People want dopamine hints, gamification, addictive distractions, and a culture of competitive perma-hustle.
If they didn't, we wouldn't be having these problems.
The problem isn't AI, it's how marketing has eaten everything.
So everyone is always pitching, looking for a competitive advantage, "telling their story", and "building their brand."
You can't "build trust" if your primary motivation is to sell stuff to your contacts.
The SNR was already terrible long before AI arrived. All AI has done is automated an already terrible process, which has - ironically - broken it so badly that it no longer works.
> You can't "build trust" if your primary motivation is to sell stuff to your contacts
That is false. You build a different type of trust: people need to trust that when they buy something from you it is a good product that will do what they want. Maybe someone else is better, but it won't be enough better as to be worth the time they would need to spend to evaluate that. Maybe someone else is cheaper, but you are still reasonably priced for the features you offer. They won't get fired for buying you because you have so often been worthy of the trust we give you that in the rare case you do something wrong it was nobody is perfect not that you are no longer trustworthy (you can only pull this trick off a few times before you become untrustworthy)
The above is very hard to achieve, and even when you have it very easy to lose. If you are not yet there for someone you still need to act like you are and down want to lose it even though they may never buy from you often enough to realize you are worth it.
> All AI has done is automated an already terrible process, which has - ironically - broken it so badly that it no longer works.
Evil contains within itself the seed of its own destruction ;)
Sure, sometimes you should fight the decline. But sometimes... just shrug and let it happen. Let's just take the safety labels off some things and let problems solve themselves. Let everybody run around and do AI and SEO. Good ideas will prevail eventually, focus on those. We have no influence on the "when", but it's a matter of having stamina and hanging in there, I guess
It boggles my mind when, despite my general avoidance of advertising online, I see the language being used. Call me old fashioned, but "viral" is a bad thing to me. "Addictive" is a bad thing. "Tricks" are bad! But this is the language being used to attract customers, and I suppose it works well enough.
If they didn't, we wouldn't be having these problems.
That assumes people have the ability to choose not to do these things, and that they can't be manipulated or coerced into doing them against their will.
If you believe that advertising, especially data-driven personalised and targeted advertising, is essentially way of hacking someone's mind to do things it doesn't actually want to do, then it becomes fairly obvious that it's not entirely the individual's fault.
If adverts are 'Buy Acme widgets!' they're relatively easy to resist. When the advert is 'onion2k, as a man in his 40s who writes code and enjoys video games, maybe you spend too much time on HN, and you're a bit overweight, so you should buy Acme widgets!' it calls for people to be constantly vigilant, and that's too much to expect. When people get trapped by an advert that's been designed to push all their buttons, the reasonable position is that the advertiser should take some of the responsibility for that.
Fixed it for you: People are most easily manipulated into dopamine hints, gamification, addictive distractions, and a culture of competitive perma-hustle.
That is only true as long as people are the only entities who can spend money. As soon as people give AI the power to spend money, we will see companies designing products to appeal to AI:s. A new form of SEO spam, if you will.
build things """"people"""" want
People want dopamine hints, gamification, addictive distractions, and a culture of competitive perma-hustle.
If they didn't, we wouldn't be having these problems.
The problem isn't AI, it's how marketing has eaten everything.
So everyone is always pitching, looking for a competitive advantage, "telling their story", and "building their brand."
You can't "build trust" if your primary motivation is to sell stuff to your contacts.
The SNR was already terrible long before AI arrived. All AI has done is automated an already terrible process, which has - ironically - broken it so badly that it no longer works.
> You can't "build trust" if your primary motivation is to sell stuff to your contacts
That is false. You build a different type of trust: people need to trust that when they buy something from you it is a good product that will do what they want. Maybe someone else is better, but it won't be enough better as to be worth the time they would need to spend to evaluate that. Maybe someone else is cheaper, but you are still reasonably priced for the features you offer. They won't get fired for buying you because you have so often been worthy of the trust we give you that in the rare case you do something wrong it was nobody is perfect not that you are no longer trustworthy (you can only pull this trick off a few times before you become untrustworthy)
The above is very hard to achieve, and even when you have it very easy to lose. If you are not yet there for someone you still need to act like you are and down want to lose it even though they may never buy from you often enough to realize you are worth it.
> All AI has done is automated an already terrible process, which has - ironically - broken it so badly that it no longer works.
Evil contains within itself the seed of its own destruction ;)
Sure, sometimes you should fight the decline. But sometimes... just shrug and let it happen. Let's just take the safety labels off some things and let problems solve themselves. Let everybody run around and do AI and SEO. Good ideas will prevail eventually, focus on those. We have no influence on the "when", but it's a matter of having stamina and hanging in there, I guess
It boggles my mind when, despite my general avoidance of advertising online, I see the language being used. Call me old fashioned, but "viral" is a bad thing to me. "Addictive" is a bad thing. "Tricks" are bad! But this is the language being used to attract customers, and I suppose it works well enough.
If they didn't, we wouldn't be having these problems.
That assumes people have the ability to choose not to do these things, and that they can't be manipulated or coerced into doing them against their will.
If you believe that advertising, especially data-driven personalised and targeted advertising, is essentially way of hacking someone's mind to do things it doesn't actually want to do, then it becomes fairly obvious that it's not entirely the individual's fault.
If adverts are 'Buy Acme widgets!' they're relatively easy to resist. When the advert is 'onion2k, as a man in his 40s who writes code and enjoys video games, maybe you spend too much time on HN, and you're a bit overweight, so you should buy Acme widgets!' it calls for people to be constantly vigilant, and that's too much to expect. When people get trapped by an advert that's been designed to push all their buttons, the reasonable position is that the advertiser should take some of the responsibility for that.
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> People want dopamine hints, gamification, addictive distractions, and a culture of competitive perma-hustle.
The people yearn for the casino. Gambling economy NOW! Vote kitku for president :)
PS. Please don't look at the stock market.
Tired: "Build things people want"
Wired: "Build things society needs"
Fixed it for you: People are most easily manipulated into dopamine hints, gamification, addictive distractions, and a culture of competitive perma-hustle.
That is only true as long as people are the only entities who can spend money. As soon as people give AI the power to spend money, we will see companies designing products to appeal to AI:s. A new form of SEO spam, if you will.
> move fast and break things!
> nevermind if the things are people or their lives!!
Breaking things is ok. If people are things then it's ok to break them, right? Got it. Gotta get back to my startup to apply that insight.