We have a massive poisoning of the commons catastrophe coming, driven by further authoritarian government overreach and control. I've seen no one working on this, and in fact most people on HN seem to be working on ways to further exacerbate this problem. I don't just mean half solutions like tor or social protocols that let you in and out of walled gardens.
There's still a tiny window of opportunity for engineers to come up with or design technical safeguards, but eventually this problem will move past the realm of what's easily solvable and out of our hands, and into policy makers hands. A big part of me feels like that window is already slammed shut.
mmooss•34m ago
There were many disinformation research organizations in the US, including at major institutions such as Harvard and Stanford, that were forced to close by conservatives through lawfare or apparently through donor pressure.
(It's interesting that conservatives saw it as a partisan cause.)
Mistletoe•33m ago
To quote The Cable Guy, there’s only one answer, someone has to kill the babysitter (tv, social media, Big Tech). It’s hard to kill the babysitter when everyone in Congress is invested balls deep in the babysitter. Eisenhower warned of the coming overreaching powers of the Military Industrial Complex, but no one is attacking the Government Stock Market Tech Complex (GSMTC).
kubb•27m ago
It feels like "Autonomous Coding Agents" are being astroturfed on the daily on HN. The same arguments and tropes are echoing through every thread.
It's hard to distinguish who's a bot, who's a narrative pusher and who's an enthusiast. Which is exactly what you'd want from an astroturfing campaign. There's a clear benefit: people in the industry are reading this, and in doing so they're granting mindshare.
There's one way that can prevent inauthentic support campaigns - personal key signature. But judging by how afraid people, especially in the US, need to be of their government surveilling them, this isn't going to catch on.
coffeefirst•20m ago
Yes. I’ve also been asking every engineer I know what they’re doing with AI and there’s a lot of people doing a lot of different things, but it’s a deep mismatch with the online rhetoric.
This phenomenon appears to be incrementally coming for every single topic and public platform.
RobRivera•19m ago
Its already here.
ajkjk•19m ago
strong agree, I feel like it poisons the fabric society somehow when everything you interact with is fake or even just has a good chance of being fake, regardless of the also-shitty fact that it is also often trying to influence you.
apsurd•15m ago
Also how the being fake doesn't even have to be malicious. now every tom, dick, and harry wants to create content. All the world's a stage, follower count go up.
dluan•38m ago
There's still a tiny window of opportunity for engineers to come up with or design technical safeguards, but eventually this problem will move past the realm of what's easily solvable and out of our hands, and into policy makers hands. A big part of me feels like that window is already slammed shut.
mmooss•34m ago
(It's interesting that conservatives saw it as a partisan cause.)
Mistletoe•33m ago
kubb•27m ago
It's hard to distinguish who's a bot, who's a narrative pusher and who's an enthusiast. Which is exactly what you'd want from an astroturfing campaign. There's a clear benefit: people in the industry are reading this, and in doing so they're granting mindshare.
There's one way that can prevent inauthentic support campaigns - personal key signature. But judging by how afraid people, especially in the US, need to be of their government surveilling them, this isn't going to catch on.
coffeefirst•20m ago
This phenomenon appears to be incrementally coming for every single topic and public platform.
RobRivera•19m ago