J. Nathan Matias 🦣Mar 16, 2023

Watching grifters compete over escalating, outlandish, risky uses of generative AI, I'm reminded that:

1) this is a worn/tired PR / "testing" strategy from tech firms that created the problems of tech inequality we continue to face

2) tech leaders somehow think that grifter hype cycles constitute good training data

Former Uber chief economist John List dedicated a whole chapter to this problem in The Voltage Effect & how it creates bias / hinders growth. But <shrug>

https://www.thevoltageeffect.com/

The Voltage Effect: John A. List

“Scale” has become a favored buzzword in the startup world. But scale isn't just about accumulating more users or capturing more market share. It's about whether an idea that takes hold in a small group can do the same in a much larger one.

Irene RosMar 17, 2023
Show threadJ. Nathan Matias 🦣

I now see why tech leaders are obsessed with the idea that everyone is controlled by dopamine hits from attention economies. It's what they have chosen as their north star.

This kind of irresponsible, self-defeating release of technologies into the wild is what we get from people who measure success in terms of news articles and user counts rather than any scientific or common-sense measure of value.

Mar 16, 2023 at 4:58pmWeb