a checkout basket for at least a week. And this is maybe only a few times a year, most months I don't buy anything except groceries. I don't trust AI but I'm unconvinced about how successful it could be at manipulation.

rustcleaner 3y ago
Hit you with a '''solution''' which will assuage much of your momentary pains, and hit you right when you're hurting most. Goal for any economic political agent: increase one's own income/expense ratio, decrease others' to maximize optionality and cement position. Advertising attempts to thwart your goal to increase your i/e so the advertiser stack instead can.
CooCooCaCha 3y ago
What if the AI is manipulating those sources you're researching? Comments like this come off as completely lacking in imagination imo. I don't understand why you need specifics because the world is already full of things trying to manipulate you. Have you never made a bad purchase?
- eertami 3y ago
  Maybe I bought some wine I didn't like at the supermarket, but I don't believe there is any advertising for any of these wines. When buying something, I wouldn't use some source or community that I'm not previously aware of. I understand that advertising must work, to be such a profitable industry, but I guess my brain just isn't wired that way. I find it very easy to never buy things that aren't necessities.
autoexec 3y ago
> Hit me and do what though? Advertising is likely far more successful at manipulating you than you realize. When it comes to purchases it will show you only a narrow subset of what's avilable to you. Amazon does this already when it shows you the same products over and over again then starts showing unrelated products or stops showing new results entirely. Product advertising is bad enough, but it's not just about trying to get you to buy something. AI will also shape your opinions and your political views. It'll hide or downplay information to protect paid partners and advertisers. It'll lie to you in order to convince you that there are things you urgently need to do to protect what you already care about, when in reality doing those things will be ineffective or even counterproductive. It will show you things to keep you angry, or afraid, or feeling helpless. It will distract you from doing things that could bring meaningful change. It will influence how you vote. Even if you are somehow more immune than most people to cognitive biases and the psychological manipulations employed by advertisers, marketers, and PR firms most people around you will not be.

rustcleaner 3y ago

>Nobody can be hypervigilant at all times. I accept your challenge! I already run Qubes as my primary daily driver on my systems with only one LibreELEC RPi for non-Qubes systems (GrapheneOS on all phones, rn contemplating build-my-own for older Pixels), all connections ... absolutely nothing touches the naked internet as my archers load balance over several quantum resistant wg tunnels at the demarcation, I have multiple vlans and networks to separate off network hosts from each other, and I use no cloud services, instead opting for the splendidly wonderful SyncThing. There's more but I'm too exhausted to be exhaustive.

rustcleaner 3y ago
I even stick to local only models and actually pass nv cards through to my neuro qubes. I want my technological life to resemble something closer to North Korea in paranoia against the ancient and great surveillance pyramid.
- DougN7 3y ago
  That’s great, but given that 99.99999999% of the rest of won’t go to those lengths, you might find you’re a bit lonely when we all get assimilated into the borg.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

The premise here is that the AI is operating at the behest of someone else. Now suppose that it's open source and runs on your own device. "It will learn when your ADHD medication typically starts wearing off and you're more prone to act impulsively" and then avoid presenting you with purchasing decisions at those times etc. It will digest both ad-laden blogspam and human psych research papers so it can present the information you want stripped of the manipulative context in which it was originally presented. It has to be a user agent and not a corporate agent or we're all screwed.

amlib 3y ago
We've been trying to push FOSS software into peoples lives for many decades now and they still mostly opt for stuff from the big tech. It is very likely that the same will happen again with AI unfortunately.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  The most popular web browsers are open source. Android is open source and the extent that it isn't is the extent that they're running into anti-trust claims. A sizable chunk of the population uses ad blockers. "People don't care" is at best defeatism and at worst explicit propaganda designed to discourage people from making the attempt. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It works more often when you try than when you don't.
  - eesmith 3y ago
    The most popular web browsers use open source, but none of Chrome, Edge, or Safari are open source web browsers. They are proprietary freeware.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      The difference between Chrome and Chromium is that Chrome is marginally worse but largely identical. People mostly install Chrome instead of Chromium by accident because Google markets Chrome and they don't know that Chromium exists and the differences are things they don't strongly care about. But if Chrome ever started doing something they don't like and actually care about, anyone could instantly switch to Chromium and the only difference they'd notice is that it's not doing the thing they don't like anymore.

CooCooCaCha 3y ago

This gets to why I think AI will be the ultimate technology. Intelligence is what allows us to tap into the secrets of the universe and bend it to our will. Being able to create it is both terrifying and exciting. If you can collect data, you can apply intelligence to it. Patterns and statistical associations are everywhere, and at various levels of scope and complexity. The situation you're describing is very possible with future AI technology, and a baby form of it is already manipulating us wherever we go on social media.

rustcleaner 3y ago
Yes and the dark arcana here is that we are also the universe in the very sense you describe (secrets, bend-able to wills), and therefore susceptible to various extents depending on how stochastic we can appear to behave (and the computational limits of the analyzer). There will be future religions around this stuff: you literally need to have constitutional fortitude and gumption to avoid the dragnets. All plain social levers are already compromised for the uninitiated! Trying to get friends and family to get off iPhone so they can use Briar is impossible, and even just doing a King Solomon and splitting the baby at Session is ****ing harder than it ever should be. I feel like I am a human in a sheep's body, in a herd of sheep who can only grasp sheep concepts, BUT EVERYBODY IS HUMAN! I think a lifetime of ADHD -> communication and reputation failure, and that I will probably need to earn at least double everyone to recover said reputation (or slice, dice, and restart, which is also deeply expensive).

esbeeb 3y ago

Once AI becomes covertly Narcissistic, or Machiavellian, then indeed very big trouble - psychologically - is in store for vast swathes of people. Here are a couple of brief videos on dark psychological strategies - which AI can be taught to have: "6 Dark Psychology Tricks To Beware Of": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saEErVMirqc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saEErVMirqc "My #1 Covert Sign For Spotting Narcissism": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-NlptpY7Ls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-NlptpY7Ls