As a retired academic, I am glad that I won't have to deal with students cheating themselves out of critical thinking by having ChatGBT do their assignments. I won't have to deal with colleagues doing the same thing with the excuse of publication pressure.
But as a (hopefully moral/ethical) citizen of the world this absolutely terrifies me. It is not "merely" an issue of markets. It is much more fundamental--and much scarier--than that. We can no longer trust in the integrity of data from formerly trustworthy scientists. The "scientists/experts" themselves may not even exist. What is real? Nothing is real?
Coincidentally, I had just been exploring these issues with a retired Dean. This morning I had been sent a notification of a YT video of potential interest allegedly by a retired professor from somewhereorother in the Divided States of America. Something seemed a bit off. The voice was a bit weird. Emphasis sometimes placed on the wrong word. Lip-synching sometimes a bit off. So I probed deeper into the platform and found a disclaimer: it was ALL FAKE! ALL AI!! I guess that legally they/it can get away with this just by planting a disclaimer that 98% of the consumers will never see.
But it got me to thinking a bit more critically about what precious time I may be wasting giving any attention at all to what an AI algorithm is being used to control my perceptions of reality.
So ... my traditional sign-off: STAY SAFE ... but now with the additional request: STAY REAL. PLEASE.
Some of my favorite young liberal podcasters post behind headlines right out of 1960s grocery store tabloids and almost never does the content deliver. (How many times can Trump's collapse be announced even when in reality he didn't?) They may or may not have say-so as to titles, but it's to the point where I ask, "How stupid do they think we are?" I still send them (and you, David) money because fighting back is critical, though I wish they didn't bow to algorithms just to be heard. I find it a major turn-off, those incendiary titles.
David - Thank you so much for researching and writing about this. What you're saying is absolutely true. Social media, websites and this online life affect all of us - but some more than others - the young, the impressionable, those thirsting to belong. Wouldn't it be great if you could actually define the "crimes" being committed by Big Tech and arrest them, take them to court so the "discovery" process would reveal the machinations behind it all. You know, I think of the movie, "The Social Network," about the creation of Facebook. And I think, Mark Zuckerberg couldn't have imagined, back in his Harvard days, what Facebook would become - for good, but very much for ill also. Perhaps the same with Twitter. I don't know. Whatever their initial vision of these networks, they sure haven't minded the millions and billions of dollars they have made from them. I am heartened that a number of schools are now prohibiting the use of phones, and there are some other hopeful initiatives. One is called "1000 Hours Outside," a movement begun by Ginny Yurich, in direct response to the time children spend in front of screens. Its goal is to have children spend at least 1000 hours outside over the course of a year, which amounts to about 2.5 hours/day. Anyway, it is very hard to both recognize the nefarious goals of these online sites, and to fight against them. I'm glad we have fighters like you in our corner.
Over the summer I deleted all social media accounts. It’s done wonders for my overall mood, outlook and productivity. I do not miss those wasted, psyche-assaulting hours (that had previously been devoted to Twitter, IG, FB, etc) in the least. Social media falls somewhere between a cesspool and a wasteland.
I am lucky. At 87 I can look back down the years for perspective. When I'm "click baited," I react by 1) commenting and telling them I'm not happy, 2) thumbs down, and 3) not subscribing, or unsubscribing. I want you to value me, not use me or trick me. That's why I trust David like I do. He still tells you unhappy truths and well as plain truths. Keep going.
Hi David....you know, I caught myself yesterday morning, just looking at my phone...nothing in particular...just "stuff"...and I sez to myself...self...look at what you are doing...wasting time on nothing....phone down. Madison Avenue ad man was an amateur compared to the power of what faces us (literally) now!
This spring I de-googled my phone and installed Graphene OS. Once you realise that you're the product, not the consumer, you can change things. I got off Facebook because Mark was making more from me than I was from HIm. I stopped getting all the annoying ads and emails. I'm on some social media selectively, but I also got off Twitter, now X, because it was becoming even more of a right wing cesspool. Hello BlueSky. Do your homework and figure out who is influencing you most and start putting your efforts and attention somewhere else. There are lots of similar options that won't have the same reach. Great post. Thanks David
I have also noticed that it is very often the one-liner grossly over-simplified Comments that get all the "likes". Lengthy cogitations just don't cut it anymore. Few seem to have the time to think. Perhaps many don't even know how to engage in critical thinking anymore. It is so much simpler and faster to relinquish control over to a machine that, among many other issues, is very bad for the environment.
Yes Mr David sir, I'm a free subscriber to your substack, and I love it I'm 62 years old whom as soonest I am up star looking for your shows, it gets me to my routine every morning, thank for a pleasant shows 😀
Your explanation may hint at what has happened at a church I visit often to have coffee with friends after worship. I was a regular worshiper until February, when someone decided I had made a troublesome comment at coffee, told the leaders, and a special meeting with four people was held, not to listen or discuss, but to castigate me. My requests to know the comment were ignored. The scary part is that as the meeting proceeded I felt more and more I was with a MAGA group concerned about loyalty, and that we were heading down a path like the one followed by Hitler's indoctrinated Youth. I was married to one of those boys who carried difficult baggage into his adulthood. I picked up on the hearsay, secrecy, threat, distraction, fault-finding (made up), lies and the use of Hitler's "big lie" propaganda technique only when I did later research. The anger at my not obeying the church command to stop coming for coffee has led to a recent Notice of Trespass in my mail box, with its promise of calling the police and fines or prison if I continued to show up on their property. The two church members, whom I knew from an earlier alliance with that congregation years ago, were fun to know. They have changed, and are different people now. As a retired pastor I find myself having the same reactions to the church as I did to the marriage, most notably bewilderment, as I tried to make sense of lies that made no sense. Do these people who have such strong wills come to actually believe their own lies? Are they then beyond hope?
You have to be mindful enough to curate your own consumption. I use my phone to get the news that corporate media won’t tell me. To find entertainment that has meaning and has value. To learn a language and meditation. To sell stuff or buy stuff I can’t find in a store. Pay attention to what you ingest, it forms who are. Thanks David
This is why Substack is so important. I read through every newsletter. I may only skim, if I've gotten the same info from another source, but I don't really pay attention to the newsletter "headline". If I subscribe to a Substack, it's because that perspective is important to me.
As a retired academic, I am glad that I won't have to deal with students cheating themselves out of critical thinking by having ChatGBT do their assignments. I won't have to deal with colleagues doing the same thing with the excuse of publication pressure.
But as a (hopefully moral/ethical) citizen of the world this absolutely terrifies me. It is not "merely" an issue of markets. It is much more fundamental--and much scarier--than that. We can no longer trust in the integrity of data from formerly trustworthy scientists. The "scientists/experts" themselves may not even exist. What is real? Nothing is real?
Coincidentally, I had just been exploring these issues with a retired Dean. This morning I had been sent a notification of a YT video of potential interest allegedly by a retired professor from somewhereorother in the Divided States of America. Something seemed a bit off. The voice was a bit weird. Emphasis sometimes placed on the wrong word. Lip-synching sometimes a bit off. So I probed deeper into the platform and found a disclaimer: it was ALL FAKE! ALL AI!! I guess that legally they/it can get away with this just by planting a disclaimer that 98% of the consumers will never see.
But it got me to thinking a bit more critically about what precious time I may be wasting giving any attention at all to what an AI algorithm is being used to control my perceptions of reality.
So ... my traditional sign-off: STAY SAFE ... but now with the additional request: STAY REAL. PLEASE.
❤️🇨🇦
That's an important request. "STAY REAL, PLEASE!
Some of my favorite young liberal podcasters post behind headlines right out of 1960s grocery store tabloids and almost never does the content deliver. (How many times can Trump's collapse be announced even when in reality he didn't?) They may or may not have say-so as to titles, but it's to the point where I ask, "How stupid do they think we are?" I still send them (and you, David) money because fighting back is critical, though I wish they didn't bow to algorithms just to be heard. I find it a major turn-off, those incendiary titles.
I've thought many times: "We know he's bad. The question is what are we going to do about it?"
David - Thank you so much for researching and writing about this. What you're saying is absolutely true. Social media, websites and this online life affect all of us - but some more than others - the young, the impressionable, those thirsting to belong. Wouldn't it be great if you could actually define the "crimes" being committed by Big Tech and arrest them, take them to court so the "discovery" process would reveal the machinations behind it all. You know, I think of the movie, "The Social Network," about the creation of Facebook. And I think, Mark Zuckerberg couldn't have imagined, back in his Harvard days, what Facebook would become - for good, but very much for ill also. Perhaps the same with Twitter. I don't know. Whatever their initial vision of these networks, they sure haven't minded the millions and billions of dollars they have made from them. I am heartened that a number of schools are now prohibiting the use of phones, and there are some other hopeful initiatives. One is called "1000 Hours Outside," a movement begun by Ginny Yurich, in direct response to the time children spend in front of screens. Its goal is to have children spend at least 1000 hours outside over the course of a year, which amounts to about 2.5 hours/day. Anyway, it is very hard to both recognize the nefarious goals of these online sites, and to fight against them. I'm glad we have fighters like you in our corner.
Once those millions and billions of dollars started pouring in everything else went out the window...conscience care empathy soul blah blah....
Over the summer I deleted all social media accounts. It’s done wonders for my overall mood, outlook and productivity. I do not miss those wasted, psyche-assaulting hours (that had previously been devoted to Twitter, IG, FB, etc) in the least. Social media falls somewhere between a cesspool and a wasteland.
David, May I suggest two Noam Chomsky readings: 1) The Responsibility of Intellectuals (1967); 2) Manufacturing Consent (1988).
I am lucky. At 87 I can look back down the years for perspective. When I'm "click baited," I react by 1) commenting and telling them I'm not happy, 2) thumbs down, and 3) not subscribing, or unsubscribing. I want you to value me, not use me or trick me. That's why I trust David like I do. He still tells you unhappy truths and well as plain truths. Keep going.
I'm so glad you wrote about this subject. I was just talking to family about this although you were able to explain with better clarity.
This was a fabulous article!
Hi David....you know, I caught myself yesterday morning, just looking at my phone...nothing in particular...just "stuff"...and I sez to myself...self...look at what you are doing...wasting time on nothing....phone down. Madison Avenue ad man was an amateur compared to the power of what faces us (literally) now!
This spring I de-googled my phone and installed Graphene OS. Once you realise that you're the product, not the consumer, you can change things. I got off Facebook because Mark was making more from me than I was from HIm. I stopped getting all the annoying ads and emails. I'm on some social media selectively, but I also got off Twitter, now X, because it was becoming even more of a right wing cesspool. Hello BlueSky. Do your homework and figure out who is influencing you most and start putting your efforts and attention somewhere else. There are lots of similar options that won't have the same reach. Great post. Thanks David
I looked up Graphene OS and it's only for Android phones. Does anyone have suggestions for iPhones?
I have also noticed that it is very often the one-liner grossly over-simplified Comments that get all the "likes". Lengthy cogitations just don't cut it anymore. Few seem to have the time to think. Perhaps many don't even know how to engage in critical thinking anymore. It is so much simpler and faster to relinquish control over to a machine that, among many other issues, is very bad for the environment.
STAY SAFE and STAY REAL. PLEASE.
❤️🇨🇦❤️
And we’ve got soldiers in the streets.
Yes Mr David sir, I'm a free subscriber to your substack, and I love it I'm 62 years old whom as soonest I am up star looking for your shows, it gets me to my routine every morning, thank for a pleasant shows 😀
Your explanation may hint at what has happened at a church I visit often to have coffee with friends after worship. I was a regular worshiper until February, when someone decided I had made a troublesome comment at coffee, told the leaders, and a special meeting with four people was held, not to listen or discuss, but to castigate me. My requests to know the comment were ignored. The scary part is that as the meeting proceeded I felt more and more I was with a MAGA group concerned about loyalty, and that we were heading down a path like the one followed by Hitler's indoctrinated Youth. I was married to one of those boys who carried difficult baggage into his adulthood. I picked up on the hearsay, secrecy, threat, distraction, fault-finding (made up), lies and the use of Hitler's "big lie" propaganda technique only when I did later research. The anger at my not obeying the church command to stop coming for coffee has led to a recent Notice of Trespass in my mail box, with its promise of calling the police and fines or prison if I continued to show up on their property. The two church members, whom I knew from an earlier alliance with that congregation years ago, were fun to know. They have changed, and are different people now. As a retired pastor I find myself having the same reactions to the church as I did to the marriage, most notably bewilderment, as I tried to make sense of lies that made no sense. Do these people who have such strong wills come to actually believe their own lies? Are they then beyond hope?
You have to be mindful enough to curate your own consumption. I use my phone to get the news that corporate media won’t tell me. To find entertainment that has meaning and has value. To learn a language and meditation. To sell stuff or buy stuff I can’t find in a store. Pay attention to what you ingest, it forms who are. Thanks David
This is why Substack is so important. I read through every newsletter. I may only skim, if I've gotten the same info from another source, but I don't really pay attention to the newsletter "headline". If I subscribe to a Substack, it's because that perspective is important to me.
Don't just do something, STAND THERE!