I've never been a Harari fan, but this just scales new heights in vapid prophesizing. Briefly, human notions of free will are obsolete (or even dangerous!) because AI will get to the point it can influence us into doing or buying anything.https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/14/yuval-noah-harari-the-new-threat-to-liberal-democracy …
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Yuval did mention he doesn't own a smartphone so degree to which the perceived threat is scalable across society through his own experiences may differ from others.
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I wish I had the confidence to theorize about things I don't even personally participate in, nor apparently know much about. Look for my next column, which is a review of the Lamborghini Aventador vs. the Ferrari 488 (I've never been inside either).
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HA! In his defense he is a historian and as such prognostication is part of the practice. The extent to which one can accurately do that though is nebulous. I do agree about the disruptive implications of tech/AI at a macro level. Can't even begin to go into details though.
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That’s an inane & fatuous copout. “I’m a historian so I’m supposed to make predictions but I’m a historian so don’t hold me accountable if I don’t fully understand my subject matter”.
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What about both? Is that acceptable to you?
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Well he does claim both. He was on Sam Harris’ podcast making broad predictions about AI’s impact on society but whenever his technical expertise was tested he hid behind “I’m just a historian!”. I think it’s necessary to understand the fundamentals before prognosticating.
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I agree. He is not immune from criticism, like any other public intellectual. It's also harder though to write about the future than it is about the past.
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The funny thing is that almost no one says that advertising has such immense power over themselves, but only over other people.
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It always amused me how much power people attribute to FB. E.g. 5 years ago it was creating global democracy and freedom (Arab Spring), now it's destroying them. Always a bit too apocalyptic.
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The use of misinformation is what is undermining democracy. Fake news work to change your perception of reality.https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/4/20/17109764/deepfake-ai-false-memory-psychology-mandela-effect …
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I run a lot of FB & Google ads and realized it's all pointless unless you have something people really want. It's not some magic bullet that can hypnotize you to purchase. Most people running FB ads are failing hard at it, I see it first hand.
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Trying to sell shoes online in this age may be radically different from trying to do that in future. Besides, why would a powerful AI technology be shared with plebs trying to sell shoes online. It'll be deployed to influence democratic masses.
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They know so little it's laughable.
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What happens when Coke and Pepsi have perfect AI marketing?
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Haha - especially when one of the top skills in the tech part is how to appropriately deal with ‘rare events’. Rare events being ‘it actually worked’.
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