Comment by joenot443
4 days ago
> Why have 20 or 30 stories tailored to specific groups of humans, when you can have stories rendered on the fly for individuals, targetting all their greatest fears and folly.
I think it's easy to overestimate how much the average voter is seeking out these weird articles. Obviously as nerds on HN they're enjoyable to pick apart, but in the grand scheme of the American electorate, I'd wager this sort of AI fake news makes a pretty negligible difference.
> I can imagine someone's loved one dying of cancer a month before the election, and both sides using targetted stuff claiming that the other guy actually caused the cancer somehow.
I think that's a bit of a stretch.
> I really liked some scifi book I read, where the person appointed to be president for 4 years, was determined to hate the very idea of having the job. Didn't want it. Yet was also very driven.
That sounds interesting, what's it called?
Cambridge Analytics shows that there's no "seeking out", instead it enters your feed on Facebook and other sites. That you don't go looking, but it's recommended. And CA did quite well doing this, so it's not a myth or hyperbole.
We must learn from history. Not wave it away.
I think the novel was Imperial Earth, but I'm not sure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Earth
It's not the highlight of that novel, but I recall the person selected being upset, as it would interfere with their research work. And then some line about "that's why you're perfect, you don't want the job" or something similar.
But not 100% on this, it's just what Google hands me and seems to sync up.
It could have been by an obscure author, which would never show in Google results. I think around 2002 or so, I downloaded a massive txt archive of sci-fi books. As in, 1k authors+. Lots of them I couldn't find in any store. I think I've read some of each author, so it's unclear to me which it may be. And of course, I'd just buy used books by the armful back in the 90s.
Anyhey, good luck.