theluddite
@theluddite@lemmy.ml
- Comment on The Anti-Intellectualism of Social Media Design 1 day ago:
Yeah I really couldn’t agree more. I really harped on the importance of other properties of the medium, like brevity, when I reviewed the book #HashtagActivism, and how those too are structurally right wing. There’s a lot of scholars doing these kinds of network studies and imo they way too often emphasize user-user dynamics and de-emphasize, if not totally omit, the fact that all these interactions are heavily mediated. Just this week I watched a talk that I thought had many of these same problems.
- Comment on The Anti-Intellectualism of Social Media Design 2 days ago:
Thanks!
I feel enlightened now that you called out the self-reinforcing nature of the algorithms. It makes sense that an RL agent solving the bandits problem would create its own bubbles out of laziness.
You’re totally right that it’s like a multi-armed bandit problem, but maybe with so many possibilities that searching is prohibitively expensive, since the space of options to search is much bigger than the rate that humans can consume content. In other ways, though, there’s a dissimilarity because the agent’s reward depends on its past choices (people watch more of what they’re recommended). It would be really interesting to know if anyone has modeled a multi-armed bandit problem with this kind of self-dependency. I bet that, in that case, the exploration behavior is pretty chaotic. @abucci@buc.ci this seems like something you might just know off the top of your head!
Maybe we can take advantage of that laziness to incept critical thinking back into social media, or at least have it eat itself.
If you have any ideas for how to turn social media against itself, I’d love to hear them. I worked on this post unusually long for a lot of reasons, but one of them was trying to think of a counter strategy. I came up with nothing though!
- Submitted 2 days ago to technology@lemmy.world | 4 comments
- Comment on It begins: Pentagon to give AI agents a role in decision making, ops planning. 3 days ago:
Yup. Silicon-washing genocidal intention is almost certainly the most profitable use of AI we’ve come up with so far.
- Comment on It begins: Pentagon to give AI agents a role in decision making, ops planning. 3 days ago:
- Comment on I'm Tired of Pretending Tech is Making the World Better 4 days ago:
I’d say that’s mostly right, but it’s less about opportunities, and more about design. To return to the example of the factory: Let’s say that there was a communist revolution and the workers now own the factory. The machines still have them facing away from each other. If they want to face each other, they’ll have to rebuild the machine. The values of the old system are literally physically present in the machine.
So it’s not that you can do different things with a technology based on your values, but that different values produce technology differently. This actually limits future possibilities. Those workers physically cannot face each other on that machine, even if they want to use it that way. The past’s values are frozen in that machine.
- Comment on I'm Tired of Pretending Tech is Making the World Better 4 days ago:
No problem!
Technology is constrained by the rules of the physical world, but that is an underconstraint.
Example: Let’s say that there’s a factory, and the factory has a machine that makes whatever. The machine takes 2 people to operate. The thing needs to get made, so that limits the number of possible designs, but there are still many open questions like, for example, should the workers face each other or face away from each other? The boss might make them face away from each other, that way they don’t chat and get distracted. If the workers get to choose, they’d prefer to face each other to make the work more pleasant. In this way, the values of society are embedded in the design of the machine itself.
I struggle with the idea that a tool (like a computer) is bad because is too general purpose. Society hence the people and their values define how the tool is used. Would you elaborate on that? I’d like to understand the idea.
I love computers! It’s not that they’re bad, but that, because they’re so general purpose, more cultural values get embedded. Like in the example above, there are decisions that aren’t determined by the goals of what you’re trying to accomplish, but because computers are so much more open ended than physical robots, there are more decisions like that, and you have even more leeway in how they’re decided.
I agree with you that good/evil is not a productive way to think about it, just like I don’t think neutrality is right either. Instead, I think that our technology contains within it a reflection of who got to make those many design decisions, like which direction should the workers sit. These decisions accumulate. I personally think that capitalism sucks, so technology under capitalism, after a few hundred years, also sucks, since that technology contains within it hundreds of years of capitalist decision-making.
- Comment on I'm Tired of Pretending Tech is Making the World Better 5 days ago:
I didn’t find the article particularly insightful but I don’t like your way of thinking about tech. Technology and society make each other together. Obviously, technology choices like mass transit vs cars shape our lives in ways that the pens example doesn’t help us explain. Similarly, society shapes the way that we make technology. Technology is constrained by the rules of the physical world, but that is an underconstraint. The leftover space (i.e. the vast majority) is the process through which we embed social values into the technology. To return to the example of mass transit vs cars, these obviously have different embedded values within them, which then go on to shape the world that we make around them.
This way of thinking helps explain why computer technology specifically is so awful: Computers are shockingly general purpose in a way that has no parallel in physical products. This means that the underconstraining is more pronounced, so social values have an even more outsized say in how they get made. This is why every other software product is just the pure manifestation of capitalism in a way that a robotic arm could never be.
- Comment on In Vermont, an ultralocal social network is as popular as Facebook 1 week ago:
I’d recommend renting a car (or driving here) and going from the south to the northeast kingdom (northeastern most part of the state and also the most rural part). It’s a small state so it won’t take that long. Burlington is a nice town, but imo totally fine to skip. Vermont’s real charm is its small towns and their breweries, farms, restaurants, etc.
If you like dairy, try the local milk and ice cream at different farms that make, process, and sell on site. Lots of small dairies here have milk from breeds of cows you’ve probably never tried (Jerseys mainly but other kinds too). It’s much tastier and creamier, and varies from farm to farm. Any brewery that has a bar is probably worth your time, and, when it comes to food/drink, we generally punch well above our weight for such a small place. Our maple syrup is, of course, legendary. Pro tip from someone who boils their own: The darker stuff is better, and the smaller the operation, the better the syrup, because bigger operations use fancy machines to extract water, whereas small ones rely entirely on boiling, so that syrup spends a lot more time cooking.
If you like hiking, you’ll drive by lots of good hiking in the process, but the better hiking is in the whites in New Hampshire or in the Adirondacks in NY, though those are worse places in general ;).
Happy to answer specific questions.
- Comment on In Vermont, an ultralocal social network is as popular as Facebook 1 week ago:
The exact same stuff on FPF, especially the pets. I kind of hate how heartbreaking that part can be, honestly.
Anyway, that’s a wonderful tradition. I hope that you’re able to keep it going forever.
- Comment on In Vermont, an ultralocal social network is as popular as Facebook 1 week ago:
Yes, and worse, even if they are true to that vision, other bigger players will be offering huge piles of cash to buy the thing. There will always be a perpetual temptation in its current structure. Just look at another beloved Vermont brand, Ben and Jerry’s, now owned by unilever.
- Comment on In Vermont, an ultralocal social network is as popular as Facebook 1 week ago:
I’m too old to know what emojis mean.
- Comment on In Vermont, an ultralocal social network is as popular as Facebook 1 week ago:
Yes absolutely. It’s just a mailing list! There are bajillions of functioning and wonderful mailing lists all around the world, for neighborhood activities or otherwise. If you wanted to right now, you could make a mailing list and drop off a flyer with a QR code at all your neighbors’ houses. You’d have your own version of this set up in an afternoon, so long as you and other volunteers can find the time to moderate it. My advice to anyone who wants to start one that’s a little more formal, like this one, with paid moderators and staff, is to build your values into its structure. Do you want it to serve the community? Then the community should own it. Think about who you want to serve and make sure that it’s who the company will always be accountable to.
- Comment on In Vermont, an ultralocal social network is as popular as Facebook 1 week ago:
No don’t! I’m glad you posted it! I do think that the story of FPF is worth telling because it actually is really useful and pleasant. The internet doesn’t inherently make us into assholes, but companies on the internet design their products to bring out the worst in us.
- Comment on In Vermont, an ultralocal social network is as popular as Facebook 1 week ago:
I live in Vermont. These rosy articles about Front Porch Forum come out every so often, and, as someone who writes about the intersection of tech and capitalism, they frustrate me.
First things first, it’s a moderated mailing list with some ads. I don’t know if it even makes sense to call it a social network, honestly. It’s a great service because moderated mailing lists are great. Here’s the problem:
To maintain this level of moderation, the founder does not want to expand Front Porch Forum beyond Vermont’s borders. He highlighted Nextdoor, another locally-focused social media platform that has expanded internationally, which has often been accused of inflaming tensions within communities due to its more relaxed moderation policy. However, Sabathier believes that local social media similar to Front Porch Forum could work elsewhere in the US, including in less progressive states – Vermont, the home of socialist Senator Bernie Sanders, was the state that cast the fewest votes for Trump in the November 2024 election. “It’s not so much a political platform as a tool for communities to organize themselves and be more cohesive,” said the researcher. “And that would be beneficial everywhere.”
Capitalism makes this world impossible. Front Porch Forum is a private business owned by a guy (technically, it’s a public benefit corporation, but those are toothless designations). Like so many beloved services, it’ll be great until it’s not. Eventually, cofounders, as lovely and well meaning as they might be, leave, move, die, whatever, and someone shitty will end up in control. Without a corporate restructuring into, say, a user cooperative, it is just as doomed as every other internet thing that we’ve all loved. These puff pieces always act like Vermont is a magical place and, frankly, it is, but not like this. We live under capitalism too. Sometimes, due to being a rural, freezing, mountainous backwater, we get short reprieves from the worst of it, but the problem with social media is systemic.
AMA I guess.
- Comment on DIY hot / bath tub in shed? 8 months ago:
Sounds very doable! My friend has an old claw foot tub that he lights a fire under. If you want something a little less country, you can buy on demand electric or propane water heaters and hook your hose up, though I’d expect the electric one wouldn’t be able to keep up at 120v. Hardest part of this project is probably moving the tub. I say go for it!
- Comment on 'Vortex Cannon vs Drone' - Mark Rober shows off tech from a "defense technology company that specializes in advanced autonomous systems". That seems bad 10 months ago:
Totally agreed. It’s not okay to normalize making death machines. I’m involved in a project to tries to reach STEM students to explain that working in defense is actually morally wrong, and it’s very frustrating to see Rober basically run an ad for a defense company, complete with “bad guys” and normalizing a militarized border. I’ve already written about working in “defense” in general, but we’ll be responding directly to his video, not that we have anywhere near the reach that he has.
- Comment on Elizabeth Warren slammed for wanting to ‘break up Apple’s smartphone monopoly’ 10 months ago:
Your comment perfectly encapsulates one of the central contradictions in modern journalism. You explain the style guide, and the need to communicate information in a consistent way, but then explain that the style guide is itself guided by business interests, not by some search for truth, clarity, or meaning.
I’ve been a long time reader of FAIR.org and i highly recommend them to anyone in this thread who can tell that something is up with journalism but has never done a dive into what exactly it is. Modern journalism has a very clear ideology (in the sorta zizek sense, not claiming that the journalists do it nefariously). Once you learn to see it, it’s everywhere
- Comment on Suicide is on the rise for young Americans, with no clear answers 10 months ago:
AI chatbots are the only possible answer: Loneliness and suicide mitigation for students using GPT3-enabled chatbots
Oops nevermind that paper is a complete fucking fraud.
- Comment on ‘The machine did it coldly’: Israel used AI to identify 37,000 Hamas targets 11 months ago:
The purpose of a system is what it does
According to the cybernetician, the purpose of a system is what it does. This is a basic dictum. It stands for bald fact, which makes a better starting point in seeking understanding than the familiar attributions of good intention, prejudices about expectations, moral judgment, or sheer ignorance of circumstances.
The AI is “supposed” to identify targets, but in reality, the system’s purpose is to justify indiscriminate murder.
- Comment on Internet providers have left rural Americans behind. One county is fighting back 11 months ago:
Vermont has several towns with as little as a thousand people that have fiber internet thanks to municipal cooperatives like ECFiber. Much of the state is a connectivity wasteland but it’s really cool to see some towns working together to sort it out.
- Comment on Millions of research papers at risk of disappearing from the Internet 11 months ago:
I’m suspicious of this concept of editorial independence. I think it’s a smoke screen that lets companies have their cake and eat it too. As far as I’m concerned, whoever cashes the checks also gets the blame, because either ownership means something, in which case the concept exists to obfuscate that, or it doesn’t, in which case why is nature buying up other journals?
- Comment on Millions of research papers at risk of disappearing from the Internet 11 months ago:
- Comment on Millions of research papers at risk of disappearing from the Internet 11 months ago:
I cannot handle the fucking irony of that article being on nature, one of the organizations most responsible for fucking it up in the first place. Nature is a peer-reviewed journal that charges people thousands upon thousands of dollars to publish (that’s right, charges, not pays), asks peer reviewers to volunteer their time, and then charges rent the very institutions that produced the knowledge rent to access it. It’s all upside. Because they’re the most prestigious journal (or maybe one of two or three), they can charge rent on that prestige, then leverage it to buy and start other subsidiary journals. Now they have this beast of an academic publishing empire that is a complete fucking mess.
- Comment on The Dating App Paradox: Why dating apps may be 'worse than ever' 1 year ago:
I’ve had similar experiences to what troyunrau@lemmy.ca describes. The problem comes more from the expectations that users have as consumers, which they bring with them to open source projects from general culture, not necessarily the existence of the users themselves. Some of those users for big open source projects are often corporations, to boot.
- Comment on The Dating App Paradox: Why dating apps may be 'worse than ever' 1 year ago:
I’ve posted this here before, but this phenomenon isn’t unique to dating apps, though dating apps are a particularly good example. The problem is that capitalism uses computers backwards.
- Comment on Florida Senate takes up bill banning kids from having social media accounts 1 year ago:
Maybe this is a hot take, but it’s really unfortunate that only the unhinged conservative lunatics are willing to have this discussion. I actually think that it’d be really healthy in a democracy to come together and exercise some agency in how we allow tech companies to access our children, if at all, but American liberals seem committed to some very broken notions of technocratic progress paired with free speech, while American conservatives are happy to throw all that way in order to have total control over their children, arriving closer to the right place for very dangerous reasons.
- Comment on A ‘Shocking’ Amount of the Web Is Already AI-Translated Trash, Scientists Determine 1 year ago:
My editor is an actual saint. Imagine all the shit that she has to put up with that gets cut if that made it through!
- Comment on A ‘Shocking’ Amount of the Web Is Already AI-Translated Trash, Scientists Determine 1 year ago:
Dates could be made up!, too.The blog posts that I generated for my site included made up dates in the past. The internet archive says it has a snapshot for March of 2023, but when I click it, it says it doesn’t, so I have no way of verifying. The theory about parking real estate hoping to sell it also seems pretty plausible to me. Who knows what dumb shit they’re up to.
- Comment on A ‘Shocking’ Amount of the Web Is Already AI-Translated Trash, Scientists Determine 1 year ago:
It’s probably either waiting for approval to sell ads or was denied and they’re adding more stuff. Google has a virtual monopoly on ads, and their approval process can take 1-2 weeks. Google’s content policy basially demands that your site by full of generated trash to sell ads. I did a case study here, in which Google denied my popular and useful website for ads until I filled it with the lowest-quality generated trash imaginable. That might help clarify what’s up.
