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Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 14m

I hope you're not looking for infohazards 💀🤡💀🤡

Reposted by Hagen Blix

Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 11d

Advertisers know that what your friends think is far more important to your purchasing decisions than ads are. No wonder they're trying to substitute bots for your friends

Jathan Sadowski @jathansadowski.com · 11d

What an unsurprising decision by corporations that desperately need to make money with AI. If every other company with a chatbot isn't already doing this, then expect them to be following Meta's lead soon. The chatbot is not your friend; it's a corporate listening device. www.ft.com/content/22f7...

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https://www.ft.com/content/22f7afc3-8ac0-4ca1-9877-fd3f8ddcc986?desktop=true&segmentId=7c8f09b9-9b61-4fbb-9430-9208a9e233c8#myft:notification:daily-email:content

Meta will use conversations people have with its chatbots to personalise advertising and content across its platforms, in a sign of how tech companies plan to make money from artificial intelligence.

The owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp on Wednesday said it would use the content of chats with its Meta AI to create advertising recommendations across its suite of apps.

“People will already expect that their Meta AI interactions are being used for these personalisation purposes,” said Christy Harris, privacy and data policy manager at Meta.

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Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 17h

Yeah, and I suspect it betrays a kind of desire in a bind (as so often, emancipatory wants that are hampered by the things/privileges that one does have to lose, over and above the chains). I suppose that's the true middle class form of powerlessness, which ofc refuses to recognize itself as such

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Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 17h

Which is oddly funny because nobody who makes any relevant decisions cares about that idealist (in both senses) aspect of education anyways

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Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 17h

They're systems made to look as if they could be responsible, when of course they can't, and they're certainly not the first system to do that (some, like LLCs, are even named for that very property, of course)

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Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 17h

We actually make a very similar point in our book - we also talk about land mines, and we link it to a whole series of arguments about faux accountability (from the operating logic of bureaucracies crowding out reality in favor of measurements of reality to citizens united)

From "Why We Fear AI", p. 65

These are, in some ways,
continuations of the tendencies to automate killing in war—a
landmine, too, makes an automated “decision” to explode and
kill. But Lavender, quite unlike landmines, is simultaneously a
system that creates an illusion of objectivity and order, as if it
could take responsibility. It is itself an automated replication of a
bureaucracy, veiling and deferring responsibility, as if the deter-
mining factor were the AI, and not the military’s demand for a
kill list of a certain length.

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Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 19h

Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 11d

Advertisers know that what your friends think is far more important to your purchasing decisions than ads are. No wonder they're trying to substitute bots for your friends

Jathan Sadowski @jathansadowski.com · 11d

What an unsurprising decision by corporations that desperately need to make money with AI. If every other company with a chatbot isn't already doing this, then expect them to be following Meta's lead soon. The chatbot is not your friend; it's a corporate listening device. www.ft.com/content/22f7...

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Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 19h

Nah, it's for *making everyone into people with no friends*

Steven Santos @stevensantos.bsky.social · 20h

This is just for people who have no friends and are disconnected from reality.

We already have enough of them.

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 20h

Solipsism as a service. www.wsj.com/tech/persona...

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Reposted by Hagen Blix

Tom Scocca @tomscocca.bsky.social · 20h

Please nobody tell professional writer praising professional journalists Caitlin Flanagan what "out of whole cloth" means

Screenshot of text:

Not now but soon enough, there will be major stories about The Free Press being the creation of three female founders who constructed a hugely successful digital business out of whole cloth.

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Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 20h

Idk, OP talks about "most young men", but perhaps things are more dire than I thought

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Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 20h

Sure, if we're talking about fascists. But I thought we were talking about advice to young men who might experience self pity, and who the far right is clearly trying to recruit.

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Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 21h

That may be a fine ethical position to stand on, but as a political tactic "maybe the people that the fascists are trying to recruit should just fix themselves instead of joining the fascists" doesn't look like a winner to me

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Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 21h

Sure, plenty of them are just the political enemy - but your advice is good for the people they might be trying to recruit, and acknowledging & re-channeling pain seems like an essential aspect to get them to a point where they might be able to take your advice

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Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 21h

Maybe couple it with some advice about how the world really is crushing people, including them, but it's because we subordinated everything to the drive for profit and the infantile desires and fragile egos of billionaires. Gotta transform that self pity into some righteous anger and solidarity

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