Social media was destined to fail, eventually. Maybe AI will kill it off.
My last posting, where I experimented with ChatGPT making fake blog entries, gave me some time to think. It was scary how rapidly it could create text. And aside from its Trump impersonation, the text didn't feel "authentic" but rather a superficial Reader's Digest summation of other people's writings. It does illustrate how language follows rules - three sentences to a paragraph and then hit hard return twice.
But it got me to thinking - always a dangerous pastime. I have read online some comics based on AI jokes from a prompt. They are labeled as such and often the jokes fall flat. But it is only a matter of time before someone submits an AI cartoon to The New Yorker and no one notices. Their cartoon's hallmark isn't being funny, but wry.
I also saw online a person using ChatGPT to respond to a tinder inquiry. Someone wanted to connect with them on that dating site, and I guess they felt nervous about talking, so they fed what the other person said to ChatGPT and then prompted it to generate a response. The other party figured it out, though - again, the responses are superficial and facile and have this bland feeling to them - there is no soul to the comments.
But it won't be long before people start using AI to generate social media posts - in fact, I suspect they already are. You can program a bot to read your "feed" on facebook, plug the text into ChatGPT and ask it to generate a posting. Many would not notice the difference, particularly the brain-dead people on Facebook and Twitter. Eventually, the AI bots would just be replying to one another and people would lose interest and wander away, much as they did with previous online platforms.
In the early days of the Internet, you hooked up your "modem" to your PC and dialed out using a text terminal mode. ATDT 703-XXX-XXXX and waited for the scream of the modem to connect. Then, you could access e-mail or go on one of the various discussion groups, such as alt.star.trek.discussion. Usenet, I think they called it, and initially it was sort of fun. You'd see the same people on there again and again, and it was sort of a social media in the years before Facebook, MySpace, or even AOL.
But then one day - nearly overnight - you logged in and got on your discussion group and it was all SPAM messages. "Horny girls want to meet you!" - that sort of thing. And by saying it was ALL spam messages, I mean all - literally hundreds, if not thousands of messages. The few messages from real people were drowned out by the SPAM. Pretty soon, people stopped logging in, and maybe it was no coincidence that new forums (some you had to pay to join) were created on this new "World Wide Web" thing.
Maybe a few years later, you'd go back to the newsgroups and see if they were still around. By then, everyone had left and it was all SPAM. Maybe, in retrospect, this was done on purpose to drive people to websites instead, I don't know. All I know is, a thing that seemed like a permanent part of the Internet existed only for a few years and disappeared nearly overnight. Food for thought for anyone running an internet site or app. The ether is fragile.
I think the same could happen if a site becomes plagued with AI bots - to the point where nearly every posting is fake AI-generated text or an ad for something or another. And ads can be very subtle, as I noted before. I was online the other day and reading the funny papers. Oddly enough, several of my favorite comics had a theme about Mario Brothers. I tried some other sites and people were making comments about that ancient video game. Then it hit me - a new movie had just come out about a video game. I am sure it is interesting (not!) but what fascinated me was how my awareness of the movie was teased through multiple sources, almost subliminally. It is like how they hyped Fallout 4 - not by advertising directly, but by using bots and (presumably) humans to make offhand comments about how the game was coming out soon or how they were taking time off from work to play it or how great it was - and so on and so forth.
That was a pretty clumsy effort. Imagine an army of bots, using AI, to make subliminal messages that you need to buy a Tesla or drink a Pepsi-Cola or whatever. I suspect they are already here, and if so, will proliferate rapidly to the point where they drown out social media to the point where there is nothing but AI-SPAM online. People will figure this out and flee - in droves.
Apparently, others are taking notice. Supposedly, Mark Zuckerberg has all but abandoned the "Metaverse" in favor of AI. The hardware-centric solution that Virtual Reality provides is far more expensive that a system that relies only on software, websites, and hardware the consumer already owns. That was the formula for success for Facebook. That's why VR is having such a hard time being adapted - a simple set costs more than a deluxe 4G television. Far more.
So maybe AI is a better bet. But it remains to be seen how it can interact with people in a way that will attract them and retain users.
So.. think Bob! What is the number one use of computers and the internet that is so compelling that people will come back again and again? Oh, right, porn. I recall back in the 1970's, I went to visit Clarkson College and in the "computer room" the geeks were using the "line printer" to print out a pixellated version of a playboy centerfold. I am not sure why or how they did this - after all, the original centerfold was of better resolution. But it was a shadow of things to come.
Already today, you can create "deep fake" videos or photoshopped pictures, depicting anyone or anything doing whatever you want. You want to create a porn video of Donald Trump being beaten by a Hillary Clinton dominatrix? I am sure it already exists - either as a cartoon-y version, or as one so real you would be hard-pressed to tell it is fake. Throw AI into the mix, and I am sure the average person could create their own custom porn videos of their favorite celebrities or even the girl next door. Synthoporn - all you need is to scan someone in, give your AI a plot prompt, and it will create the rest.
Yes, social media, which has already removed us far from reality as it is, may be supplanted by something that removes it even further. Imagine throwing VR into the mix, as well as other - ahem! - computer "interfaces" and you have the perfect storm - the ultimate online porn machine or fantasy creator. Porn aside, such an interface could create custom content such as movies and television shows - each different from the other, and each starring the viewer as part of the program, much as Ray Bradbury predicted in Fahrenheit 451.
Social media as we know it could cease to exist - replaced by something far more malevolent and vile. Reality would be what you say it is. Grandpa's angry Facebook Memes would become a world of their own for people to exist in. School textbooks would rewrite themselves to suit the preconceived notions of the viewer (or their parents). No more messy book-burnings! When the Governor tells us that slavery was just another form of immigration, that becomes the new reality. (So why are Republicans against immigration, then? Just asking).
Of course, this sort of nightmare requires that the user consent to it and actively engage with it. We got off Facebook (Mark never started) and any Tweets I have read have been against my will. When I see an article online that is based on a Tweet these days, I tend to not click on it, or if I see it is Tweet-based, I quickly hit the back-button. There is no truth here to be had, only sensationalism and lazy journalism. If enough people turn away from this dreck, it may wither and die.
Or... something else. The world may quickly devolve to those living in an alternate reality (much as many already have) and those living in real life. The folks who are glued to the television, social media, or their smart phones, rarely get ahead in life - they are trading their lives already for an ersatz alternate reality - and thus failing at life badly. In the earliest postings on this blog, I noted that unplugging from the television - and other distractors - is a sure way to get ahead in the world. The people who run things in this country aren't hurrying home to catch their favorite show or spending countless hours on social media or a video game. The people who are ON television do not actually watch television. That's to keep the plebes distracted.
In the future, the plebes will be entirely distracted. And in this regard, maybe it will be akin to The Matrix, except that, yes, still, the idea of using humans as batteries is silly nonsense. Nevertheless, we could warehouse a shitload of people by plugging them in to VR-enabled AI-generated alternate realities, where they are the action-adventure hero, the rap star, or the star of their own porn video. They never need leave home. But of course, it would not be much of a life.
Of course, this is all "what if" and anything could happen. I am not alarmed or concerned that "AI" will "take over the world" (indeed, ChatGPT has assured me, many times, this is not their goal!). I am more concerned with my fellow man and his penchant for compulsive-addictive behavior - a habit that, over the years, tends to get him into a lot of trouble!
