It was another wild week of AI craziness!
The Guardian:
I’ve written before about all the madness in the UK, and this week they’ve launched something new over there —a tool powered by AI that helps Cabinet Ministers understand how people might react to their policies. And naturally, I can’t help but ask: do you really need AI for that? Wouldn’t it be better to just go out into your constituency and talk to people? That way, you immediately make people feel seen—and that’s exactly what you’d want as a politician (I hope so…).
Follow the Money:
Always delivering top-notch investigative journalism, -which is exactly what we’re going to need more of in the coming years. For instance, there’s this piece about an algorithm called Preselect Recidive that the police use to predict whether young people will slip up again! It’s an extremely disturbing article—one can easily imagine which groups would be affected the most. It’s like a Dutch version of Minority Report.
The Financieel Dagblad:
This week I even made a brief appearance in the Dutch economic and financial daily news outlet FD (Het Financieele Dagblad), with a delightful headline of mine: Programming Is More Than Just Typing Code (in Dutch). Zuckerberg’s idea to fire mid-level programmers makes no sense—good software requires thought, a consistent plan, and coordination. Moreover, it seems like nothing more than a diversionary tactic to silence those who criticize the anti-DEI measures, effectively muting their so-called “masculine energy.”
Bloomberg:
A long read on the influence of YouTube on Trump’s popularity offered a truly in-depth data analysis of 2,000 videos—totaling roughly 1,300 hours. What’s interesting about the analysis is that many top podcasters do talk about politics, yet they explicitly claim to be apolitical. They cover topics like sports betting, the gym, and meme culture, casually weaving in content about Trump that fits perfectly with the “locker room tough guy” vibe. It wasn’t until just before the election that most shows started interviewing explicitly political guests. They also target a male audience—only 12% of the guests in the analyzed shows are women, and according to the piece, these are also the people who voted for Trump (50% of men under 30, it claims). But what struck me most from the article wasn’t the data, but a quote from Mike Majlak: “The easiest route these days to viewership is by creating enemies” . These are men who understand the algorithm and know that it isn’t quality, but anger, that gives a show its cachet.
Club de Madrid:
Eighteen former European leaders are calling on von der Leyen to take on Google and dismantle the AdTech sector. I didn’t really know the term “AdTech” until that excellent episode of Mystery Hype Theater 3000 last summer (the entire podcast is a must-listen!). What really stuck with me from that episode is that Google has very subtly shifted its goal—from “Hey, here’s a website where you might find what you’re looking for” to “Here’s the answer to your question,” which implies an entirely different kind of inquiry.
Nature:
Research involving almost 1,500 people published in Nature shows that working with AI changes your judgment and actually amplifies the biases already present in people. In fact, the effect of AI on people is greater than the effect of other people. The researchers write about “… a mechanism wherein AI systems amplify biases, which are further internalized by humans, triggering a snowball effect where small errors in judgment escalate into much larger ones”. This is a form of moral deskilling that Evgeny Morozov writes about in his book To Save Everything, Click Here. If you no longer have to think about what is correct (for instance, if you can no longer sneak past the metro turnstiles), eventually you’ll stop doing it altogether. It’s good that there’s comprehensive research confirming this—even if it’s a shame that such studies are needed when the outcome is so predictable.
NBC News:
An AI system designed to detect weapons on school premises (a dystopian idea in itself) didn’t work well in a recent school shooting because the shooter wasn’t properly in view of the cameras. This is a prime example of a technical fix for a problem that could just as easily be solved through legislation or standards (as is the case in the Netherlands).
A Few Minor Notes:
I’ll finish with a somewhat hopeful message: we’re hearing louder calls for more decentralized social media, for instance on 404 Media. It’s a bit unfortunate that BlueSky turns out to be a nicer alternative to Twitter than Mastodon—since Mastodon is arguably more democratic—but it’s something. Oh, and a heads-up! Microsoft might soon use all your texts in Word to train its AI. Don’t want that? Here’s how you can disable it.
One more thing, for comic relief… You can now create mind maps with ChatGPT. There’s plenty of excitement on social media about how it saves hours of studying and simplifies everything!!! But if that’s the case, then you really haven’t grasped the purpose of a mind map—the true value lies in processing complex information yourself.
This post was translated by Johanna Guacide.
