Not too bad analysis. Meta is now officially a paid gun for mass manipulation for the highest bidder. They've been that for a long time but "content moderation" gave them some deniability.
#facebook #instagram #MetaPlatforms
https://dfrlab.org/2025/01/08/analysis-metas-fact-checking-pullback-will-have-global-consequences/
@UlrikeHahn @dcm OK, you've convinced me - I'll give Buckner the benefit of doubt. This said, the problem of "upgrading genAI to AGI" is, in my opinion, not well posed. Too many broken analogies come to my mind, including some in psychology (e.g., the concept of "component", computational paradigms as technicisms, etc.).
My take: the future of AI is the demotion of professionals who's job it was to create form. Form is now cheap, and mis-application of form will only promote totalitarianism.
@UlrikeHahn Judging by the cover I'm not likely to buy the book. The sub-title is a deal-breaker, which might be the editors fault.
Rational: "What the history of X can teach us about the future of Y" is indicative of inductive reasoning. As a meta-theory, the history of inductive reasoning allows formulating some laws (which can be backed by meta-mathematical considerations). While inductive reasoning may lead to useful heuristics it never warrants formulating laws (that can be taught).
@UlrikeHahn One of the conclusions might be that societies will have to find a way to abolish these platforms. I see huge problems doing that since the illusion of participation is so strong that people confuse their interaction with automated feedback-moderators as a genuine social exchange. I've come to believe that the managed simulation of participation is at the heart of any large-scale social process that we call democratic, and it's this simulation that the large platforms have conquered.
@lavaeolus @UlrikeHahn I respectfully disagree - we can have the most valid understanding social media systems (in the socio-psychodynamic sense) but, I hold, their control is entirely in the political, outside of the ecosystem that they're part of. This is the case for so many things in the world that we created in the last 35 years.
@UlrikeHahn Thanks for the link. The conclusions never question that the scale of the "platforms" is maybe the problem, and that the monetization of the social has a steep cost.
I've come across a different piece of incongruence this morning, other hidden costs of monetization, this time not of the social but of consumer behavior, which nothing if not dysfunctional. My conclusion was that we can only be observers.
The large scale monetization of the social worries me.
