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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread |
On March 16 2026 13:27 Razyda wrote:Show nested quote +On March 14 2026 04:48 LightSpectra wrote:
The TL.net US Politics Mega-thread is simultaneously so unimportant that nobody could ever get radicalized by the fascists posting in it, but somehow also the grassroots backbone that could very well constitute the very future of the Democratic Party itself. TL radicalised me like nothing else could... Show nested quote +On March 15 2026 19:07 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:On March 15 2026 17:29 baal wrote:On March 15 2026 13:06 KwarK wrote:
The digital town square only works if it follows the same rough rules as the real town square, you have to show your face, you have to be willing to face the social consequences for your speech, people have to be able to speak back to you.
When Mr Burns shows up at the Springfield town hall to argue against solar power the people of Springfield have the advantage of knowing that he isn't a well meaning concerned citizen, he has a conflicting financial interest. That is necessary for true dialogue to work.
This is all the more important in an era of bots using LLMs to impersonate humans.
In a lot of parts of the world people can be killed by what they say, also in many parts including the 1st world people can go to prison for the wrong opinions etc. Manning and Assange went through hell and countless others would without anonymity. In the parts of the world you can get killed there is no such thing as anonymous social media either way. Authoritarian states does not like their citizens being able to talk freely and there are already laws against it (see Russia shutting down telegram, China, Turkey etc.) If they can't shut down or control social media they just shut down the internet (Iran etc). In democratic countries the amount of people going to jail over "free speech" is so minute and the types of speech regulated so small it's a negligible problem. But the more important thing is that in a democracy you can rather easily change the laws. And people tend to forget even a functional democracy is the dictatorship of the commons. There are always going to be fringe ideas that the majority finds so offensive that they are banned and it's just how it works. Meanwhile the problems with bots and false propaganda is huge and growing. I voted for the pirate party (twice) when I was young. That pretty much sums up my ideas on anonymity and net use. I've been an active internet user all my life and I now think that social media should not be anonymous because the problems are so rampant at this point. An easy example is the completely fake AFD hit piece article (posted on a cloned website of politico) that even made it to TL.net. A single google search shows how it was posted, amplified by bots on X and twitter until it started to be shared by real users, eventually getting posted here. Website is offline now but the damage is already done. If you follow things like the Ukraine war for long enough you can "feel" when the bots get activated to push a certain narrative. Back in the old days it was citizens/internet users against the big companies/governments/political parties fighting against regulation. These days it's citizens/internet users who wants regulation and big companies/some governments/some political parties who are against it. I think the fact that old school "pirates" are now on the other side against the enemy is evidence enough that anonymity on social media is no longer in our interest. "Authoritarian states does not like their citizens being able to talk freely" "Authoritarian states does not like their citizens being able to talk freely" "Authoritarian states does not like their citizens being able to talk freely" A+ for effort, F for understanding the issue. What country have nost people arested for social media posts?
Almost certainly China.
Russia could be up there with arresting people talking about the war.
Very hard to tell without numbers but the laws in China are extremely strict and it's a big country. I think it's hard to beat.
I know you want me to say Britain but there is no way that's actually true.
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On March 16 2026 03:09 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2026 01:55 GreenHorizons wrote:
There's probably some unforeseen economic impacts of removing bots (and now AI agents) when we consider they make up about half of the internet traffic most ads are metric'd off of.
There's basically a centi-billion dollar industry (without counting the platforms themselves really) in arbitraging (frauding) ad engagement by buying fake engagement and selling it to advertisers.
(EDIT: Advertising is rather uniquely central to the US economy.)
That probably has an unrecognized impact on the culture/sociology of the humans on (and off) the internet that is worthy of consideration. And half the S&P 500 is an AI bubble with little purpose and no financial viability, The economy is utterly fucked either way.
NVIDIA pays Meta/X/etc to generate AI enhanced advertisements, the AI learns the most effective ads target AI bots, the AI bots learn the best ads are AI generated, Meta/X/etc needs to buy more NVIDIA stuff to handle the ever increasing AI traffic. Infinite money glitch achieved.
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On March 16 2026 17:02 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2026 03:09 Gorsameth wrote:On March 16 2026 01:55 GreenHorizons wrote:
There's probably some unforeseen economic impacts of removing bots (and now AI agents) when we consider they make up about half of the internet traffic most ads are metric'd off of.
There's basically a centi-billion dollar industry (without counting the platforms themselves really) in arbitraging (frauding) ad engagement by buying fake engagement and selling it to advertisers.
(EDIT: Advertising is rather uniquely central to the US economy.)
That probably has an unrecognized impact on the culture/sociology of the humans on (and off) the internet that is worthy of consideration. And half the S&P 500 is an AI bubble with little purpose and no financial viability, The economy is utterly fucked either way. NVIDIA pays Meta/X/etc to generate AI enhanced advertisements, the AI learns the most effective ads target AI bots, the AI bots learn the best ads are AI generated, Meta/X/etc needs to buy more NVIDIA stuff to handle the ever increasing AI traffic. Infinite money glitch achieved.
I think this is very interresting! The problem is that big tech had so much money to burn initially, it can be passed around in circles for a long time before running out.
There are limitations, though: most notably energy. Both consumers, other industries and environmental organisations are not happy about the reckelss energy consumption of data centres. The raised oil price following the Iran war can speed this up, as many centres rely of fossil fueled local power.
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On March 16 2026 15:58 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2026 13:27 Razyda wrote:On March 14 2026 04:48 LightSpectra wrote:
The TL.net US Politics Mega-thread is simultaneously so unimportant that nobody could ever get radicalized by the fascists posting in it, but somehow also the grassroots backbone that could very well constitute the very future of the Democratic Party itself. TL radicalised me like nothing else could... On March 15 2026 19:07 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:On March 15 2026 17:29 baal wrote:On March 15 2026 13:06 KwarK wrote:
The digital town square only works if it follows the same rough rules as the real town square, you have to show your face, you have to be willing to face the social consequences for your speech, people have to be able to speak back to you.
When Mr Burns shows up at the Springfield town hall to argue against solar power the people of Springfield have the advantage of knowing that he isn't a well meaning concerned citizen, he has a conflicting financial interest. That is necessary for true dialogue to work.
This is all the more important in an era of bots using LLMs to impersonate humans.
In a lot of parts of the world people can be killed by what they say, also in many parts including the 1st world people can go to prison for the wrong opinions etc. Manning and Assange went through hell and countless others would without anonymity. In the parts of the world you can get killed there is no such thing as anonymous social media either way. Authoritarian states does not like their citizens being able to talk freely and there are already laws against it (see Russia shutting down telegram, China, Turkey etc.) If they can't shut down or control social media they just shut down the internet (Iran etc). In democratic countries the amount of people going to jail over "free speech" is so minute and the types of speech regulated so small it's a negligible problem. But the more important thing is that in a democracy you can rather easily change the laws. And people tend to forget even a functional democracy is the dictatorship of the commons. There are always going to be fringe ideas that the majority finds so offensive that they are banned and it's just how it works. Meanwhile the problems with bots and false propaganda is huge and growing. I voted for the pirate party (twice) when I was young. That pretty much sums up my ideas on anonymity and net use. I've been an active internet user all my life and I now think that social media should not be anonymous because the problems are so rampant at this point. An easy example is the completely fake AFD hit piece article (posted on a cloned website of politico) that even made it to TL.net. A single google search shows how it was posted, amplified by bots on X and twitter until it started to be shared by real users, eventually getting posted here. Website is offline now but the damage is already done. If you follow things like the Ukraine war for long enough you can "feel" when the bots get activated to push a certain narrative. Back in the old days it was citizens/internet users against the big companies/governments/political parties fighting against regulation. These days it's citizens/internet users who wants regulation and big companies/some governments/some political parties who are against it. I think the fact that old school "pirates" are now on the other side against the enemy is evidence enough that anonymity on social media is no longer in our interest. "Authoritarian states does not like their citizens being able to talk freely" "Authoritarian states does not like their citizens being able to talk freely" "Authoritarian states does not like their citizens being able to talk freely" A+ for effort, F for understanding the issue. What country have nost people arested for social media posts? Almost certainly China. Russia could be up there with arresting people talking about the war. Very hard to tell without numbers but the laws in China are extremely strict and it's a big country. I think it's hard to beat. I know you want me to say Britain but there is no way that's actually true.
There‘s parallel law systems at this point, like here in the oubliette of Europe.
You could technically not do anything illegal but since there‘s spy networks that operate outside the law, they‘d still find other ways to harm you, sometimes pretending that it isn‘t driven by material or personal motives, quickly ruled out by the knowledge that others don‘t get similar treatment.
Basically everything went to shit with Trumps first term, this is just reliving the DLC of the adventures of the little Benjamin in his pants.
Lesson for the future: If the chancellor of your country meets Trump and Soros son, raises an Israel flag… Run..Run for the hills as fast as you can.
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Well, to sprinkle in my 2 cents on the previous discussion, I personally don't think that wishing for end of online anonymity is a good way to address the destabilizing effect of bot networks and propaganda.
The politico / AFD article would not have been stopped by more or less anonymity controls online, unless the proposal is to completely outlaw internet access without having previously registering an ID which I think is a horrible idea.
The furhter I'd go would be to make it obligatory for places like Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram, those are the most popular and propagandized networks, Reddit as well, but I'd selfishly exclude it because I might simply not use it anymore if I had to use my real ID to even read it.
Online ID laws reveal exactly what they are for by showing which things they are going after first, porn and messaging, of course, as always under the "protect the children" guise. If they really wanted to protect the children they'd have banned Twitter 2 months ago when tens of thousands of CP images were created by its bot...
Online propaganda and influence campaigns are the biggest worry I have for the next 20 years, I firmly believe that the rise of authoritarian right world wide is very much fueled by it, I blame it for Brexit (see Cambridge Analytica); I blame it for Trump 1 & 2, yes, obviously the people who voted did still vote, but they were very obviously mislead and we are all still feeling the consequences of this shit every day.
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Northern Ireland26366 Posts
On March 16 2026 13:27 Razyda wrote:Show nested quote +On March 14 2026 04:48 LightSpectra wrote:
The TL.net US Politics Mega-thread is simultaneously so unimportant that nobody could ever get radicalized by the fascists posting in it, but somehow also the grassroots backbone that could very well constitute the very future of the Democratic Party itself. TL radicalised me like nothing else could... Show nested quote +On March 15 2026 19:07 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:On March 15 2026 17:29 baal wrote:On March 15 2026 13:06 KwarK wrote:
The digital town square only works if it follows the same rough rules as the real town square, you have to show your face, you have to be willing to face the social consequences for your speech, people have to be able to speak back to you.
When Mr Burns shows up at the Springfield town hall to argue against solar power the people of Springfield have the advantage of knowing that he isn't a well meaning concerned citizen, he has a conflicting financial interest. That is necessary for true dialogue to work.
This is all the more important in an era of bots using LLMs to impersonate humans.
In a lot of parts of the world people can be killed by what they say, also in many parts including the 1st world people can go to prison for the wrong opinions etc. Manning and Assange went through hell and countless others would without anonymity. In the parts of the world you can get killed there is no such thing as anonymous social media either way. Authoritarian states does not like their citizens being able to talk freely and there are already laws against it (see Russia shutting down telegram, China, Turkey etc.) If they can't shut down or control social media they just shut down the internet (Iran etc). In democratic countries the amount of people going to jail over "free speech" is so minute and the types of speech regulated so small it's a negligible problem. But the more important thing is that in a democracy you can rather easily change the laws. And people tend to forget even a functional democracy is the dictatorship of the commons. There are always going to be fringe ideas that the majority finds so offensive that they are banned and it's just how it works. Meanwhile the problems with bots and false propaganda is huge and growing. I voted for the pirate party (twice) when I was young. That pretty much sums up my ideas on anonymity and net use. I've been an active internet user all my life and I now think that social media should not be anonymous because the problems are so rampant at this point. An easy example is the completely fake AFD hit piece article (posted on a cloned website of politico) that even made it to TL.net. A single google search shows how it was posted, amplified by bots on X and twitter until it started to be shared by real users, eventually getting posted here. Website is offline now but the damage is already done. If you follow things like the Ukraine war for long enough you can "feel" when the bots get activated to push a certain narrative. Back in the old days it was citizens/internet users against the big companies/governments/political parties fighting against regulation. These days it's citizens/internet users who wants regulation and big companies/some governments/some political parties who are against it. I think the fact that old school "pirates" are now on the other side against the enemy is evidence enough that anonymity on social media is no longer in our interest. "Authoritarian states does not like their citizens being able to talk freely" "Authoritarian states does not like their citizens being able to talk freely" "Authoritarian states does not like their citizens being able to talk freely" A+ for effort, F for understanding the issue. What country have nost people arested for social media posts?
Should I be able to dox ICE agents or harass their families online? Or libel people? What about harassment and threatening behaviour or stalking?
At least in the UK a sizeable amount of arrests for social media posts are for those kind of things, some of which are themselves crimes.
One may have differing feelings on such things or specific cases, but at least in most places I’m familiar with in the West you’re still free to criticise the actions of the state without sanction
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On March 16 2026 15:06 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Your reading comprehension is off. I'm not negative towards ai as a tool for learning and I had no issues with baal posting the summary as a source.
I do have issues with people posting chatgpt posts as arguments but that is different.
LLMs as a learning tool is extremely dubious at best, catastrophic at worst. Aside from the documented fact that they hallucinate up to 40% of their information, the horrific environmental effects, and the predictable outcome of letting the authoritarian billionaire class gatekeep information (remember when Grok would start talking about "white genocide" when asked about literally anything?), they're also extremely sycophantic, which makes overconfident uneducated people even less open to new points of view (Dunning-Kruger effect).
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It's like your social media feed on steroids: the one man digital echo room. It's a one way trip to sollipsism.
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On March 16 2026 22:50 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2026 13:27 Razyda wrote:On March 14 2026 04:48 LightSpectra wrote:
The TL.net US Politics Mega-thread is simultaneously so unimportant that nobody could ever get radicalized by the fascists posting in it, but somehow also the grassroots backbone that could very well constitute the very future of the Democratic Party itself. TL radicalised me like nothing else could... On March 15 2026 19:07 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:On March 15 2026 17:29 baal wrote:On March 15 2026 13:06 KwarK wrote:
The digital town square only works if it follows the same rough rules as the real town square, you have to show your face, you have to be willing to face the social consequences for your speech, people have to be able to speak back to you.
When Mr Burns shows up at the Springfield town hall to argue against solar power the people of Springfield have the advantage of knowing that he isn't a well meaning concerned citizen, he has a conflicting financial interest. That is necessary for true dialogue to work.
This is all the more important in an era of bots using LLMs to impersonate humans.
In a lot of parts of the world people can be killed by what they say, also in many parts including the 1st world people can go to prison for the wrong opinions etc. Manning and Assange went through hell and countless others would without anonymity. In the parts of the world you can get killed there is no such thing as anonymous social media either way. Authoritarian states does not like their citizens being able to talk freely and there are already laws against it (see Russia shutting down telegram, China, Turkey etc.) If they can't shut down or control social media they just shut down the internet (Iran etc). In democratic countries the amount of people going to jail over "free speech" is so minute and the types of speech regulated so small it's a negligible problem. But the more important thing is that in a democracy you can rather easily change the laws. And people tend to forget even a functional democracy is the dictatorship of the commons. There are always going to be fringe ideas that the majority finds so offensive that they are banned and it's just how it works. Meanwhile the problems with bots and false propaganda is huge and growing. I voted for the pirate party (twice) when I was young. That pretty much sums up my ideas on anonymity and net use. I've been an active internet user all my life and I now think that social media should not be anonymous because the problems are so rampant at this point. An easy example is the completely fake AFD hit piece article (posted on a cloned website of politico) that even made it to TL.net. A single google search shows how it was posted, amplified by bots on X and twitter until it started to be shared by real users, eventually getting posted here. Website is offline now but the damage is already done. If you follow things like the Ukraine war for long enough you can "feel" when the bots get activated to push a certain narrative. Back in the old days it was citizens/internet users against the big companies/governments/political parties fighting against regulation. These days it's citizens/internet users who wants regulation and big companies/some governments/some political parties who are against it. I think the fact that old school "pirates" are now on the other side against the enemy is evidence enough that anonymity on social media is no longer in our interest. "Authoritarian states does not like their citizens being able to talk freely" "Authoritarian states does not like their citizens being able to talk freely" "Authoritarian states does not like their citizens being able to talk freely" A+ for effort, F for understanding the issue. What country have nost people arested for social media posts? Should I be able to dox ICE agents or harass their families online? Or libel people? What about harassment and threatening behaviour or stalking? At least in the UK a sizeable amount of arrests for social media posts are for those kind of things, some of which are themselves crimes. One may have differing feelings on such things or specific cases, but at least in most places I’m familiar with in the West you’re still free to criticise the actions of the state without sanction
Everyone‘s dealing with an individual and several associates that are trained to deny everything and create problems for others on purpose. And legality is of little concern to them, they are only interested in what‘s possible.
That‘s the sad reality.
From where I‘m at, they seem to want to eliminate problem solvers and hire problem creators.
You don‘t even need special credentials to work with the Republican party, you just bring them a cheeseburger, a Glock and a bible with a bag of cocaine in it.
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On March 16 2026 17:59 Slydie wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2026 17:02 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 16 2026 03:09 Gorsameth wrote:On March 16 2026 01:55 GreenHorizons wrote:
There's probably some unforeseen economic impacts of removing bots (and now AI agents) when we consider they make up about half of the internet traffic most ads are metric'd off of.
There's basically a centi-billion dollar industry (without counting the platforms themselves really) in arbitraging (frauding) ad engagement by buying fake engagement and selling it to advertisers.
(EDIT: Advertising is rather uniquely central to the US economy.)
That probably has an unrecognized impact on the culture/sociology of the humans on (and off) the internet that is worthy of consideration. And half the S&P 500 is an AI bubble with little purpose and no financial viability, The economy is utterly fucked either way. NVIDIA pays Meta/X/etc to generate AI enhanced advertisements, the AI learns the most effective ads target AI bots, the AI bots learn the best ads are AI generated, Meta/X/etc needs to buy more NVIDIA stuff to handle the ever increasing AI traffic. Infinite money glitch achieved. I think this is very interresting! The problem is that big tech had so much money to burn initially, it can be passed around in circles for a long time before running out. There are limitations, though: most notably energy. Both consumers, other industries and environmental organisations are not happy about the reckelss energy consumption of data centres. The raised oil price following the Iran war can speed this up, as many centres rely of fossil fueled local power.
That's why/when they plan to play their Platinum Emperion card. Right Gorsameth?
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On March 16 2026 22:37 Jankisa wrote:
Well, to sprinkle in my 2 cents on the previous discussion, I personally don't think that wishing for end of online anonymity is a good way to address the destabilizing effect of bot networks and propaganda.
The politico / AFD article would not have been stopped by more or less anonymity controls online, unless the proposal is to completely outlaw internet access without having previously registering an ID which I think is a horrible idea.
The furhter I'd go would be to make it obligatory for places like Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram, those are the most popular and propagandized networks, Reddit as well, but I'd selfishly exclude it because I might simply not use it anymore if I had to use my real ID to even read it.
Online ID laws reveal exactly what they are for by showing which things they are going after first, porn and messaging, of course, as always under the "protect the children" guise. If they really wanted to protect the children they'd have banned Twitter 2 months ago when tens of thousands of CP images were created by its bot...
Online propaganda and influence campaigns are the biggest worry I have for the next 20 years, I firmly believe that the rise of authoritarian right world wide is very much fueled by it, I blame it for Brexit (see Cambridge Analytica); I blame it for Trump 1 & 2, yes, obviously the people who voted did still vote, but they were very obviously mislead and we are all still feeling the consequences of this shit every day.
I think it probably would have stopped it.
Step1: create fake website with article. No one will visit it (no one even knows it exist).
Step 2: push with bots and propaganda accounts so real people start sharing it.
Step3: It starts trending, job done.
If you can't do step 2 because you don't have the bots on x and facebook and your target audience is unlikely to share things from indian or Russian accounts then the whole thing is dead.
Of course you need ID login for all social media sites.
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On March 16 2026 15:06 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Your reading comprehension is off. I'm not negative towards ai as a tool for learning and I had no issues with baal posting the summary as a source.
I do have issues with people posting chatgpt posts as arguments but that is different.
Hard disagree on this one drone. An AI summary does not distinguish good from bad sources. Or to put it differently, for it to bias towards good sources, you'd have to program it (train it). No matter which option, either a tech company decides what's a good source and therefore the information that you see, or you have no idea how accurate or inaccurate the statements are.
You are making the point that it's a good tool for learning, but I think it achieves the opposite. It just teaches people to unquestioningly accept their output. This can only lead to less critical thinking and that's not presumably your ultimate goal.
We already see this on the new crop of undergraduate students and it's terrifying.
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If you think that there is not enough real people who can send this article to a few AfD politicians / right wing influencers with large, real followings on social media who will push this around, achieving a similar spread, great, I just don't think we live in this world.
Yes, a lot of this shit is boosted and propagated by bots and propaganda accounts, that doesn't mean that there aren't millions of people already ready to share anything they see without checking anything, especially if they already believe it.
That article was posted by someone who, based on their views on geopolitics thought this is bound to happen, everyone likes to be right and have their views validated, you don't need bots for that.
Like I said, I don't care if they enforce this on the popular propaganda spreading social media sites, but it's never going to stop there, it's a slippery slope and sooner or later you won't be able to post on TL without providing your real ID, which is not something I'd like, even tho I don't really try to hide my identity online too hard.
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On March 17 2026 00:23 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2026 15:06 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Your reading comprehension is off. I'm not negative towards ai as a tool for learning and I had no issues with baal posting the summary as a source.
I do have issues with people posting chatgpt posts as arguments but that is different. Hard disagree on this one drone. An AI summary does not distinguish good from bad sources. Or to put it differently, for it to bias towards good sources, you'd have to program it (train it). No matter which option, either a tech company decides what's a good source and therefore the information that you see, or you have no idea how accurate or inaccurate the statements are. You are making the point that it's a good tool for learning, but I think it achieves the opposite. It just teaches people to unquestioningly accept their output. This can only lead to less critical thinking and that's not presumably your ultimate goal. We already see this on the new crop of undergraduate students and it's terrifying.
I don't follow, to be honest.
AI is known to hallucinate and/or be inaccurate - Google's summaries say as much at the bottom. Most of the people I talk to don't particularly trust AI on its face. If people expect the answers AI gives them to be at least partially incorrect, doesn't this promote critical thinking and not deter it?
I've heard very little of people using AI and unquestioningly accepting its output tbh, though I'm not in anything to do with education.
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On March 17 2026 00:41 Fleetfeet wrote:
If people expect the answers AI gives them to be at least partially incorrect, doesn't this promote critical thinking and not deter it?
This is about as realistic as expecting Young Earth Creationism museums to promote interest in biology
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On March 17 2026 00:45 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2026 00:41 Fleetfeet wrote:
If people expect the answers AI gives them to be at least partially incorrect, doesn't this promote critical thinking and not deter it? This is about as realistic as expecting Young Earth Creationism museums to promote interest in biology
Worthless oneliner tbh.
Do you mean "I don't agree that most people question what AI tells them, and instead just blindly accept it"? I'd accept that as an answer, though we're both on the same level of anecdotal evidence in that case.
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On March 17 2026 00:51 Fleetfeet wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2026 00:45 LightSpectra wrote:On March 17 2026 00:41 Fleetfeet wrote:
If people expect the answers AI gives them to be at least partially incorrect, doesn't this promote critical thinking and not deter it? This is about as realistic as expecting Young Earth Creationism museums to promote interest in biology Worthless oneliner tbh. Do you mean "I don't agree that most people question what AI tells them, and instead just blindly accept it"? I'd accept that as an answer, though we're both on the same level of anecdotal evidence in that case.
Also anecdotal experience, but in my experience as a teacher, a lot of students just accept whatever AI tells them as absolute truth immediately. A lot of people are generally not in the business of questioning answers they got, they accept the first reasonably-sounding answer as truth.
AI answers have all the trappings that people are used to from good sources (language, orthography, style), and it tends to say what you want to hear while sounding confident and competent. This is a very tempting combination. It is also correct often enough so for most people, it doesn't immediately fail in the habit-forming phase.
For it to promote critical thinking skills, people would need to regularly get into situations where AI answers are incorrect, and where they notice that. I don't think that happens often enough for this to happen.
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On March 17 2026 00:51 Fleetfeet wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2026 00:45 LightSpectra wrote:On March 17 2026 00:41 Fleetfeet wrote:
If people expect the answers AI gives them to be at least partially incorrect, doesn't this promote critical thinking and not deter it? This is about as realistic as expecting Young Earth Creationism museums to promote interest in biology Worthless oneliner tbh. Do you mean "I don't agree that most people question what AI tells them, and instead just blindly accept it"? I'd accept that as an answer, though we're both on the same level of anecdotal evidence in that case.
I mean getting bad information that validates their wrong beliefs makes people more set in their ways, not less. I've mentioned the Dunning-Kruger effect before, but there's also other tendencies like the inertia/conservatism bias (people overweigh the first information they're exposed to and are reluctant to revise) and belief perseverance (debunking wrong information sometimes has a tendency to backfire and strengthen wrong beliefs).
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On March 16 2026 17:02 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2026 03:09 Gorsameth wrote:On March 16 2026 01:55 GreenHorizons wrote:
There's probably some unforeseen economic impacts of removing bots (and now AI agents) when we consider they make up about half of the internet traffic most ads are metric'd off of.
There's basically a centi-billion dollar industry (without counting the platforms themselves really) in arbitraging (frauding) ad engagement by buying fake engagement and selling it to advertisers.
(EDIT: Advertising is rather uniquely central to the US economy.)
That probably has an unrecognized impact on the culture/sociology of the humans on (and off) the internet that is worthy of consideration. And half the S&P 500 is an AI bubble with little purpose and no financial viability, The economy is utterly fucked either way. NVIDIA pays Meta/X/etc to generate AI enhanced advertisements, the AI learns the most effective ads target AI bots, the AI bots learn the best ads are AI generated, Meta/X/etc needs to buy more NVIDIA stuff to handle the ever increasing AI traffic. Infinite money glitch achieved.
If ads don't get converted to sales they get cut pretty quickly. Naturally, the solution is to give AI bots a stipend to occasionally order products. AI bots might get basic income before humans, if they become the consumers there's not much need for us.
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I think a big problem is no one’s knows what they don’t know. So if you use AI to do something you are an expert in, it can be a very powerful time saver. Because you can fairly accurately and quickly weed out what’s wrong. But if you don’t know the subject matter it is really hard to know what is wrong and why.
Another big societal issue is how many people are using it to confirm their pop psychology diagnosis of themselves or others in their life. It will always confirm what you think. It will even basically lead you with what additional questions you need to confirm your belief. Feel free to go into private mode and have two AI open and ask each about if a person you know is a narcissist or not. In one box act as though you believe they are and in the other not. Both times the bot will confirm you answer.
And it is doing that all the time in all sorts of topics because people think it’s a really smart friend who is impartial. And it is far from impartial.
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EPT
