Intro:
Everyone knows that old adage, "Garbage in, garbage out" related to computer data. Let's sort through what reliable/unreliable information means and the industrialization of information might do related to the roll out of AI. Sure, it looks amazing to get information quickly. It saves so many steps a human would need to complete to get the 'same' result.
I am going to lay out a few scenarios where those "good things" that save us time can backfire.
Smart Phone Backfire
Smart phones are awesome and they help people to do things more quickly but they are replacing much of what the brain needs to do in order to be healthy and useful, like in an extended power failure or other limitation when you would need to use your own knowledge instead of your device.
Smartphones are making people's lives so much better too. You have everything at the tips of your fingers. One tap and you have just dialed your friend or family member. I know... Nobody calls anyone anymore but I needed that one for my next line. So, you get arrested, for example. They take your phone and then tell you that you get the infamous 'one phone call' which will let someone know that you are unable to answer their text messages and that you need bail money. The problem is that you only know a couple numbers by heart, 911 or maybe 411. As for me, I would have yet one more. That would be, 588-2300 Empire! That is a carpeting business in the mid west - so I would be able to order and set up installation for my new carpeting as well as getting info or calling the guys that are holding me hostage.
It is great to go the shortest route to get somewhere. It is cool to know a trick to get something done more easily or more efficiently that without it. Generally, people know that the fastest, most effortless way is always the best way. We have already seen that letting a machine handle it for you can cause a rough spot if arrested. Now let's take that a bit further. Let's make live effortless!
Imagine if I were perfectly healthy but I got a wheel chair to go places, I mean everywhere. Then I got voice command for all my lights and appliances. Then I got a maid to make my food and bring it to me. When I got everything automated so that I need not move a muscle, would I be better off in the long run? Or would I end up being just a husk of a man with muscle atrophy in every limb on my body.
That might be what we are doing when we let another effortless system, supposedly trustworthy, handle things for us. "It's okay, it's free!"
Google started with a surprisingly clean look and a logo that read "don't be evil." on its homepage. There were no ads, just a clean place to type your search. Once they had everyone using their search engine, and later their email, voip, and other "free" products, they used their empire to spamify then entire internet, making an empire of the new ad super culture. Little did we know that it would inundate the world with ads and that our favorite content makers would be frothing at the mouth to make sure we see all of them. The one thing that is better than "free" is a friction free way to make money on what you do anyway on line (think this platform). It was not all bad, but I hated it. for Pewdiepie made, google got many millions. All of that which we all paid for in the form of time and their free use of our internet bandwidth.
Fifty percent or more of what has been published on the internet is completely wrong, provably so, or at best, misleading partial truths. The rest is truth, news, and information that, if one was given all of it, would allow one to make a better choice in what the eat, buy, and accept into their lives. Who they vote for also became a big deal.
It is proven that Google is modifying and censoring certain topics while favoring other topics on the searches you do, partly to gain ad revenue, partly to promote change in a direction that they want (or have been paid to promote),
and partly to hide certain good information while promoting propaganda. We were originally protected from seeing government lies (propaganda) that were told in order to sway the hearts and minds of people in foreign countries. But it was modified in 2013 in order to make it legal to lie to the American people. I mention that because I just said that google was pushing those lies and I wanted you to be able to look this stuff up and see for yourself.
Propaganda
Once people are propagandized (lied to), they can be fed several lies and debate about those differing 'realities' that they were presented with can be quashed or discouraged (by Google?). The result is that people are divided. Everyone then rallies around one idea or the opposite idea, one politician or another politician, one cause or another cause, and that is where we are today. The media repeats something over and over and people get comfortable with what they have heard and do not want to leave that bubble of lies. Others see the lies and try to tell people what they found and are censored. It is a rigged game.
It just came out that the media has been paid to push one side and everyone knows that the other side was censored. One side celebrates that censorship while the other side suffers. Then the politician changes and the other side suffers. Both sides have their sets of facts. The lack of debate and the lies themselves are the sad part. If everyone was provided with the true reality of what is happening in their environment, people could debate and each side's investment in their 'belief" could be discussed. We may not all agree, but there would not be so many broken relationships, so many clashes of protestors, so many violent outbursts between people of the same country.
No matter the topic. Climate - Trump Felonies - Biden Pedophilia - Wall or no wall - Moon landing or not - it doesn't matter. The lies will be exposed. Some already have. The government has always hidden things from us and they always come out, usually 70 to 80 years after the fact. We need to make sure that we are not lied to by biased/paid news sources, platforms (words and people being censored), and the like.
Enter AI
The news media, ABC-CBS-NBC-WGN-NY Times-WPost, are dying. Their credibility is waning. They worked for half a century to build trust and have traded that hard won trust for a political goal and in many cases, payment. I do not know if AI is the cure for their woes or not. I just know that AI will further divide people and keep them separated. Each one cheering when their programmed beliefs are validated.
Fifty percent or more of what has been published on the internet is completely wrong, provably so, or at best... (from above)
So you ask AI to get information that you need to make a big decision or less critical, to form an opinion on a topic.
AI will use mainstream media and magazines, articles, news stories, some including the propaganda/omission/deception that is published everywhere as part of what it finds. It may or may not use other sources and lesser reported news that proves those sources wrong. It writes your thesis or "five minute e-book" that 'you' are writing, and you now have a really easy way to complete your goals. I have read websites that claim to cover a topic and it is all just wordy repetition with no logical beginning or end to it. You will be fed the garbage we talked about because AI uses every bit of what it got from the hodgepodge of narratives fed to people, leading to "garbage out" and where does it land? In your term paper or e-book.
AI does not have the programmatic critical thinking skills to sort through all of what is out there in cyberspace. It cares not about truth. It does not know right from wrong. It cannot (has not been programmed to) tell what is humane and what is inhumane. But I have a theory. I propose that it does have the ability to make an assessment of your political beliefs and life preferences and will feed you what will make you happy, as does Instagram, and it likely does it way better than Instagram does.
It would be one thing to walk up to a brand new computer, with no browser history, connected via a public wifi connection and ask AI a question. It is a completely different scenario if you ask that question from your own computer in your own home. If Instagram can tell what you like, damn sure AI can.
What is coming is a society with individuals that are already polarized, each getting tailored information (the kind they like and are emotionally invested in) that further bolsters them to fight for their cause (or worse) against equally invested people on the other side. Division for sure. I realize that there are many issues with many aspects to each and just as many sides. The point is that every free society that stops debating and reaching common ground, that is lied to and propagandized falls. These are historical, text book, strategies employed on society right before a country falls. In our case, it is happening globally (or disk-ally if that is your chosen reality). Global platforms, global communication made easy equals global societal problem, even collapse.
To avoid this scenario - global collapse - albeit, we need to do some things before empowering an entity like AI, if that can be done. I think the experts that raised a red flag, were ignored, and that ship has sailed. But if we were to stop and think first, we would first have to eliminate everything false that has been fed into it by the people in the media at the behest of our tyranny ridden politicians and weigh what is accurate and what is not before AI gets to chew on it all.
Then, and only then, would AI be a good idea.
Deciding to/not to Use It
If Google has bothered to memorize your buying habits, if Instagram uses your location and likes to send products your way, if you-name-it does the same, then you can be sure AI will be gathering everything about you. Who sees that? What kind of laws and policies will that entity make to stamp out their programmed "enemies" on the opposite side of this or that topic. That, coupled with instant tracking and instantaneous taxing of those who use the coming CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency), will put you at the mercy of whoever controls AI (if anyone does). Some of the above are unknowns. As for me, I will not be taking part in any of that if I have a choice.
I already pulled out of anything Google (I used to be
part of the beta tests of every new product that came out there). I do not use any main stream corporate social media giants, no banks, no discord, no zoom, no android or apple, no email except my own server, no youtube except piped content via their API - no data/location/account, etc. and I am not about to start or go back to any of those. Note that none of those sites are worthy of me capitalizing their names. I have not yet used AI in any way shape or form. I have seen it in use live at friends' houses and I am not impressed. Don't get me wrong. It is a fast way to search the internet but I would not be able to trust that the results are accurate. Think about this. If I had asked AI to write this post, I would be receiving my very first downvotes ever on this account.