7 ms·

I get the hate, but I'd be open to trying out a social media experience that is a mix of human and bots, especially as the bots get better at acting like reason

I get the hate, but I'd be open to trying out a social media experience that is a mix of human and bots, especially as the bots get better at acting like reasonable humans. Stack Overflow was great when it came out. But the whatever percent of humans who were mean and obnoxious and wouldn't let you just ask your questions eventually ruined it all. Then ChatGPT came out without any humans to get in the way of me asking my software development questions, and it was so much better. In the same way, when social media came out, it was great. But the whatever percent of humans who were mean and obnoxious and wouldn't let you just socialize and speak your mind eventually ruined it all. If there's an equivalent social media experience out there that gets rid of or at least mitigates the horriblenesses of humanity while still letting people socialize online and explore what's on their mind, maybe it's worth trying.

rm_-rf_slash 2y ago
I can’t think of any way where a social media app using bots to discourage wrongthink doesn’t come across as dystopian, and also a little sad.
- brookst 2y ago
  All “wrongthink”? Like if someone expresses suicidal thoughts, the bot should say “whatever, do what you want”? I disagree. Apps are products with an editorial component. Editorials should be opinionated. It is passive and immature to simply not care how one’s products are used. Oppenheimer and Alfred Nobel have wise words on this topic.
  - NBJack 2y ago
    Why settle for indifference to self-harm? https://www.cbsnews.com/news/google-ai-chatbot-threatening-message-human-please-die/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/google-ai-chatbot-threatening-m...
- PartiallyTyped 2y ago
  I feel that these days "wrongthink" is a dogwhistle, by all means, just use X or pravda social.
  - yakshaving_jgt 2y ago
    I think this is the kind of rhetoric that has lead to the rise of the right in the western world. It’s something discussed here in this video. https://youtu.be/d5PR5S4xhXQ?si=eW68EoiHgADYhVUv https://youtu.be/d5PR5S4xhXQ?si=eW68EoiHgADYhVUv
    - PartiallyTyped 2y ago
      Everyone wants to be the hero in their own story, changing your beliefs requires introspection and humility. It's far easier to blame somebody else than yourself and take responsibility. It's trivial to feed people some narrative that trivializes reality and, in their mind, acknowledges them as underdogs and elevates them as "right". The triviality of this allows malevolent actors to disrupt society and produce a chasm through echo chambers, each amplifying particular voices and shifting narrative. Free speech is important, but it won't be found on X, or pravda-dot-social, and as much has been proven multiple times. What I take issue with and hint at is that neither of these are platforms that support free-speech, they are merely illusions, and people who yap about wrongthink are exactly those oblivious to said fact. Personally, I am tired of arguing with people, I am tired of seeking truth in conversations with people unwilling to change their minds, I just want to live my life, safely.
      - yakshaving_jgt 2y ago
        I think that’s right. I broadly agree with everything you’ve written here. I’m just dissatisfied with this as a status quo, where more reasonable people have [justifiably] resigned themselves to the reality that reasoning with the unreasonable doesn’t usually pay [moral] dividends.
        epictacactus 2y ago
- KaiserPro 2y ago
  > Wrongthink When a community is formed, an implied set of rules are generated and applied. They evolve and change as time goes on. Sometimes they are the cause of the community dying, sometimes they are the reason is thrives. Whether its a sports community (woo football is the greatest!) or a specific team (fuck the other team, booo) or cycling. Each community has a set of rules that you need to abide by in order for it to function. Now, if you go and break those implied rules, you get told off. A community falls apart when two or more factions form opposing implied rules in the same shared space. For photography, it could be the use of photoshop, digital cameras or, more recently AI. Either the factions learn to get on, or they break away and find somewhere more accepting. That is the natural order. You could equally present those things as "wrongthink". But more practically its just a regulation mechanism for human interaction. Now, you'll counter that "big corporations/politics determining what we see is bad", and then reference some time in the 90s where no such system existed. The problem is that the US media was brilliant at self censorship. Sure you could get specialist publications that catered to whatever taboo subject you wanted, just as you can now. The issue is, online there are no constraints on behaviour. If I shout at 13 year old kid in the street that I'm going to fuck their mum, burn their house down, and generally verbally abuse them, generally someone will intervene and stop me. Thats not wrongthink, thats society. There is not scalable mechanism for doing that on online communities. Is this AI bit the way to do it? no, its made by insular collegekids who've barely lived in the real world.
pavel_lishin 2y ago
What would it mean to "socialize" someplace where you can never be sure if you're talking to a person or not?
WD-42 2y ago
“I’ve have negative interactions with people online so I’d rather give up and talk to nice robots instead.” We are doomed as a society.
- HKH2 2y ago
  Letting people talk their thought processes through without conflict seems more productive than them prefiltering what they want to say. You can get so conditioned to expect negative feedback that you refuse to follow your curiosity.
  - asdff 2y ago
    That is called hiring a licensed therapist not chatting with Black Queer Mamma.
  - jazzyjackson 2y ago
    You do need to learn how to deal with negative feedback tho. People should write letters and emails and long form messages if they want to say a whole thing without interruption. My concern with working through an idea with a bot is you end up espousing the bots ideas and not your own -- it is the ultimate ideological homogenization.
    - HKH2 2y ago
      The more you deal with your insecurities, the easier it is to handle negative feedback. People may not have the time or patience to write long form writing. There are plenty of times I've disagreed with bots, but they're pretty good at neutrally bridging gaps instead of getting emotional. I think you underestimate human impulsiveness.
      - WD-42 2y ago
        Why are you arguing with a bot in the first place. Makes no sense.
        2y ago
NBJack 2y ago
Ironically, this would lead to dramatically unhealthy social interactions and be ripe for abuse. You are literally creating a bubble of interactions with technologically enforced rose-colored glasses. Get the right person in charge of the experience, and don't be surprised if it becomes a modern take on Orwell's 1984.
- barbazoo 2y ago
  In what way would it become a modern take on 1984? In terms of surveillance? Afaik the telescreens were non-interactive, right?
  - timeon 2y ago
    Yeah this one is closer Brave New World.
  - NBJack 2y ago
    No, I'm not even interested in the surveillance here (though it is also a good comparison). Full disclosure, I'm very pessimistic on what current LLM models are capable of, and even more pessimistic on the impact of social networks. I'm referring to the control of interactions and information. Take a look at the character interactions on the novel. People socialized as they could, but interactions were not only heavily monitored (to your point), but altered as well. Winston struggles to behave correctly in public knowing that one small misstep could result in him being arrested by The Party. He revels in the chance to rebel against it, only to find that the opportunity to do so was in fact a trap. Even the allowed language was neutered as much as possible to prevent communication. All of these virtual 'friends' will likely politely comment and correct your posts as they see fit. As for information, "we have always been at war with Eastasia". People in 1984 were clearly being fed false information as part of control. History was altered, facts were changed, it was pretty heavy handed. But imagine what this personal echo chamber could do with a new concept or idea (that virtually all parties you interact with corroborate, along with LLM generated 'news' posts and generated pics that support it), how many people will verify? Just think of how many folks you've seen have been misled by a single well-done "fake news" post; now, imagine that the network itself is confirming it at every turn (note Meta owns multiple networks). Oh, and as a bonus, these virtual friends are really enjoying Brand Product. Have you tried it yet? Folks keep posting pictures of themselves with Brand Product, and they look pretty happy!
lm28469 2y ago
People should try to socialize in real life. The web is 90% rage baits, trolls, people completely brain washed by fringe conspiracy theories and politics IRL these 90% turn into 10%, if you really care about socializing you'll have more meaningful interactions with the grandma living next door than with the queer black queen zuckerbot ™ It's like if people asked supermarkets to hide plastic apples amongst the real ones because they look better and never went bad, as if they somehow forgot why we even eat food in the first place
- rrr_oh_man 2y ago
  > It's like if people asked supermarkets to hide plastic apples amongst the real ones because they look better and never went bad I’m stealing this
  - inetknght 2y ago
    > I’m stealing this Might not want to say that in the grocery store while browsing those apples. Plastic apples tend to have network affects not usually associated with edible fruit.
- theptip 2y ago
  What if socializing IRL is something you can practice with pro-social bots? Or, what if depressed people find the pressure of consequences too stressful to “just go outside and make friends”, and so the realistic options are chatbot or not enough socialization? There are obvious nuanced issues and risks here but to distill it down to a one liner like “try to socialize IRL” is myopic.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - barbazoo 2y ago
    The solution can’t be that those people have to interact with AI instead of humans. What a shit society that would be.
barbazoo 2y ago
“Socialize” with an AI?
Sateeshm 2y ago
> Stack Overflow was great when it came out. But the whatever percent of humans who were mean and obnoxious and wouldn't let you just ask your questions eventually ruined it all. The user hostility is partly what keeps the spam and repeated questions out. They even have a peer pressure achievement for deleting a post after someone commented on it.
projproj 2y ago
I am trying out something along those lines with friendlyfriends.community (nod to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep). Still pretty basic though, but feel free to give it a try. Edit: I'm exploring the idea that social media is not really social. How much different is it to interact with a human intermediated by social media sites than it is to interact with chatbots?

rm_-rf_slash 2y ago

I can’t think of any way where a social media app using bots to discourage wrongthink doesn’t come across as dystopian, and also a little sad.

brookst 2y ago
All “wrongthink”? Like if someone expresses suicidal thoughts, the bot should say “whatever, do what you want”? I disagree. Apps are products with an editorial component. Editorials should be opinionated. It is passive and immature to simply not care how one’s products are used. Oppenheimer and Alfred Nobel have wise words on this topic.
- NBJack 2y ago
  Why settle for indifference to self-harm? https://www.cbsnews.com/news/google-ai-chatbot-threatening-message-human-please-die/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/google-ai-chatbot-threatening-m...
PartiallyTyped 2y ago
I feel that these days "wrongthink" is a dogwhistle, by all means, just use X or pravda social.
- yakshaving_jgt 2y ago
  I think this is the kind of rhetoric that has lead to the rise of the right in the western world. It’s something discussed here in this video. https://youtu.be/d5PR5S4xhXQ?si=eW68EoiHgADYhVUv https://youtu.be/d5PR5S4xhXQ?si=eW68EoiHgADYhVUv
  - PartiallyTyped 2y ago
    Everyone wants to be the hero in their own story, changing your beliefs requires introspection and humility. It's far easier to blame somebody else than yourself and take responsibility. It's trivial to feed people some narrative that trivializes reality and, in their mind, acknowledges them as underdogs and elevates them as "right". The triviality of this allows malevolent actors to disrupt society and produce a chasm through echo chambers, each amplifying particular voices and shifting narrative. Free speech is important, but it won't be found on X, or pravda-dot-social, and as much has been proven multiple times. What I take issue with and hint at is that neither of these are platforms that support free-speech, they are merely illusions, and people who yap about wrongthink are exactly those oblivious to said fact. Personally, I am tired of arguing with people, I am tired of seeking truth in conversations with people unwilling to change their minds, I just want to live my life, safely.
    - yakshaving_jgt 2y ago
      I think that’s right. I broadly agree with everything you’ve written here. I’m just dissatisfied with this as a status quo, where more reasonable people have [justifiably] resigned themselves to the reality that reasoning with the unreasonable doesn’t usually pay [moral] dividends.
      - epictacactus 2y ago
KaiserPro 2y ago
> Wrongthink When a community is formed, an implied set of rules are generated and applied. They evolve and change as time goes on. Sometimes they are the cause of the community dying, sometimes they are the reason is thrives. Whether its a sports community (woo football is the greatest!) or a specific team (fuck the other team, booo) or cycling. Each community has a set of rules that you need to abide by in order for it to function. Now, if you go and break those implied rules, you get told off. A community falls apart when two or more factions form opposing implied rules in the same shared space. For photography, it could be the use of photoshop, digital cameras or, more recently AI. Either the factions learn to get on, or they break away and find somewhere more accepting. That is the natural order. You could equally present those things as "wrongthink". But more practically its just a regulation mechanism for human interaction. Now, you'll counter that "big corporations/politics determining what we see is bad", and then reference some time in the 90s where no such system existed. The problem is that the US media was brilliant at self censorship. Sure you could get specialist publications that catered to whatever taboo subject you wanted, just as you can now. The issue is, online there are no constraints on behaviour. If I shout at 13 year old kid in the street that I'm going to fuck their mum, burn their house down, and generally verbally abuse them, generally someone will intervene and stop me. Thats not wrongthink, thats society. There is not scalable mechanism for doing that on online communities. Is this AI bit the way to do it? no, its made by insular collegekids who've barely lived in the real world.

pavel_lishin 2y ago

What would it mean to "socialize" someplace where you can never be sure if you're talking to a person or not?

WD-42 2y ago

“I’ve have negative interactions with people online so I’d rather give up and talk to nice robots instead.” We are doomed as a society.

HKH2 2y ago
Letting people talk their thought processes through without conflict seems more productive than them prefiltering what they want to say. You can get so conditioned to expect negative feedback that you refuse to follow your curiosity.
- asdff 2y ago
  That is called hiring a licensed therapist not chatting with Black Queer Mamma.
- jazzyjackson 2y ago
  You do need to learn how to deal with negative feedback tho. People should write letters and emails and long form messages if they want to say a whole thing without interruption. My concern with working through an idea with a bot is you end up espousing the bots ideas and not your own -- it is the ultimate ideological homogenization.
  - HKH2 2y ago
    The more you deal with your insecurities, the easier it is to handle negative feedback. People may not have the time or patience to write long form writing. There are plenty of times I've disagreed with bots, but they're pretty good at neutrally bridging gaps instead of getting emotional. I think you underestimate human impulsiveness.
    - WD-42 2y ago
      Why are you arguing with a bot in the first place. Makes no sense.
      - 2y ago

NBJack 2y ago

Ironically, this would lead to dramatically unhealthy social interactions and be ripe for abuse. You are literally creating a bubble of interactions with technologically enforced rose-colored glasses. Get the right person in charge of the experience, and don't be surprised if it becomes a modern take on Orwell's 1984.

barbazoo 2y ago
In what way would it become a modern take on 1984? In terms of surveillance? Afaik the telescreens were non-interactive, right?
- timeon 2y ago
  Yeah this one is closer Brave New World.
- NBJack 2y ago
  No, I'm not even interested in the surveillance here (though it is also a good comparison). Full disclosure, I'm very pessimistic on what current LLM models are capable of, and even more pessimistic on the impact of social networks. I'm referring to the control of interactions and information. Take a look at the character interactions on the novel. People socialized as they could, but interactions were not only heavily monitored (to your point), but altered as well. Winston struggles to behave correctly in public knowing that one small misstep could result in him being arrested by The Party. He revels in the chance to rebel against it, only to find that the opportunity to do so was in fact a trap. Even the allowed language was neutered as much as possible to prevent communication. All of these virtual 'friends' will likely politely comment and correct your posts as they see fit. As for information, "we have always been at war with Eastasia". People in 1984 were clearly being fed false information as part of control. History was altered, facts were changed, it was pretty heavy handed. But imagine what this personal echo chamber could do with a new concept or idea (that virtually all parties you interact with corroborate, along with LLM generated 'news' posts and generated pics that support it), how many people will verify? Just think of how many folks you've seen have been misled by a single well-done "fake news" post; now, imagine that the network itself is confirming it at every turn (note Meta owns multiple networks). Oh, and as a bonus, these virtual friends are really enjoying Brand Product. Have you tried it yet? Folks keep posting pictures of themselves with Brand Product, and they look pretty happy!

lm28469 2y ago

People should try to socialize in real life. The web is 90% rage baits, trolls, people completely brain washed by fringe conspiracy theories and politics IRL these 90% turn into 10%, if you really care about socializing you'll have more meaningful interactions with the grandma living next door than with the queer black queen zuckerbot ™ It's like if people asked supermarkets to hide plastic apples amongst the real ones because they look better and never went bad, as if they somehow forgot why we even eat food in the first place

rrr_oh_man 2y ago
> It's like if people asked supermarkets to hide plastic apples amongst the real ones because they look better and never went bad I’m stealing this
- inetknght 2y ago
  > I’m stealing this Might not want to say that in the grocery store while browsing those apples. Plastic apples tend to have network affects not usually associated with edible fruit.
theptip 2y ago
What if socializing IRL is something you can practice with pro-social bots? Or, what if depressed people find the pressure of consequences too stressful to “just go outside and make friends”, and so the realistic options are chatbot or not enough socialization? There are obvious nuanced issues and risks here but to distill it down to a one liner like “try to socialize IRL” is myopic.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- barbazoo 2y ago
  The solution can’t be that those people have to interact with AI instead of humans. What a shit society that would be.

barbazoo 2y ago

“Socialize” with an AI?

Sateeshm 2y ago

> Stack Overflow was great when it came out. But the whatever percent of humans who were mean and obnoxious and wouldn't let you just ask your questions eventually ruined it all. The user hostility is partly what keeps the spam and repeated questions out. They even have a peer pressure achievement for deleting a post after someone commented on it.

projproj 2y ago

I am trying out something along those lines with friendlyfriends.community (nod to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep). Still pretty basic though, but feel free to give it a try. Edit: I'm exploring the idea that social media is not really social. How much different is it to interact with a human intermediated by social media sites than it is to interact with chatbots?