[FRIAM] This makes me think of this list...

[Marcus Daniels]

I suspect LLMs like Grok trained on social media would compress millions of people down to a relatively small number of representative patterns. When debating topics on, say, Nextdoor, I find conversations have a predictable decision-tree type property. The more people in the thread the less nuance that can be maintained. Participation is more about gaining and keeping momentum and demoralizing the opposition – leaving the uninitiated to think a contrary position would result in stigma. Keeping momentum is easier if participants have a library of talking points to draw upon. Advocacy organizations prepare libraries of these talking points, but they also spread informally, as if by contagion. 

For social media sites that rely on advertising, driving engagement seems tricky. While social media services with moderation limits the amount of openly abusive behavior that can occur (contrast with X), persistent advocates build coalitions to drown out the other side, and that bad faith interaction can be conducted in a superficially civil fashion. For the social media companies, engagement may appear to go up, but I wonder if they have the right models for how that engagement connects to advertising dollars? Content that lacks surprise is not fun to read. They want their system gamed, but perhaps at their own cost? I could certainly see many Nextdoor conversations driven by LLMs. Nextdoor is for parochial people; the patterns in conversations will have attractors. (Topics like crime, strangers, unsightly things, etc.) 

The recent results about AI Models collapsing when trained on recursively generated data seems to me to apply to this kind of human political activity as well. 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07566-y <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07566-y> 

Btw, is there a disagreeable LLM bot out there? Whenever I chat with LLMs, I get a lot of accommodation. Never, “You just told me the sky is green, now you are telling me it is blue?! WTF?!” Today’s LLM play the duplicity game far too well.

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of Frank Wimberly <wimberly3 at gmail.com>
Date: Tuesday, August 13, 2024 at 5:40 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: [FRIAM] This makes me think of this list... 




Are We Living in the Age of Info-Determinism? <https://link.newyorker.com/click/36396552.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> Increasingly, our networks seem to be steering our history in ways we don’t like and can’t control. 
<https://link.newyorker.com/click/36396552.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> 
Illustration by Josie Norton <https://link.newyorker.com/click/36396552.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> 

“Call it info-determinism: the belief that the ways that information flows through the world are actually a kind of web in which we’re ensnared,” Joshua Rothman writes. The Internet can make it feel as though information is endless, and access can make everyone feel like an expert—or, at least, an expert subreddit debater. The sense that there is always more to know undermines the authority of an article or an institution, as does the thriving trade, among those debaters, in the disassembly of ideas. Rothman’s column, Open Questions <https://link.newyorker.com/click/36396552.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>, unpacks open-ended queries each week. Today, he considers: What is information? Does it matter if it’s true? Are we trapped? 
Read the story <https://link.newyorker.com/click/36396552.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> 


---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM 



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