2024 Election Discussion General

[Jayson G]

"Trump and the Republican party chalked up huge wins this week. Did manipulation of social media by generative AI play any role in this election? While many have worried about AI creating fake or misleading content that influences people, generative AI has probably not been the primary method of manipulation in this election cycle. Instead, I think a bigger impact might have been the “amplification effect” where software bots — which don’t have to rely heavily on generative AI — create fake engagement (such as likes/retweets/reshares), leading social media companies’ recommendation algorithms to amplify certain content to real users, some of whom promote it to their own followers. This is how fake engagement leads to real engagement.

This amplification effect is well known to computer security researchers. It is an interesting sign of our global anxiety about AI that people ascribe social media manipulation to AI becoming more powerful. But the problem here is not that AI is too powerful; rather, it is that AI is not powerful enough. Specifically, the issue is not that generative AI is so powerful that hostile foreign powers or unethical political operatives are successfully using it to create fake media that influences us; the problem is that some social media companies’ AI algorithms are not powerful enough to screen out fake engagement by software bots, and mistake it for real engagement by users. These bots (which don’t need to be very smart) fool the recommender algorithms into amplifying certain content.  

The Washington Post reported that tweets on X/Twitter posted by Republicans were more viral than tweets from Democrats. Did this reflect the audience’s deeper engagement with Republican messages than Democratic ones, or have bots influenced this by boosting messages on either side? It is hard to know without access to Twitter’s internal data.

The bottleneck to disinformation is not creating it but disseminating it. It is easy to write text that proposes a certain view, but hard to get many people to read it. Rather than generating a novel message (or using deepfakes to generate a misleading image) and hoping it will go viral, it might be easier to find a message written by a real human that supports a point of view you want to spread, and use bots to amplify that.

I don’t know of any easy technical or legislative approach to combating bots. But it would be a good step to require transparency of social media platforms so we can better spot problems, if any. Everyone has a role to play in protecting democracy, and in tech, part of our duty will be to make sure social media platforms are fair and defend them against manipulation by those who seek to undermine democracy. 

Democracy is one of humanity’s best inventions. Elections are an important mechanism for protecting human rights and supporting human flourishing. Following this election, we must continue to strenuously nourish democracy and make sure this gem of human civilization continues to thrive.  

Keep learning!

Andrew" 

This is an email (Newsletter) I got from Andrew Ng, founder of Deeplearning.ai. 

I was wondering this for months, before he sent the email. 

From my experience, engagement on social media looked inflated, but I'm not sure. 

Not trying to be that guy who says they messed with the election, but it certainly could be a factor here. I'm still trying to make sense of the different factors that led to Trump winning. 

[Thorsten Fuzzi]

9 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

With him the issue isn't integrity, it's self-deception. His whole mind and worldview is deeply self-deceived. It's not that he's lying to you, it's that he lives in a fantasy land in his mind.

And that kind of thing eventually ends in disaster.

What's the nature of his self-deception?

[Scarecrow]

6 minutes ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

In the full video, he advocates for replacing Democracy with a “meritocracy”.

He as well considered our style of Democracy a “temporary dictatorship”.

 

 

very interesting

5 minutes ago, Nemra said:

Yeah.

Hillsdale College and Heritage Foundation had always been iffy to me.

6 minutes ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

In the full video, he advocates for replacing Democracy with a “meritocracy”.

 

very interesting

[bambi]

FYI considering this thread is about leadership and integrity. Leo has messaged me telling me I am to be banned for my posts in this thread. He sees my posts in this thread the cause of personal drama, and that its severe enough to be banned.

This is the leader of the forum. Who criticizes Trump and other leaders for being authotarian and lacking integrity

Whatever your personal gripes or annoyances with me are. If any of you have a modicum of honesty or integrity, I urge you to re-read my posts in this thread and see if you conclude I should be banned, or even if I am the instigator of personal attacks, find the exact post and see precisely who starts the attacks first.

This is the conclusion of the leader of the forum. Utterly bizarre

Godspeed to you all

[Leo Gura]

5 minutes ago, Thorsten Fuzzi said:

What's the nature of his self-deception?

All his ideas about public health.

[Scarecrow]

Just now, bambi said:

FYI considering this thread is about leadership and integrity. Leo has messaged me telling me I am to be banned for my posts in this thread. He sees my posts in this thread the cause of personal drama, and that its severe enough to be banned.

This is the leader of the forum. Who criticizes Trump and other leaders for being authotarian and lacking integrity

Whatever your personal gripes or annoyances with me are. If any of you have a modicum of honesty or integrity, I urge you to re-read my posts in this thread and see if you conclude I should be banned, or even if I am the instigator of personal attacks, find the exact post and see precisely who starts the attacks first.

This is the conclusion of the leader of the forum. Utterly bizarre

Godspeed to you all

sad. i admire him. but i disagree politics . hope that will be ok

[Adam M]

"The forest was shrinking, but the trees kept voting for the axe; for the axe was clever and convinced the trees that because his handle was made of wood, he was one of them."

- Unknown

[Leo Gura]

5 minutes ago, bambi said:

FYI considering this thread is about leadership and integrity. Leo has messaged me telling me I am to be banned for my posts in this thread. He sees my posts in this thread the cause of personal drama, and that its severe enough to be banned.

This is the leader of the forum. Who criticizes Trump and other leaders for being authotarian and lacking integrity

Whatever your personal gripes or annoyances with me are. If any of you have a modicum of honesty or integrity, I urge you to re-read my posts in this thread and see if you conclude I should be banned, or even if I am the instigator of personal attacks, find the exact post and see precisely who starts the attacks first.

This is the conclusion of the leader of the forum. Utterly bizarre

Godspeed to you all

It wasn't just this thread. I have warned you for months about your problematic manner of posting. Don't you dare twist this around on me. I have been patient with your drama for months. You refuse to take any accountability for the drama you consistently create with your disrespectful manner toward anyone who has a different view than yours.

Edited November 7 by Leo Gura

[bambi]

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

It wasn't just this thread. I have warned you for months about your proboematic manner of posting. Don't you dare twist this around on me.

We are a community, if people dont want me here or collectively think I should be banned, I would have left long time ago.

Last time I was accused (wrongly in my view) of causing personal drama even @Inliytened1 kindly messaged me for support (hope he doesnt mind the mention). I dont agree with the characterisaiton and assumed intent of my posts.  I am basically responding to unprovoked condescions with the same condescions. But if people are in good faith so am I

Edited November 7 by bambi

[Raze]

What Russia and China could do is try to convince Iran that they are at risk from their population revolting so to get on top of that try attacking Israel and forcing a U.S. invasion then digging into the mountains like the Taliban hoping the anti regime population leaves or gets radicalized to their size by bombings. China and Russia can send supplies to Iran and try to keep the U.S. stuck in the Middle East and slowly bleed them out. Understanding how divisive Trump is this would cause a ton of internal strife in the USA. At the same time Russia and China will force the US to pull influence away from Europe and Asia so they can continue expanding and avoiding US hegemony.

Edited November 7 by Raze

[Leo Gura]

1 minute ago, bambi said:

We are a community, if people dont want me here or collectively think I should be banned, I would have left long time ago.

Last time I was accused (wrongly in my view) of causing personal drama even @Inliytened1 kindly messaged me for support (hope he doesnt mind the mention). I dont agree with the characterisaiton and assumed intent of my posts. 

Since you refuse to take responsibilty or change any of your ways, you are hereby banned.

[Adam M]

@Leo Gura thx 

Edited November 7 by Adam M

[Lyubov]

51 minutes ago, Consept said:

Putin did it, he's been power for decades now 

 

russia barely had a democracy. it was entirely unsuited to their culture and people. it's not exactly comparable. 

[Lyubov]

This was posted I think in here, but it's worth giving a listen to. I agree with much of what he is saying here. 

[What Am I]

I'd like to take a moment to retract my previous statements regarding Project 2025.

 

lol jk. Please don't take offense! Merely a joke.

Sorry to see you go, bambi.

[Leo Gura]

Watch yourselves. Do not post trash in this thread. I am hunting for people to ban who post low quality biased stuff or engage in gaslighting.

Edited November 7 by Leo Gura

[UnbornTao]

56 minutes ago, Thorsten Fuzzi said:

Sorry to have used profundity, UnbornTao. I genuinely wrote that with an open heart. Real or not, there are fewer reasons to escape than ever, more reasons to love. I don't mean that in a new age, but in an existential way. I believe it is the only reasonable first response.

Fine; it was just a joke.

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Raze said:

What we need is a constitutional amendment that bans money in politics, and then allow ranked choice voting and automatic third party ballot access.

The rich can’t buy politicians and we won’t be forced to limit ourselves to voting for democrats or republicans.

We are so far from that that another lifetime wouldn't be enough.

One of the most foolish things I believed was that banning money in politics could be a realistic goal. Cenk sold me on that pile of leftist pipedreams. I even donated $1000 to it. What a waste of money that was.

Edited November 7 by Leo Gura

[What Am I]

11 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Watch yourselves. Do not post trash in this thread. I am hunting for people to ban who post low quality biased stuff or engage in gaslighting.

In all seriousness, over the years that I've checked in on the forum, you've been pretty generous with your moderation. It seems like someone needs to become a legit disturbance to the peace before you bring the hammer down, which is probably how it should be. I've seen you allow an amount of criticism come your way that would have made lesser men crack and ban out of spite.

[Thought Art]

Anyone read Animal Farm?