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Comment by boxed | Hacker News Reader

The article seems a bit all over the place when it comes to moral clarity and reality alignment. I do agree with their premise though that widespread influence of basic beliefs shouldn't be done by AI systems that a few people can control. It's a bit naive to think this isn't done already. And also done manually by troll farms etc.

We do need to have better schools so that our children understand the deep interconnectedness of reality. This is the only defense against conspiracy theorists, MLMs, cults, etc.

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> It's a bit naive to think this isn't done already

Yes, it is definitely done already. However, the point emphasized is this is another level up for capability. Any technology that can be used to influence/control people will be used to do so.

The other disturbing aspect is that despite all of the known pitfalls and abuse that has already occurred there are no shortages of people who are enthusiastically willing to deploy such capabilities to be used on everyone else without a moment's thought of the repercussions.

> It's a bit naive to think this isn't done already.

anyone that has used gpt4 for a few minutes for anything more than the simplest of questions already knows that this happens routinely.

for the easiest to touch-upon things try election questions. If you want it to impose a specific morality on you then try to get it to write fiction with risque themes.

guideposts abound, implying 'moral' guidance and direction.

We have entire industries dedicated to telling lies and influencing behaviour - often in ways that are sold as fulfilling, but are actually self-harming.

So of course this technology is going to be used to do that more efficiently. And transparently, so no one is aware of it.

I can imagine a future where mainstream AI chat and interactions control the mainstream discourse, and guerrilla AIs operate at the fringes, pushing people into even more toxic discourses or - in some cases - acting to deprogram them.

It's going to make social media quite interesting.

You mean opaquely. Transparently means people can see it.

> I can imagine a future where mainstream AI chat and interactions control the mainstream discourse, and guerrilla AIs operate at the fringes, pushing people into even more toxic discourses or - in some cases - acting to deprogram them.

> It's going to make social media quite interesting.

I don't think "interesting" is the right word for that. More like hopeless and depressing.

Anyone with any sense will have no choice but to disengage from public, online interactions (and arguably from any private group that's large enough to be infiltrated). Anyone left in public will be little more than a sheep to be herded. Anything they make will be seen by no one, because it will be a needle in a haystack of AI-driven propaganda and spam, only engaged with by those same bots.

I don’t see how it is all over the place. The author seems quite firm in their position/belief.

They seem to be confused about the existence of an underlying reality. That's what it sounds like to me.

I’m sure that sounded scathing to you when you wrote it. :)

Yeah, but that learning does not really go well with religion and politics, deploying the same tactics as the school should be pushing against.

I don't understand this comment. I was clearly saying school should prepare children to be immunized against reality-averse movements.

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