I did NOT expect you to take that position. I liked it, even if I have no idea whether you are correct. ...ok, I'm inclined to agree but still, I really have no idea.
"Your child could learn about America’s Constitutional Convention by listening in on debates among AI versions of James Madison, Edmund Randolph, and Gouverneur Morris. Your child could join in the debate!"
So, I somewhat agree. I'm a bit less down on it than the UnHerd article suggests. I think I have been on the "we live in imagnary worlds" beat now for 2 or 3 years... a big part of my work is interviewing people who are in relationships with non-human entities. Apologies for the vagueness there but I mean objects, imaginary characters, and AI assistants. I don't know that it's BAD if the alternative is nothing. But we haven't reckoned with the way people live in their imaginations. It's more than just a game. It's a retreat. Japan offers a somewhat illustrative example.
I’ve been kind of wanting to read Baseball Ass’n. though a lot of times with novels from the past 75 years (not my preference) I find myself looking ahead to the last chapter. Thinking: this could be shorter.
Wondering if anyone else has read it, and if it is in fact the endorsement of AK’s advocacy for immersion in the “virtual” he presents it as.
Beyond observing that Mother gets a certain pleasure, mysterious to me, from looking at the vacation/grad/wedding photos of relatives, more and less distant, that she rarely and in some cases never sees and never will, though they don’t even live that far off and she has at times been useful to them; or the adult children of dead friends, etc. - some of whom I would have characterized as “out of our lives” - my only exposure to Facebook was when someone told me about Facebook Marketplace. I asked my husband to log in - he being a grownup with a Facebook account - and I had a good run selling a few things.
I can thus attest that FakeFacebook accounts *in no way* enhance this one particular feature of y’all’s Facebook, the local buying and selling.
And if Mother became content with fake photos from fake grandkids* of e.g. a long-dead friend or brother-in-law, I would consider that another sign of mental deterioration, much more pathetic than the status quo.
*Does Lee sometimes win in an online roleplaying simulation of Gettysburg?
“ I think we should treat a bot-saturated version of Facebook as an immersive video game.”
This is such an excellent point.
There is nothing inherently wrong with such games. And many Americans - and indeed the world - spend more and more of their time in them.
But if Facebook *primarily* becomes this, they will have lost much of the “social” - connecting people with people - of “social media” that was and is their main source of value and wealth.
This is something I’ve been thinking about since my first interaction with ChatGPT: how close are we to creating Nozick’s experience machine, and how many people would like to go live in one?
I totally agree that people have immersed themselves in fiction for as long as we’ve had fiction to immerse in. I do wonder, though, if one could have a simulated life where everything breaks your way, you win every argument in the end, you’re happy and successful and your kids (“kids”) always go to bed when they’re told… other than due to the need to earn a living, would one ever unplug to deal with real people? Or, like in the Matrix, would humans find it hard to accept a world without struggle?
I’ve been getting friend requests on FB for months by accounts that look like they could be bot accounts, 5-10 pictures, few posts, no info “about” them.
We need a Digital Utilities Commission to have a better conversation about these issues, as well as potential laws and regulations.
Reading all 3 volumes of Lord of the Rings in one weekend is wonderful immersive experience I’ve done a couple times, tho not my first time thru. Similarly Dune in one night, or each of the Harry Potter books, or Jack Reacher (murder mysteries by Lee Child) or a Strike novel (last couple of over 800 pages took me a couple days).
Being immersed in some fiction is fun. I’d write more but think I’ll play a computer war game and take over the world. Again. At the hard level, not super-hard Titan level.
Tho Avalon Hill, long gone as a company, put out a fantastic board game called Titan, The Monster Slugathon Fantasy wargame. Battles often using 6,8,9,10, up to 18 dice for one shot in a battle. A fun all day game. Pacificon was the wargamers convention I’d play at when in Silicon Valley, 3 or 4 decades ago.
“ I’ve been getting friend requests on FB for months by accounts that look like they could be bot accounts, 5-10 pictures, few posts, no info ‘about’ them.”
They certainly *could* be, but imo this is less likely *precisely* because they have so few pictures, posts and info about them: it is quite easy, almost trivial, for such bots to generate lots of all of that.
IMO it is far more likely people looking to somehow benefit financially from connecting with you.
"My point is that we have been doing that for all of recorded history."
And most likely all of unrecorded history.
Dogs play fetch, cats stalk toy mice, and lots of animals play fight.
I did NOT expect you to take that position. I liked it, even if I have no idea whether you are correct. ...ok, I'm inclined to agree but still, I really have no idea.
"Your child could learn about America’s Constitutional Convention by listening in on debates among AI versions of James Madison, Edmund Randolph, and Gouverneur Morris. Your child could join in the debate!"
Could but won't.
Fill in the blank. In your opinion what phrase best describes what Facebook will become.
“I think we should treat a bot-saturated version of Facebook as ” _______.
A). an immersive video game.
B). a joke.
C). a dystopia.
D). who cares.
E). no better than simulators at Disney or Universal Studios.
F). to be determined.
G). my [wet] dream come true.
Star Trek; hollideck
So, I somewhat agree. I'm a bit less down on it than the UnHerd article suggests. I think I have been on the "we live in imagnary worlds" beat now for 2 or 3 years... a big part of my work is interviewing people who are in relationships with non-human entities. Apologies for the vagueness there but I mean objects, imaginary characters, and AI assistants. I don't know that it's BAD if the alternative is nothing. But we haven't reckoned with the way people live in their imaginations. It's more than just a game. It's a retreat. Japan offers a somewhat illustrative example.
If the next Grand Theft Auto videogame doesn't have dynamic AI characters, I will be hugely disappointed.
I’ve been kind of wanting to read Baseball Ass’n. though a lot of times with novels from the past 75 years (not my preference) I find myself looking ahead to the last chapter. Thinking: this could be shorter.
Wondering if anyone else has read it, and if it is in fact the endorsement of AK’s advocacy for immersion in the “virtual” he presents it as.
Beyond observing that Mother gets a certain pleasure, mysterious to me, from looking at the vacation/grad/wedding photos of relatives, more and less distant, that she rarely and in some cases never sees and never will, though they don’t even live that far off and she has at times been useful to them; or the adult children of dead friends, etc. - some of whom I would have characterized as “out of our lives” - my only exposure to Facebook was when someone told me about Facebook Marketplace. I asked my husband to log in - he being a grownup with a Facebook account - and I had a good run selling a few things.
I can thus attest that FakeFacebook accounts *in no way* enhance this one particular feature of y’all’s Facebook, the local buying and selling.
And if Mother became content with fake photos from fake grandkids* of e.g. a long-dead friend or brother-in-law, I would consider that another sign of mental deterioration, much more pathetic than the status quo.
*Does Lee sometimes win in an online roleplaying simulation of Gettysburg?
“ I think we should treat a bot-saturated version of Facebook as an immersive video game.”
This is such an excellent point.
There is nothing inherently wrong with such games. And many Americans - and indeed the world - spend more and more of their time in them.
But if Facebook *primarily* becomes this, they will have lost much of the “social” - connecting people with people - of “social media” that was and is their main source of value and wealth.
Great reminder that Strat-o-Matic is a lot of fun!
This is something I’ve been thinking about since my first interaction with ChatGPT: how close are we to creating Nozick’s experience machine, and how many people would like to go live in one?
I totally agree that people have immersed themselves in fiction for as long as we’ve had fiction to immerse in. I do wonder, though, if one could have a simulated life where everything breaks your way, you win every argument in the end, you’re happy and successful and your kids (“kids”) always go to bed when they’re told… other than due to the need to earn a living, would one ever unplug to deal with real people? Or, like in the Matrix, would humans find it hard to accept a world without struggle?
I’ve been getting friend requests on FB for months by accounts that look like they could be bot accounts, 5-10 pictures, few posts, no info “about” them.
We need a Digital Utilities Commission to have a better conversation about these issues, as well as potential laws and regulations.
Reading all 3 volumes of Lord of the Rings in one weekend is wonderful immersive experience I’ve done a couple times, tho not my first time thru. Similarly Dune in one night, or each of the Harry Potter books, or Jack Reacher (murder mysteries by Lee Child) or a Strike novel (last couple of over 800 pages took me a couple days).
Being immersed in some fiction is fun. I’d write more but think I’ll play a computer war game and take over the world. Again. At the hard level, not super-hard Titan level.
Tho Avalon Hill, long gone as a company, put out a fantastic board game called Titan, The Monster Slugathon Fantasy wargame. Battles often using 6,8,9,10, up to 18 dice for one shot in a battle. A fun all day game. Pacificon was the wargamers convention I’d play at when in Silicon Valley, 3 or 4 decades ago.
"We need a Digital Utilities Commission to have a better conversation about these issues, as well as potential laws and regulations. "
No we don't. Government bureaucrats are no doubt already salivating over how to gin up support for that with scary anecdotes.
People have been figuring these things all by themselves for ages.
“ I’ve been getting friend requests on FB for months by accounts that look like they could be bot accounts, 5-10 pictures, few posts, no info ‘about’ them.”
They certainly *could* be, but imo this is less likely *precisely* because they have so few pictures, posts and info about them: it is quite easy, almost trivial, for such bots to generate lots of all of that.
IMO it is far more likely people looking to somehow benefit financially from connecting with you.