Widespread flooding renders everything useless

Bill Statler

US, Tue, 21 Feb 2023 20:01:54 -0800

This isn't a political rant, but I'll start with a political quote from Steve Bannon:

"We got elected on Drain the Swamp, Lock Her Up, Build a Wall. This was pure anger. Anger and fear is what gets people to the polls. ... The Democrats don't matter. The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit."

"To flood the zone with shit" means to spew out great quantities of material which may or may not be even partly true, such that the public is overwhelmed and can no longer trust any information source.

This isn't a rant against AI either, but I'll quote Neil Clarke, editor of Clarkesworld Magazine, in his comments on "A Concerning Trend":

"Since the early days of the pandemic, I’ve observed an increase in the number of spammy submissions to Clarkesworld. ...

Towards the end of 2022, there was another spike in plagiarism and then “AI” chatbots started gaining some attention, putting a new tool in their arsenal and encouraging more to give this “side hustle” a try. ...

While rejecting and banning these submissions has been simple, it’s growing at a rate that will necessitate changes. To make matters worse, the technology is only going to get better, so detection will become more challenging. ...

Submissions spiked this morning [2023-02-20] – over 50 before noon – so I’ve temporarily closed submissions. ..."

I'm thinking about the novel Fiasco, by Stanisław Lem. When the humans arrive in the alien solar system, they discover the ailens have been at war with each other for so long that every technology has had a weapon depolyed against it, and the entire solar system is nearly unusable.

Anyway, that's my pessimistic thinking about the near future of information exchange on Earth -- Internet, news media, science research, pretty much everything. Not only do we already have more false or unreliable information than true and reliable, but now we can automate flooding the zone with shit.

But. The optimist in me says we can find ways around this. I don't know what these ways will be. Maybe some way to share trustability ratings? Maybe cultivating a greater respect for actual experts and creators instead of "influencers"? Maybe practicing some extra self-control to avoid flooding our own heads with shit? Dunno. But I think we're at one of those infamous "inflection points", and we need to start doing things differently.

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Witcraft (Hubzilla)

Wed, 22 Feb 2023 01:01:02 -0800

@Bill Statler

But. The optimist in me says we can find ways around this. I don't know what these ways will be. Maybe some way to share trustability ratings? Maybe cultivating a greater respect for actual experts and creators instead of "influencers"? Maybe practicing some extra self-control to avoid flooding our own heads with shit?

If you ask me: The latter. Problem being: It's not going to happen (my philsophy being "real-optimism" - Hope for the best, count on the worst...)

Mankind has demonstrated on thousands of occasions that it is possible - and therefore done earlier or later - to instrumentalize or abuse any system you can come up with. This "learning the rules - and then eploit them to your advantage" is what made us the dominant higher species on the planet (I'm not claiming that is necessarilty a good thing). So any "trust / rating system" will be as good as the people questioning it.

Which brings us down to self-responsibility and critical thinking. When you find a "fact" - question the source's intention, question the logic, understand that complex field it is in, make a hypothesis, try to falsify it, let others falsify it (peer review). What is left is the truth of today or the error of tomorrow with which we can work for now. When someone has simple answers without a differentiated consideration or self-debate, that makes me either start research (where I still trust) or stop listening (where I stopped trusting). An AI will not even meet the criteria of being a trustful source (for facts).

To do this in all aspects of our life costs energy, time, and other ressources, and requires a fast apprehension. So you might

either spend what is necessary to become an expert,
or trust the people who are paid to do that in a usually trustworthy way (But never stop questioning if they meet the standards of scientific working, either),
or ditch the whole complicated thing and trust your friends (aka "filter bubble"), idols (aka "influencers"), or your instincts and pleasure (aka "cognitive bias" and "target system for advertisement, P.R., propaganda, and memes" - which are basically different words for the same concept - self- and external manipulation). Ideally, imprint on an ideology which discharges you from the liability of thinking. Which is basically what people default to at large scale.

To be clear: I do the latter. I don't need scientific papers or scientists for everyday problems - usually, a hint of a friend or a video tutorial evidently helps (although I often overcomplicate simple everyday issues and research for days for simple stuff). With "complex issues" I mean how nature, humans, or society, business, politics, and the like work. The stuff the world runs on.

Maybe it would help to raise critical thinking in education from early on (Kindergarten, continuing to high school, university, and profession). I'm not sure, because people prefer simplicity and convenience over complication and self-responsibility.

But history shows: If there are a thousand systems that do not work, you should not invent the one that fixes it - Or you will soon have 1001 systems that do not work....

Just my two cents.

Bill Statler

Thu, 23 Feb 2023 20:05:41 -0800

Politics and fake news are a big part of this. But I was thinking about the next level of abstraction: Where do we obtain the sorts of data inputs that we want?

By "data inputs" I mean everything that we intentionally put into our heads. Not just news, or science, but also fiction, artwork, music, philosophy, "how-to" info, recipes... everything.

In the Dark Ages of the 1960s-1980s we had limited data sources: libraries, newsstands, a few television channels, theaters, bookstores, mail, and such. And then we got hundreds of cable TV channels and the Internet, and suddenly we had a (seeming) Golden Age of being able to find any data we wanted, without being limited to curated sources and slow transmission.

Well, we've been losing that for years now, and it looks like AI will accelerate the loss. How can you usefully "do your own research" when the real news is drowned by fake news, and the fake news is drowned by artificially-generated news? How do you recognize great photography when it's lost among realistic AI-generated images?

So this is what I mean by "inflection point". This Golden Age is winding down. We'll need to go back to what remains of the old data sources, and (I hope!) we will develop new ways of finding and sorting our inputs.

I think the Fediverse is one tool for the "new ways". For the moment, it gives us a way to interact without being subject to much control by Big Business and Big Government. And it puts most of the curation of sources at the level of the individual or the small community.

Scott M. Stolz

Fri, 24 Feb 2023 11:55:20 -0800

One thing that helps me stay grounded is that I participate in a diverse set of communities, even communities that are seemingly at odds with what I believe. I then compare notes.

Either I learn something new, perhaps a different perspective on things, or what they say just further convinces me that I am right.

But, unlike many, I am actually interested in learning about other points of view and don't trust any source 100%. I actually went on a fact-checking spree a few years ago, where if a news story, article, or blog post mentioned a particular law, court case, or event where I could refer to the original documents, I would go to the original documents and see if it was accurate.

Shockingly, I found that most news reporting and articles either got the facts wrong, or they omitted key information in a way where you could easily come to the wrong conclusion.

For example, you would have a story about some incident that happened, and they say that x happened, but when you look at the whole video, that is not an accurate depiction of what really happened. Or when they comment on what a proposed law is supposed to do, but you look up the actual proposed law, that is not what it says.

I am not sure if it is lazy journalism or if they are trying to promote a narrative, but their track record for getting the facts right is horrible.

This happens on the left; it happens on the right; it happens in the center. This problem is not limited to one particular political party. Although I noticed that certain parties tend to lie more, and other parties tend to omit information in a misleading way more. That's just different tactics on how to manipulate you.

And then you have to factor in that sometimes a liar will tell the truth, and sometimes a truthful person will get the facts wrong. You can't even trust the people whom you trust to get it right all of the time.

So, in my opinion, there are no trustworthy sources. You must verify the information by looking up the evidence and original documents. And if you can't do that, then you have to start factoring in how they benefit from that version of the story and consider whether there is a conflict of interest. A major media outlet owned by a major conglomerate that owns another company will probably not be the best source of unbiased information about that sister company, for example. You have to compare information from multiple sources.

I generally try to "trust and verify" instead of treating everyone as being suspect. That is just being respectful. But that does not mean I believe everything being said.

I studied political science in college. Take it from me. They are manipulating you.

Mike Macgirvin

Fri, 24 Feb 2023 12:50:05 -0800

So, in my opinion, there are no trustworthy sources.

I've come to the same conclusion. Whenever I've been involved with something which made the news, the news got the facts so wrong as to be unrecognisable as to the events which actually transpired and to the persons actually involved. It also happens online - for instance whenever somebody writes about one the projects I've worked on or about me. People simply believe what they want to believe or their brain fills in the gaps in their knowledge with speculation, and then they regurgitate that as "facts".

But this isn't a fact. It is just my opinion.

André

Fri, 24 Feb 2023 15:11:30 -0800

About 2 years ago I enjoyed reading this introductory book: Trust (Katherine Hawley, Oxford University Press, 2012).