As IF Times

So we’ve postulated that a Dopamine response can be targeted by businesses to increase sales or to shape behaviors.  Employing sounds, smells and sensations, are known actionable triggers for consumers.

But let’s pair that with rapidly evolving Artificial Intelligence tools.  Mostly everyone in the developed world has exposure to streaming music and entertainment platforms.  When they were first introduced, they were simply tools of convenience as mobile phones once were.  But with the deployment of their internal algorithms, these services now create suggested material based on your viewing or listening proclivities.  Thus, being fully attuned to the material that gives you the most satisfaction, which means Dopamine hits, they continue to feed you material based on their predictive models. You are now a commodity to whom marketing will be specifically tailored.

No doubt, they’re succeeding with these tools.  However, one of the shortcomings of AI (at least thus far) is that projections are necessarily based on past events.  They use pattern recognition and extrapolate trends based on previous samples.  One could say that it’s as if you are driving forward using the rear view mirror.  If your playlist is full of Barry Manilow, it’s unlikely that anything by The Beastie Boys winds up in your suggested rotation.  If you’ve watched more than one Reese Witherspoon movie, you will have tons of blonde ingénue films populating your suggestion box.  In this instance, use of AI is similar to politicians who tune their message to whatever they think people want to hear.

Which is fine.  Except that this does not provide something that humans innately need….the desire for variety and novelty.  While the old and familiar are stable bets, humans generally have a need for variety and novelty rooted in natural curiosity.  This is why human input cannot be completely replaced by the emerging creep of AI in our lives.  People should be aware that present popular AI platforms such as Chat GPT and Grok rely mainly on their ability to scour and assemble vast known data sources to create an appropriate response to a defined problem.

AI’s capability for pattern recognition is unmatched.  These platforms can very rapidly give solutions to existing problems based on the vast database of similar events that are known. As of right now, they are not yet able to solve problems for which there are no known solutions. Of course, this may change with time, but as an example, in the medical field, they can’t provide the cure for cancer, BUT they will sift through mountains of known data to provide what has been effective therapies for resolved medical issues.  AI won’t be able to solve conflict issues in the Middle East nor be able to predict the Super Bowl winner; it can only give statistical probabilities.   AI is not a magic 8 ball.

I can see these tools being used to drastically reduce the backlogs in the legal and justice system.  A large part of the law is based on historical legal precedence, thus running the variables through an AI filter could eliminate the need for parsing words, nonsense arguments and activist judges.  We can certainly see the use of AI in the field of medicine for treating most of the routine ailments that afflict people.  Even a casual dive into the dozens and dozens of AI content creation sites is astounding and it’s all just beginning.

While AI is probably the greatest technological leap by man post the industrial age next to microchips, it also brings with it some complacencies and dangers as yet unknown.  While it can figuratively assemble all of the available ingredients in a pantry to make a meal, it cannot create unique solutions outside of the known universe of recipes.  At the very root of any data set are human inputs which then result in acceptable outcomes

For the sake of illustration, imagine that we are in the 1800’s and leeches are commonly employed in the cure of many medical issues.  If AI were available at that time, any search for a treatment for circulatory issues would result in the application of leeches….because that was the known and acceptable treatment of that era.

In today’s world, it’s very possible that requesting an answer to a question such as “who would make the best president?” may return an answer of Kamala Harris, depending on whom entered the variables.   Thus, while AI can satisfy specific requests with logical outcomes, the baseline of data points had to have been created by human input.  We all know the programming mantra of GIGO, garbage in, garbage out.  An apt illustration of this is the Wikipedia site.  While many refer to this site for research, many are not aware that entries are edited for ‘appropriateness’.  Thus, if this site was referenced as part of the process for determining an answer to a question, the response will be skewed because of the flawed input.

With broader employment of AI tools in every aspect of our lives, there is the real danger that it can assume the role that television once did when it became a ubiquitous household appliance; that is, people will think something is true because they saw it on TV.  Even at this early stage, it’s often difficult to discern reality from deep fakes in many AI video presentations. As Abe Lincoln purportedly said, you can’t trust everything you see on the internet.  Knowing what we know about human behavior, it can be very easy to create narratives that reinforce acceptable worldviews just as they play algorithmically created music on a Spotify feed.   You will hear what the machine thinks that you want to hear and you will experience what the machine calculates what you want to experience.

Notwithstanding the enormous power and potential of AI to modify our lives, the key task of real innovation and imagination will always require the human element.  The source code will always have at its root, human input. Ironically, the abilities of AI may make populations more complacent, more malleable and less innovative and more derivative. This is a real danger.  While certainly we are exposed to new things that seem to appear daily, many of those things are derivative or just iterations of an existing thing. In fact many of these new ‘things’ have a certain sameness to them.  Think Gothic dragon films, rap music or SUV’s.

But no amount of AI writing tools will replicate the creative mind of a J.K. Rowling nor the insightful, sensitive humor of a Bill Watterson.  No AI tool will replace the stark depiction of the human condition like a Solzhenitsyn.   No amount of data crunching will replace the mind of an Elon Musk in pushing the boundaries of technology and imagination.  People like that will always be at the leading edge of human aspiration, not content to listen to the usual comfortable playlist that life has made for them.  It turns out that achieving satisfactory, comfortable results is not the end game for bright people, nor should it be for mankind. Innovative pioneers will continue to make their own original life playlists with great unpredictability.  This brings to mind the Roadrunner cartoons.  Even as Wile E Coyote brings sophisticated technology to use, the Roadrunner always finds a way to escape.

link: https://slaynews.com/news/elon-musk-tears-down-house-of-cards-if-this-isnt-a-violation-of-the-constitutions-first-amendment-what-is/

Back in the day, someone had the brilliant idea to create a vehicle by which news and information could be disseminated. This could only have come about when the inputs and opinions of the masses mattered, thus, the idea of having some kind of news vehicle came to fruition.

Before then, news, or more likely gossip, was spread by word of mouth, at drinking establishments, at churches or by travelers coming through a town.  Of course, before then, there was no news other than what the overlords decided that the peasants needed to know; and all  the peasants needed to know was to keep working to pay taxes to the rulers.  Thus, knowledge was either what the church or the rulers decided was knowledge.

As the phenomenon of education proliferated, so did the notion of critical thinking.  In order to think critically, you needed information, unbiased and provable. This made the imposition of news and information more problematic for those who were used to controlling knowledge to the masses.  As someone eloquently wrote, ‘knowledge is power’ and suddenly, the opinions of the masses mattered. Eventually, newspapers and journals became the default arbiters of legitimate news and their operators became very powerful.  It became a lot easier to determine when someone was untruthful, because the journals would be a credible check.

With the onset of the television age, the new unimpeachable source of information and knowledge became TV networks. I can still remember people stating that ‘if it was on TV, it must be true’. While a large swath of people still believe this, the credibility of heretofore unimpeachable sources has long since expired. The slogans of “The Paper Of Record” for the New York Times and “Democracy Dies In Darkness” for the Washington Post are comically ironic.  The days of Walter Cronkite invoking “ And that’s the way it is” as his sign off are also quaint relics of the past.  The currency of credibility of these outlets have long been spent.

Television was a very powerful medium because most people are easily manipulated by what they see as much as what they hear. It’s been widely accepted that if not for TV viewers watching a debate between a nervous looking Richard Nixon and a polished looking John Kennedy, that Nixon would have won the presidential election in 1960 on the issues alone.

Clearly some objective means of news and information was needed and in 2007, a new micro blogging site, Twitter was created.  The new social media phenomenon allowed anyone to post their thoughts and views with a 280 character maximum. As in all successful businesses in history, this service tapped into a monstrous pool of demand and soon, having a Twitter handle was as de rigueur as having a last name. Whether student or CEO, politician or dictator, famous or unknown, everyone wanted to have their say and most importantly, to hear what others thought.  Thus having ‘followers’ became the new currency of fame.  Unfortunately, Twitter is hardly the font of knowledge.  The most vapid attention whores can garner millions of acolytes and create financial empires for themselves.  Strangely, a platform which notionally allowed the democratization of news and information, became a receptacle for the most vapid in society whose opinions, not knowledge, were expressed.  Well, the first amendment also protects the stupid, so you get what you get.  What many don’t understand is that free speech allows people to say things that others may not want to hear….otherwise it ain’t free.

A great upheaval occurred recently as the platform was purchased by Elon Musk. Long regarded as a vehicle for left wing narratives and censoring of ‘unacceptable’ views, Musk revealed what many have known for years….Twitter was a corrupted platform which enabled propaganda favored by their operators.

It’s been great entertainment to watch ‘celebrities’ profess the validity of their views while at the same time wanting to censor those with views whom they oppose. Philosophically, this is like the monkey wanting to censor the organ grinder. We are treated to the deep intellectual insights of such as Alyssa Milano or of famous meathead Rob Reiner. Oddly, those that have always defended Twitter when it was their own platform are now condemning it for allowing just ‘anyone’ to speak on it and worst of all, with views opposing theirs.  Like a scene from the film Blazing Saddles, many have expressed threats to leave the platform and no longer treat the rest of us to their utterances.

Even more sinister however are the revelations by Musk of the collusion between Twitter and political operatives to sway elections and push detrimental policies. The light has been turned on in the kitchen at night and the cockroaches are scattering.

As in much earlier times, the opening up of Twitter to become a more truly free speech platform will hopefully enable real dialogue on real issues.  People will be more truthfully informed and those in power will need to pay attention.  The views of the dirty unwashed will matter. The time when certain overlords control the message may again be over.