Social media has primed the public to be manipulated by human impersonating AI.
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Social media has primed the public to be manipulated by human impersonating AI.
As a teen growing up with early internet I struggled to get adults to understand that *anything* going on "online" could possibly be important or real.
But over a decade of social media has taught many people that a text chat can be significant: emotionally important.
I think a pre-socail media public would be more inclined to just roll their eyes at LLMs.
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Social media has primed the public to be manipulated by human impersonating AI.
As a teen growing up with early internet I struggled to get adults to understand that *anything* going on "online" could possibly be important or real.
But over a decade of social media has taught many people that a text chat can be significant: emotionally important.
I think a pre-socail media public would be more inclined to just roll their eyes at LLMs.
And many people are still baffled by social media. The idea of an open forum-style conversation. "Who are you talking to?"
All of the people I know who have been to some degree taken in by LLMs have also never understood social media "what do I post?"
They either see it as insanely narcissistic. "Why would I tell thousands of people I have a headache?" or think of it as more or less direct than it really is (think of people who sign their posts like emails.)
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And many people are still baffled by social media. The idea of an open forum-style conversation. "Who are you talking to?"
All of the people I know who have been to some degree taken in by LLMs have also never understood social media "what do I post?"
They either see it as insanely narcissistic. "Why would I tell thousands of people I have a headache?" or think of it as more or less direct than it really is (think of people who sign their posts like emails.)
They may try to respond to each and every person as if they are speaking one on one. That is, they just never got the hang of social media.
Meanwhile, a large portion of human social life has moved into these spaces. And many online social media spaces are toxic. I tend to think any social media space with advertising or that is owned by a company probably won't be a healthy space.
But these people can turn to an LLM. It won't dogpile them. It won't ignore their post and give zero likes.
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F myrmepropagandist shared this topic
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Social media has primed the public to be manipulated by human impersonating AI.
As a teen growing up with early internet I struggled to get adults to understand that *anything* going on "online" could possibly be important or real.
But over a decade of social media has taught many people that a text chat can be significant: emotionally important.
I think a pre-socail media public would be more inclined to just roll their eyes at LLMs.
I would say rather that the current set of text generators being promoted as "AI" have been designed to manipulate people into anthropomorphizing the software.
It was a deliberately choice for OpenAI, Anthropic, etc. to have the default interface to be chatbots that emulate the usual social media interfaces.
(Although the same manipulative strategy worked with ELIZA even before widespread social medial use...)
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I would say rather that the current set of text generators being promoted as "AI" have been designed to manipulate people into anthropomorphizing the software.
It was a deliberately choice for OpenAI, Anthropic, etc. to have the default interface to be chatbots that emulate the usual social media interfaces.
(Although the same manipulative strategy worked with ELIZA even before widespread social medial use...)
@michael_w_busch @futurebird Indeed, I saw many anthropomorphize ChatGPT but what do you thing firms gains from such user behavior?
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@michael_w_busch @futurebird Indeed, I saw many anthropomorphize ChatGPT but what do you thing firms gains from such user behavior?
@emilianosandri @michael_w_busch
It is one of the only ways that this "technology" has experienced organic success with non-corporate customers.
There are a lot of people who pay to use GPT. Is it a "revolution in tech" IDK about that. But it's a very popular app and, for individual users that popularity is tied to the "person like" qualities and for some it is addictive an maybe maladaptive.
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And many people are still baffled by social media. The idea of an open forum-style conversation. "Who are you talking to?"
All of the people I know who have been to some degree taken in by LLMs have also never understood social media "what do I post?"
They either see it as insanely narcissistic. "Why would I tell thousands of people I have a headache?" or think of it as more or less direct than it really is (think of people who sign their posts like emails.)
@futurebird Some people when you ask why they don't post on social media will respond with some variation of "I'm not funny enough."
The structure of Twitter really encourages you to think of it as performance art. An open mic night where telling a good joke is rewarded.
I don't think Mastodon or Bluesky or whatever have solved this problem. I'm not sure they ever wanted to.
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@futurebird Some people when you ask why they don't post on social media will respond with some variation of "I'm not funny enough."
The structure of Twitter really encourages you to think of it as performance art. An open mic night where telling a good joke is rewarded.
I don't think Mastodon or Bluesky or whatever have solved this problem. I'm not sure they ever wanted to.
Media report on famous people using social media, and "big accounts" seem like the main thing.
But the real main thing are little conversations, it's like a cafeteria at space camp here.
Twitter was like a prison cafeteria.
