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The new culture war is real vs. bogus
- AlienRobot 2y ago>The London Standard brought back the dead journalist with the help of AI. The newspaper’s CEO said this was part of a plan to be “bold and disruptive.” This is grotesque. :(
- ammanley 2y agoI hate this so much.
- dredmorbius 2y agoEven the revived AI journalist Brian Sewall thought so, as noted in TFA.
- namaria 2y ago> The newspaper’s CEO said this was part of a plan to be “bold and disruptive.” Too bad they went ghoulish instead
- Spooky23 2y agoThe answer will be more exclusivity. The masses get ignorant dreck, and people in the know get the scoop. When the genx people like me are rocking on the porch in retirement, we’ll be babbling about the golden age we lost.
- kjkjadksj 2y agoWhat golden age? The masses always got the emotionally charged slop. The fallacy is thinking there was a point where they somehow didn’t. The incentives were in fact never aligned for that. Slop is the business.
- eesmith 2y agoBack when we were on ARPANET, when using the network for business like that could lead to direct reprimands. Back before the start of the Eternal September. Back before there were masses.
- christophilus 2y ago“To be completely cured of newspapers, spend a year reading the previous week’s newspapers.” Nasim Taleb said that in 2010, and you can find similar sentiments running back a long time. Sensationalism has been the name of the game all along.
- microtherion 2y agoOr Bertolt Brecht, first half of the 20th century: "I am a great opponent of newspapers," said Mr. Muddle. "I don't want any newspapers." Mr. Keuner said, "I am a greater opponent of newspapers: I want different newspapers."
- spacecadet 2y agoIts called manufacturing consent...
- throawayonthe 2y ago[dead]
- mc32 2y agoSomeone from the so called msm complained out loud recently about social media and how they the so called msm used to control information but are subverted by social media. They came to the conclusion we need the government to pass laws to control information. I don’t know if they are naive, stupid or genuinely are saddened by their loss of control.
- Spooky23 2y agoThe words you’re repeating belie the problem. Journalism was more of a profession, there were editorial best practices and more factual accuracy. TV media was a loss leader. Social media is a dick measuring contest. Popularity correlates with volume, so the incentive is to shout whatever will get a reaction. So low-information consumers are spinning about how the government is both completely incompetent, yet capable of using some magic to create hurricanes for some reason. That’s a feature of social media.
- paulpauper 2y agoIf you think AI spam is bad now, you ain't seen nothing yet. Except for the outliers in the article or the author, the reality is the majority of people do not care or cannot notice if content is ai-generated or human-generated, so to save money we can expect more of the former. I have already seen this in news stories where there are weird typos and other artifacts of AI generation. If you are not paying attention then you would probably not notice.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- afavour 2y agoThere’s a supply stream issue, though. AI articles are typically just regurgitating something an actual human reported on by interviewing people, gathering facts on the ground etc. If AI authors start vacuuming up all the revenue the original journalists will be out of work and AI will, I dunno, start making up even more nonsense than it already does?
- SoftTalker 2y agoThe AI will probably start relying more on twitter and instagram videos posted by people allegedly on the scene, trascribing quotes and fabricating a story.
- afavour 2y agoSo it'll start consuming fake AI generated video and reporting it as credulous. What could go wrong!
- throw8932899 2y ago> And now real news photos of Hurricane Helene are getting replaced by AI fantasies. 50% of stuff I read about victims, is about some dogs. The AI generated fantasies are not far from "serious journalism". AI just captures current public sentiment.
- olyjohn 2y agoAre you saying that because journalism is trash, that AI trash is okay?
- throw8932899 2y agoNo, I am saying it is the same. There is no "AI apocalypse". AI generated "content" is just fulfilling the demand. Before AI we had army of human copywriters, the same person would write articles about movies and nuclear physics. And lets not forget SEO spam and SEO farms. AI is just generating slop in a cheaper way, and much faster.
- SoftTalker 2y agoIt's true. Photos were staged too, remember the viral news clip of the reporter bracing himself against "hurricane winds" and then in the background someone strolls normally across the picture.
- Izkata 2y agoFor anyone who wants to see it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tocuyJ1Fu7U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tocuyJ1Fu7U
- lazide 2y ago10x more slop for $1 is still 10x more slop, though.
- kunley 2y agoThere is a big lie about this mythical low demand. No, people will demand more of what they really know, if you feed them with better things they will demand more better things. But the point is, the cheap news are related to junky ads and this is the point where it gets spoiled: selling shit is easier when is tied to spreading shit. Fix the greed behind the news distribution and you will have better content plus a demand for a better content.
- Kinrany 2y agoThe title reminded me of this article, that claims that the new culture war is weird vs normal: https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/p/the-new-systems-of-survival https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/p/the-new-systems-of-survival
- add-sub-mul-div 2y agoImagine telling someone in 2015 that in 2024 almost as many people would choose to erase Twitter from existence than LinkedIn.
- 082349872349872 2y agoDoes https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2024/10/10/ribbonfarm-is-retiring/#more-8046 https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2024/10/10/ribbonfarm-is-retiring... imply Rao has voted with his feet (keyboard?) for the hypernormal? > As another example, in 2020, I consciously stopped trying to write “viral hit” type posts, and even bent over backwards to try and write anti-viral posts. ... The cozyweb zeitgeist favors a deeper, quieter sort of writerly ambition, with classier, more high-minded aspirations. ... Why can’t anyone see I’m only wearing the Substack Suit ironically!
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- devjab 2y agoAs a Danish person the most annoying thing about the American culture war is how it spreads to here. Nowhere near the scale, we still absolutely ridicule people who’d believe in most of the nonsense so that keeps it down. But it’s still here. I think what annoys me the most about it is how a lot of the bogus is very specifically “American”. When Qanon was a thing it was also a thing here. It’s so disappointing that our tinfoil hatters aren’t coming up with their own bogus about our own elite. If Obama was/is a lizard person, then why wouldn’t our Queen (at the time we have a King now) be a Lizard? We have our own rich elites, is Lars Larsen really dead or is he leading a secret shadow government? I do agree that the “reality vs fiction” battle, which has been raging for years now will get absolutely insane with AI created lies. I don’t think it’ll really continue to be that much of a battle though. We’re already living in a world where people have extremely different perceptions of reality, and it’ll probably be hard to teach critical thinking to the people who are already believing the bogus.
- add-sub-mul-div 2y agoHaha they should follow the French music streaming model of taxing foreign stupidity in order to support domestic stupidity.
- devjab 2y agoYou joke, but we don’t have to support it. Most of it is already paid for by the Russians. I just think it’s silly how they can get away with recycling the content they created for the US and still be successful with it even though a lot of it makes absolutely no sense in a Danish context.
- jfengel 2y agoThe genius of America is finding the lowest common denominator, and commercializing it. The world hates everything we produce -- our food, our movies, our culture -- but they end up consuming it in droves. They complain that it has no taste, and they're right. But they underestimate how much everyone wants stuff that is plentiful, vapid, and cheap. It's no surprise that we similarly export our politics. Conspiracy theories are fast food. They come cheap, are accessible with no effort, and make you feel like you've gotten a lot. We didn't invent any of this but we've got a national genius for optimizing it.
- jmduke 2y agoThe only through-line for the author's definition of "bogus" (AI generated content; identity performance; rejection of canon) appears to me "cannot be situated in the culture of a few decades ago." To pick on one example: he writes of the linked NYT essay: > Is greatness overrated? What’s next—Is disease the new health? Is losing the new winning? Is stupid the new smart? At risk of sounding uncharitable, this is the kind of reaction one might have to the essay if they read the title and skipped the content. The author is specfically talking about the idea of the Nobel canon and its orthogonality to other reasons you might want to read an author. (I don't think it's a particularly good essay, but it's certainly not saying "bad stuff is good, actually"!)
- jlund-molfese 2y agoI agree with you, and the author is being a little lazy by referencing the NYT article. At the same time, if they didn’t use a clickbait headline, they’d force their critics to make slightly better arguments, so it’s the NYT’s fault too.
- n00b101 2y ago[flagged]
- Timber-6539 2y agoThe humans consuming AI video/image content and can't help themselves sharing this garbage are simply bots. No better way to describe them. That's going to be the new captcha test for me. I was a bit cautious of Photoshop adding watermarks into pictures generated by their software but I think it's time LLMs implement this feature. It will be the only way to filter and clean the spam from your feed.
- PawgerZ 2y agoDecent idea but it will be circumvented with ai powered watermark removers. They already exist and will only get better as ai image generation gets better.
- xorcist 2y agoThey could very well literally be. That's the real AI revolution. Not in manufacturing content for the masses, but how to sell ads when the vast majority of consumers could be suspected to be bots.
- tengbretson 2y agoWell yeah. If you needed to have your culture come from Google images or or NYT I think you were always going to have a bad time. AI or not.
- tolerance 2y agoI think this is where the author's analysis falls flat at. The fact that these mediums are in any shape barometers of or agents for culture constitute more of a problem than their decay does.
- kelseyfrog 2y agoThe culture war has always been real vs bogus. Mass media monopolized the real by constructing in parallel a distribution medium and a culture of authority built on top of it. The levers of reality building include the ability to mass disseminate ideas. When social media co-oped the public to generate content in order to sell ads for money, it handed over the mechanism of reality construction to the masses - we de-monopolized reality construction for a few trillion dollars in market cap. It's weird to see reality sold out to the highest bidder, but at the same time, I couldn't see it going any other way. The reptilians have a strange affinity for hording gold. Modern day dragons.
- bilater 2y agoCuration will become even more important. Despite social media, we haven't even come close to peak influencer mania yet.
- justonenote 2y agoI agree. I can imagine a future where default internet access is highly curated by some local trusted group (at whatever scale, with whatever trust model, maybe state maybe community). While the open internet would be still accessible, access is not the default and perhaps you need some kind of approval or license to go into the wasteland of the open public internet.
- from-nibly 2y ago> Is greatness overrated? People already feel this way. > What’s next—Is disease the new health? People currently are conflating body shaming with pointing out someone is unhealthy > Is losing the new winning? Being part of a minority is better than being good at something. > Is stupid the new smart? Tell someone you are good at something like computers. Way too many people use this as an opportunity to cope. I hate to break it to the author of this article but we are already here.
- paulwilsondev 2y agolove it
- paulwilsondev 2y agolet it burn