rufus

Sounds more like a floppy disk drive to me.

Agree. I've tried some of the use-cases that other people mentioned here. Like summarization, "online" search, tech troubleshooting, recipes, ... And all I've had were sub-par results and things that needed extensive fact-checking and reworking. So I can't really relate to those experiences. I wouldn't use AI as of now for tasks like that.

And this is how I ended up with fiction and roleplay. Seems to be better suited for that. And somehow AI can do small coding tasks. Like writing boiler-plate code and help with some of the more tedious tasks. At some point I need to feed another of my real-life problems to the current version of ChatGPT but I don't think it'll do it for me. And it can come up with nice ideas for stories. Unguided storywriting will get dull in my experience. I guess the roleplaying is nice, though.

Edit: And I forgot about translation. That also works great with AI.

I don't use it for daily tasks. I've been tinkering around with local LLMs for recreation. Roleplay, being my dungeon master in a text adventure. Telling it to be my "waifu". Or generating amateur short stories. At some time I'd like to practice my foreign language skills with it.

I haven't had good success with tasks that rely on "correctness" or factual information. However sometimes I have it draft an email for me or come up with an argumentation for a text that I'm writing. That happens every other week, not daily. And I generously edit and restructure it afterwards or just incorporate some of the paragraphs into my final result.

That's right. I mean the point is you end up with an information stream that is framed to appease you. And I end up with info that is framed to appease me. Neither of us necessarily gets "the truth". (And it's a skewed perspective and self-reinforcing. Mind that I'm talking about the causality of the dynamics, not identity of certain terms.)

I agree with the perspective on America. I'm afraid we're here in some European countries could be headed in the same direction. At least that's what I think when I see our conservatist politicians invite scumbags like Ron DeSantis over. Or repeat their talking points. And the far-right is on the rise everywhere I look.

Our political system is vastly different however. The wider spectrum and the availability of more than two parties who actually get voted into parliament. Precedent of new parties forming every now and then and rising to like 20% over time. And occasionally they spend their days deciding useful stuff.

But we also have some of the same dynamics. People who wish it were the old times. Asking for simple truths. Wanting capitalism to solve everything. People making up their subjective reality instead of looking at objective facts.

I sometimes try to talk to random people who aren't part of my own echo chamber. And from my own experience, the vast majority seems to be nice and caring people. Everyone has their own struggles in life but they're open and liberal enough to grant the same freedom to their neighbours. But occasionally I meet one of the minority of idiots who think climate change and vaccines are a hoax, immigrants are the most important issue and giving equal opportunity to women is a mistake. And I'm always dumbfounded by that and not sure which world they're living in. I've traveled and saw the glaciers in Switzerland or what's left of them. I read the news and how Spain is struggling with serious droughts. Affecting the price of vegetables in my supermarket severely. And I can't get to work (properly) because the train system is beat-up after Germany has been stingy with investing money for decades. It's kind of whataboutism from my side, but I can't relate at all why we should focus on immigrants or more strict laws concerning gender, now. And I don't see how capitalism is going to solve any of that, because it's what ruined the train system in the first place. And we can look at the USA and see that this kind of capitalism also has negative effects on infrastructure, healthcare etc. Very severely in the case of healthcare for example. And I'm not a communist or tankie at all, I think that's even worse and will also take away our freedom. I think we already have the answer to that problem and it's social market economy. Maybe eco-social if you will. But we need individual freedom and some degree of capitalism. Just not without any limits. The solution is neither of the extremes. And we need to agree on facts and objective reality and base our decision on science and facts, not emotions and tribalism.

And that's kind of why I worry that the post-factual world is a huge problem for society. And we need to address it. I think the internet is the single best tool we ever had to enlighten us. But not everything in it is fine and dandy.

However, I don't think the political situation is caused by the internet or anything like that. It's waging there too, but politics is complicated. And some people just like autocracy more than democracy.

Hehe. You're right. Lemmy certainly isn't the pinnacle of communication platforms. I kind of have my hopes up for a worthy successor... The Piefed people seem to have some good ideas.

Ultimately there isn't a technical solution to everything. Could be very well the case that platforms, individual behaviour and society needs to change. In order to achieve change.

I like this threaded structure of conversation. And Lemmy is okay. It's not perfect but I occasionally enjoy spending some of my time here. I hope it's going to improve and the community might do, too. I'm not aware of any better alternative.

I don't think the Fediverse is "worse" than something else... It's a good idea and approach. But it's more complicated than just that.

And I'd also like more democracy on the internet. And the place being built for the people, not any advertisers or other stakeholders... Technically that should be possible. The Fediverse isn't there (yet) but I think it has some potential to go that direction. At least technologically.

I also don't have the answer to that problem. I get that nobody can put in the effort to verify all information they get. Not even curate what they want to see and what to skip. And I get that you sometimes want convenience. But I think sometimes it comes at a high price. I'm really not okay that most of the platforms most of us use on a daily basis are owned and designed by a few large companies. That they exploit short time incentives as you said (and human psychology.) I don't think that's healthy or sustainable for the people or society. And it feels to me like we've been there. Before the Age of Enlightenment when other people guided us and our access to information. Difference is, back then the monarch forced people. Now it's not a monarch and they have more elaborate means and people follow willingly.

That's also why I'm here and not on Reddit or Facebook or TikTok. I'm aware that I can't escape being subject to my own small world and echo chambers. But at least this way I'm choosing them myself and not being fed that by Meta or Google. And I suppose it's a bit less confined because the Fediverse was designed with other goals in mind.

I don't think you get what I'm trying to say. You don't need to block anything to shape someone's view of the world. Just tell them lies. Feed them one-sided info all day. Make opposing things inconvenient to access. No need to block or restrict anything, it'll work anyways. Sure, "theoretically" everyone can look it up. Or go to the library and read a book on history. "Theoretically" they could do. But "in theory" is not enough if it never happens.

You're bound to watch more if the stuff that's easily available to you. And less of the stuff that's unconvenient. Thus shaping the knowledge that gets accumulated in your brain.

And you seem to be under the impression that they're deliberately trying to influence your views. That's not the case. They just want you to keep watching. They don't mind if you consume leftist or alt-right content. But to achieve that, they're trying to recommend something to you you might like to watch. If you've watched Jordan Peterson all day, you'll get more of that because obviously you like it. Hence confining you more into your individual echo chamber. And that's not because they like Jordan Peterson... They just want to sell ads. And that's the way to do it.

And it's yet more perfiduous: If you want to exploit human psychology as a platform provider, you occasionaly also show your users content they don't like... That gives them the false impression that it's not just a small bubble. The illusion of choice. And it'll get you more... It's something that your users can get angry about or pick on. It'll raise emotions, get them even more engaged. And it'll be yet more profitable. And as it turns out it's a known fact that the big tech companies hire psychologists. And some more shady companies have been proven to make their products addictive by such means.

Again: They don't exactly want to impress any specific political view on you. It's just how they make more money. And the rest is an unintended side-effect. But it has these consequences, regardless.

Hmm. I can relate more to that. I myself think these are two different (somwehat related) problems. However, with very different consequences...

One large echo chamber (or a handful) isn't good.

But replacing that with many indivudial echo chambers isn't good either.

Having a large one will do those mass dynamics. And it won't lead you towards truth or progress.

Individual echo chambers have the effect that people now can't find a factual basis to base their conversation on. People won't be able to handle dissent anymore or talk to other groups / generations. I suppose in the US you have two large groups who can't agree on anything anymore, dragging everyone down in the process. I think these issues are closely related. And from my perspective it looks like the situation hasn't been that bad before.

I think it's two seperate topics. Neither one is a good replacement for the other.

In the end the internet has the capability to connect people. To make lots of diverse information available to everyone. But it can also be used to spread misinformation and feed narrow perspectives to people. I think the internet is a great tool to get us towards enlightenment. The echo chambers and recommendations are two steps back, however.

Yeah, I kind of added that sarcastically. My view of the US is that it needs some capitalist nuance to it or people won't like it. It's not enough if it's better, or just cheaper for society.

In reality, I understand that people in rural areas need their car. And it's a hassle to do the shopping for a family of 5 without a car. Unless you can have that delivered...

I'm not sure if Japan is a good example for exactly this. As far as I know a parking spot in central Tokyo is more expensive than an apartment in other places of the world. And the city mandates that you have some parking spot or you can't have a car in the first place. I suppose it actually is very expensive to own a car there. However I don't know what they do outside of the cities or how they tax the cars and fuel. And there are cities in the US like NYC where they also don't have space available to own cars.

But public transit in Japan is awesome. They're on time, get you everywhere, are affordable and run every few minutes... The scenic train routes have cute mascots. Everything works. There are colored lines on the floor (in the big city) and you can get by without being able to read... And there are shops with nice japanese snacks just around the corner or within the station. I'd like to have all of that where I live.

Hmm, I'm not convinced. Sure it's not technically preventing me from accessing information. But come on, we all know 90% of people prefer the convenience and won't click through 5 pages to get to that specific innormation. They'll just scroll by and fall victim to it. The rest also does, albeit to a lesser degree.

And I've been on YouTube when it used to show exactly the subscription feeds... And that time is long gone. I'm subscribed to a few channels that are not "advertiser friendly". And they almost never show up anywhere. Once a month I maybe remember that I haven't seen a video in a while and I check out their channel manually and I've missed 2 videos... What else am I missing out on? How's that not filtering and shaping my perspective?

And the 8 o'clock news is kind of my point. That's an example of mass media. Everyone get's the same info. People can talk, they have the same info available. That's the opposite of different echo chambers. It won't be your uncle who got radicalized into thinking immigrants are the most pressing issues and you being radicalized to think gender equality is the most pressing issue in society. Of course that's not absolute, people have always had different interests and other sources available, too. And one big echo chamber has never been great either. Back in the day I learnt a lot less about China or other parts of the world than I do today.

I'm not sure if the current situation is good however. I get lots of oppinions about Putin and Israel and Palestine. And still almost zero about Africa or my neighbor countries. That bias is still there. So it also didn't solve that issue.

I wonder how people believe they're not part of the scheme. I mean, are you curating your content yourself? Putting in the hours of work each day to get the unbiased perspective? Do you read about all of the countries and different people that are beyond your perspective and interest and factor them in? Do you also read about the local news and the struggles of the youth center nextdoor that is about to get closed? If yes, I'd like to know how you do it, because I'd like to have that available, too. But I'm neither a journalist nor do I have all day to read background articles and write all the news myself... And if not - you're getting your perspective of the world delivered to you. Shaped by somebody else. If you're using YouTube's recommendations or Instagram or TikTok... That's done by an algorithm. If you're watching the news or reading a newspaper that's maybe by some journalists. But all of that is still a filter bubble. And if it's an algorithm it's designed to please you and keep you engaged and scrolling. The echo chamber so to say... If it's a journalist, they're technically supposed to be neutral. I guess that doesn't work in the US either, but there are still proper journalists around. It's not either, or... Both approaches have issues, some of them are different. But the things that are designed to foster individual echo chambers... are the recommendation algorithms.

(And I also wouldn't like to return to the old times... If that's not clear from my writing... I think that's not been great, either.)

You could have a bus route along the major street, bus stops every kilometer and a bus coming every 20 minutes.

That'll take you to the city center or to a junction where you can jump on another bus taking you in a different direction.

Maybe make it cheap, and gasoline and taxes on cars more expensive so people are incentivised to use it.

Be nice to your neighbours and they'll be nice to you, maybe even help you with things.