Mastodawn

HalloNea Mar 14

the frustrating thing is that literally anyone who has thought about language and technology for fifteen consecutive seconds could have told you that autocomplete and other writing tools influence beliefs (and *have* been telling you this, over and over, for decades). the other frustrating thing is that slop-pushers *brag about their ability to do this* and right-wing actors are actively exploiting it, but in polite company everyone pretends that's not the case https://mathstodon.xyz/@gregeganSF/116219772468880168

Greg Egan (@[email protected])

“AI-powered writing tools are increasingly integrated into our e-mails and phones. Now a new study finds biased AI suggestions can sway users’ beliefs” “We told people before, and after, to be careful, that the AI is going to be (or was) biased, and nothing helped,” Naaman said. “Their attitudes about the issues still shifted.” https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ai-autocomplete-doesnt-just-change-how-you-write-it-changes-how-you-think/

Mathstodon

⁂ L. Rhodes Mar 13

@aparrish Probably the most insidious part of the cognitive effects of AI use is that people consistently misestimate the effect that it has on their own behavior. I'm sure everyone who decides to give it a try thinks, "Well, it won't do that to me," and statistically speaking, they're wrong.

@lrhodes the apparently the only propaganda people are immune to is "you are not immune to propaganda"

Cassandrich Mar 13

@aparrish @lrhodes JOMO is the source of my immunity to propaganda. 😁

YHANCI~1.TXT Mar 13

@lrhodes @aparrish it's basically https://mastodon.social/@jk/116002291198424398

William D. Jones Mar 13

@lrhodes @aparrish I agree w/ you. I think you put it more eloquently than I did: https://mastodon.social/@cr1901/116218528124214100

John Mark Ockerbloom Mar 13

@aparrish It's a new variant of the "oh, ads and PR don't sway *me*" self-delusion that media critics have written about for decades.

@aparrish I find it deeply saddening and frustrating when people don't recognize how media affects us. Every mundane thing works you over in some way.

@aparrish
Right wing is the important thing to mention.

@aparrish any discussion of the current state of play that doesn't _at least_ treat every one of the big actors in the (genAI) technical space as implicated in and/or actively working towards the fascist project broadly speaking is just wildly out of touch with reality. a fact which i find almost impossible to get anyone i talk with about this to take at all seriously, so that's fun.

datenwolf Mar 13

@aparrish For some time now I've been calling out interactive LLM systems as almost perfect cult indoctrination systems.
The day I realized, what these things are I vowed to myself to never engage with LLMs whatsoever.

@aparrish i am simply immune to propaganda

The Turtle Mar 13

@aparrish i have turned off all that shit for many years before ever even using software.

I learned to spell.
I learned to write.
I learned reasonably-proper grammar.
I don't want some goddamn code doing it.

FurryBeta Mar 13

@aparrish At least I can feel I’m bucking the system, since autocomplete rarely gets what I’m going to type next

Hugs4friends ♾🇺🇦 🇵🇸😷Mar 14

@aparrish Much as I laughed at autocorrect booboos, I got rid of predictive text early...especially when I typed the correct phrase in, and it substituted its own. I'm not buying the 'helpfulness'.

@aparrish The old saw ”how can I know what I think, until I read what I write” cuts both ways.

Even if, perhaps especially when, we deny that we are subject to such malign influence, #AI or not.

Adam Williams Mar 16

@aparrish I think the "search engine" set the stage for this, the [erroneous] idea that you could search and find an answer [truth: you found ... something]

Now people use "AI" just like a search engine, and accept the results by default.

Adam Williams Mar 16

@aparrish Personal experience. I write a BLOG about local issues, almost nobody else writes about these things. Ask a related question to AI and __you get my answer!__.

And I've been sitting in meetings where someone will "ask AI" and they will proceed to read out my answer. It is accepted as authoritative - it came from AI! That's great for me, I guess, my little cause.. But also, yikes!