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Yes, but the assumption that “an optimization process running on billions of brains to get them to come back and spend more time” doesn’t result in a better product — indeed, a worse one! — is *really* impressive spin
Note all the questions you suddenly don’t ask once you accept a claim like “an optimization process is hacking my reward system.” They’re the same questions you wouldn’t ask if you believed you were possessed by a witch; what does it matter how the magic works?
ok, so if i just try to align my reward system with some other optimization problem, then that is fake too
...yes, but the paperclip maximizer is rendered immediately harmless the moment a human being steps in; the point is that disabling the human is part of the optimization. You can’t compare this to “Twitter addiction” unless you think Twitter is actually, literally mind control
Asking "Better or worse?" makes only sense if you ask "for whom?" If you run that optimization for maximum screen time, because that maximizes ad presentation time and thus revenue, it is a very good result for the people who run said optimization in the first place.
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Too many bad takes built on reductive ideas about why people do what they do, especially online — less, I think, because they have useful explanatory power, and more because they allow people to skip entirely the layer containing desires they don’t endorse or fully understand
