In the age of algorithms and AI, is traditional media democracy's defence? | Hacker News Reader

In the age of algorithms and AI, is traditional media democracy's defence?

martenscentre.eu

17 pointsjruohonen22 comments

This article, as with many like it, ignores the fact that trust in "traditional media" is at an all time low globally. That's not because people enjoy fake news on social media, it's because traditional media has failed them. There are many studies that look at bias in traditional media. But journalists within that system completely ignore that aspect (it's harder to deal with), and simply assume they just need to embrace videos or new formats.

But it’s undemocratic to ask the people whether it’s working, the democratic way is to ask the media if they are doing a good job and then tell the people they are wrong.

Traditional media is running their own LLM before LLM even existed. They absorbed their own bubble of information and hallucinate their narrative. I don’t mean it in a bad way. That’s how our tribal brain works, come up with stories with limited exposure to the world.

We can't have a discussion about "traditional media" until we talk about the perverse incentives of advertising.

Right now all media is focused on driving eyes to ads and data harvesting and that is it. There is no "defense of democracy" or any other high minded fantasy morals at play here.

It's a business like any other, only it's been granted vast protections from the repercussions of its actions.

There was researcher who said that democracies are strengthened by

* Good libraries

* Local news papers

* Volunteering

which all have to do with increasing community, seeing real people with different perspectives, gaining real knowledge.

https://www.nrk.no/kultur/xl/lokalaviser_-frivillighet-og-bi...

no:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird

Journalist argues journalists are important.

But honestly, the answer is no. Traditional Media is biassed opinion wrapped up as fact.

Something I've been wondering about is whether fake news and these alternative realities people live in will eventually have a material impact on their lives.

In my country, where the political divide is huge, I know people who are very successful professionally and financially, yet believe all sorts of things that seem completely detached from reality. For example, I have a cousin who was convinced that if a certain presidential candidate won, the government would confiscate people's savings. Her solution was to convert a large part of her savings into jewelry.

She's highly educated. She also gets a lot of her information about climate change from a fortune teller on Instagram. I know that sounds made up, but it's not.

What's interesting to me is that, despite all this, their lives seem to go on just fine. Maybe they're a bit more anxious than they need to be, but they don't seem materially worse off because of these beliefs.

It makes me wonder whether we're just in an unusual transition period. As it becomes harder to trust what we see online, and as misinformation gets more convincing, will there eventually be a real advantage to consistently relying on reputable sources.

In various places and times in the past, otherwise rational and successful people had all sorts of odd religious (or other ideological) beliefs, that caused them to do odd things. Sometimes, those odd behaviors even had a modest negative impact on them. However, they signaled (perhaps more powerfully because somewhat costly) to those around them that they were on the "correct" side of things, that they had internalized the religion of their peers. This may have paid off for them, on balance, by making them more trusted or liked by other believers.

Not that it always turns out to be a net positive, but it can often enough to keep happening. Some niche religions have too costly demands on their members (e.g. chastity for all believers, giving away all possessions, etc.), and thus fail to survive. But others, and other belief systems that function psychologically in a similar way, can survive despite (or even because of) the modestly costly irrational behaviors. Costly signaling is a more honest testament to your commitment to the ideology.

I would argue traditional media need subsidies similar to those that exist in most democratic states for healthcare

The press should be strong and independent. Subsidies undermines independence.

Um, has the author not been paying attention to what's going on with traditional media?

No.

Betteridge's law of headlines[0] in the wild.

[0]: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...>

We better hope not

lol. Wait til they find out that algorithms work on popularity. Aka democracy.

democracy is deliberate decision-making, not selection of something to force down based on popularity

That is really roundabout way of advocating for limiting the franchise.

Yes it is the deliberate mechanism of deciding by popularity.

The confusion of democracy with populism seems to be a trend over the past decade. Popularity is not democracy. In fact it’s often best if everyone is a little bit unhappy with whatever concession they are making.

How can you tell the difference in a democratic system between something being popular and it being democratic?

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