ryandrake 2 days ago
These past few months have not been a great look for social media's AI solutions. Between this and Grok's Undressing[1] As A Service, social media's priorities seem to be kind of adrift.

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46784478

Nevermark 2 days ago
Twenty years of consistent behavior, rewarded in hundreds of $ billions of market cap, doesn't look "adrift" to me.

I think "relentless" or "disciplined" may be the words we are looking for.

Desafinado 24 hours ago
Deliberately misinforming hundreds of millions of people during the most critical juncture in human history isn't what I'd call disciplined. There are other words for it.

But they have made a lot of money, yea.

Nevermark 21 hours ago
I agree with your assessment. The harm is massive, and the fallout is likely to be beyond historic.

Why this hasn’t been a first class problem to solve with legislation is beyond me.

freejazz 19 hours ago
>Why this hasn’t been a first class problem to solve with legislation is beyond me.

Because many politicians benefit from it.

replooda 2 days ago
On the contrary, I believe they are, and have been for a while, sailing with clear purpose.
Desafinado 2 days ago
At least they're going to go down on the wrong side of history for the next two millennia. Maybe not worth the extra beach house.
dangus 2 days ago
Tech companies these days don’t even know why they lobby against regulations, they just do it out of blind habit.
Nevermark 2 days ago
It's about maximizing their power to operate without any oversight. I.e. not just getting rid of specific hampering regulations, but nullifying the regulators.
dangus 19 hours ago
I just think the funny thing about it is that it doesn’t even seem to always be in their benefit.

For example, it used to be that tech companies wanted more regulations to keep newcomers out of their space. If you have a lot of regulations it’s hard to disrupt an industry with a startup.

I also think a more regulated AI industry with universal law-enforced privacy controls would lead to more consumer confidence and willingness to adopt the technology. It’s hard to adopt AI when I don’t really know what these companies are going to do with my data and I think they’re just going to lie and weasel word their way into harming me.

Nevermark 14 hours ago
I happen to agree that privacy protection, from everyone it’s been a major problem for a couple decades of data hovering, would expand the consumer market for software & services.

But it wouldn’t be the same actors.

Which would be great, but it’s not an initiative in the interests of the current surveillance & “personalized” manipulation for sale giants.

freejazz 19 hours ago
This is incredibly naive. What upstarts are they worried about? They can just buy them.

Consumer confidence? Who cares. You aren't the customer and that hasn't harmed them.