Comment by keiferski
5 hours ago
Yes, but I guess my point is that this is just another symptom of the polarization problem, and not some unique nightmare scenario where AI has mass influence over what people think and vote on.
So it matters in the same way that the billions of dollars currently put toward this small silver matter, just in a more efficient and effective way. That isn't something to ignore, but it's also not a doomsday scenario IMO.
I think the concern is that it will become a leading contributor to polarization.
Polarization is the symptom. The cause is rampant misinformation and engagement based feeds on social media.
I think it's actually the other way around. The US Civil War predated social media by 150 years. The root causes were slavery and states rights. The result was a bloody conflict whose effects lasted for generations. That's an existence proof that existing communication mechanisms are sufficient if people really want a war.
So why is social media-based propaganda so effective today? One reason that the current polarization seems so durable is that similarly persistent root causes (such as immigration, economic dislocation, and racial attitudes) have arisen again. Blaming social media obscures the fact that attitudes have hardened. People are looking for support and social media makes it very easy to find. It seems more like a feedback loop than a root cause.
Just my $0.02. It's the sort of problem that should make us all feel pretty humble about diagnosing it easily.
Pre socials, you could attend a gathering of like minded people and come away energized and pumped about whatever the event was about, but that "high" eventually fades away as you re-entered the real world and got away from that echo chamber of an event.
Today, you can stay in the echo chamber and never hear anything other than like minded views because that's what the algo thinks you should see more of which means you never come down from that "high".
It's way worse in post-social algos than anything that's come before
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A good chunk of the polarization comes from plurality / "first past the post" voting, with its huge spoiler-effects.
That choice of algorithm--which is not required by the Constitution--creates deep and very real "if you're not with us, you're against us" situations, entrenching a polarized political duopoly.
I don’t agree that polarization is caused by social media, and I think it definitely precedes social media by decades.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_polarization_in_the_...
I do agree that social media might make it worse, though. But again I don’t know if AI is really going to impact the people that are voting based on identity factors or major issues like the economy doing poorly.
I could see how AI influences people to associate their identity more with a particular political stance, though. That seems like a bigger risk than any particular viewpoint or falsehood being pushed.