It’s interesting, I ran similar experiments not too long ago after seeing a tweet from Marc Andreessen (I’ll try to find it) in which he suggested this was going on. The results surprised me too.
As a now conservative but former Marxist-Leninist who happens to be black, I think this is dangerous (I don’t use this word lightly).
When I was a leftist stuck in my far-leftist bubble, I didn’t realize just how unreasonable/unrealistic some of my positions were until I was challenged by my more conservative friends, colleagues, etc. Social networks like Facebook made it even harder to see anything outside of my existing views by primarily reinforcing content and folks who held similar views. It’s been years now since I’ve had an active social network account, and in hindsight, it’s amazing just how much these social networks have helped turn so many of us into ideologues. To now see a world where the same thing is going to happen via these GPT-based AI’s is scary to me.
Even more unfortunate is knowing that these biases will only get stronger as they’re further reinforced, especially in an industry that’s so biased to the left. While so many folks/companies claim to value “diversity,” in my experience, it’s almost never actual diversity (i.e., diversity of thought), but instead, a bunch of folks who believe the same things and think the same but look different (sometimes, they don’t even look different — *facepalm*). It’s always hilarious the reactions I get from folks who claim to value “diversity” when they find out I’m not a liberal, because, you know, as a black person, I must be a leftist!
I'm a leftist, for the most part, and I don't see these industries as biased to the left. They are certainly biased in a _liberal_ direction, but that really isn't the same as leftism. Only in the united states are the identified with one another and that's mostly because real leftist thought is basically obliterated in the United States.
In general the way americans talk about politics is totally nuts. Both political parties in the US are anti-leftist (for the most part) but The Republicans take advantage of a general suspicion against socialism in the US when they call the Democrats a leftist party. Democrats have made it perfectly clear for about 25 years that they have no interest in socialism. The most charitable thing you could say about them is they are the party which wants to privatize things a little bit less quickly.
> When I was a leftist stuck in my far-leftist bubble, I didn’t realize just how unreasonable/unrealistic some of my positions were until I was challenged by my more conservative friends, colleagues, etc. Social networks like Facebook made it even harder to see anything outside of my existing views by primarily reinforcing content and folks who held similar views. It’s been years now since I’ve had an active social network account, and in hindsight, it’s amazing just how much these social networks have helped turn so many of us into ideologues. To now see a world where the same thing is going to happen via these GPT-based AI’s is scary to me.
This happens to any concentrated ideology on social media. It's just the long tail of only being around people that reinforce your general train of thought. I've seen it happen to liberals, conservatives, and libertarians alike. If you don't want to fall into the pit of ideological entrapment then don't justify your thoughts with a connected ideology.
I fall on the liberal end of the spectrum if you write the things I currently believe in and assign them to distributions, but I call myself an independent. Frankly, a lot of people don't do this because it attracts subtle ire from everyone, as opposed to having a close camp to psychologically make you feel safe. my liberal friends think I'm too conservative on certain things and my conservative friends gawk at my liberal ideas. I'd say our political atmosphere and the two party system is all justified by social consequences. That said, people who judge you for (non-fringe) politics are particularly awful people in my mind, so it's gotten easier to settle with over the years. Stick with the people that ask curious questions of you rather than the people capable of doing lettuce throwing and out casting.
Can you say more about what challenges on what positions changed your opinions? Have tour political opinions changed on both social and economic issues? I’d be very interested to hear more. Specifically, I am curious what the most influential points raised to you were.
I say the same thing all the time as you did above, regarding how detrimental curated media is to society. I share your concerns that generated content will make matters unfathomably worse. How these techniques divide our population and inhibit the open discourse necessary to a well-functioning democracy are destroying our sociopolitical system.
The way you talk about diversity (i.e. diversity of thought vs diversity of looks) is similar to what Vivek Ramaswamy has to say in his book, Woke, Inc. You may enjoy the read.
As a now conservative but former Marxist-Leninist who happens to be black, I think this is dangerous (I don’t use this word lightly).
When I was a leftist stuck in my far-leftist bubble, I didn’t realize just how unreasonable/unrealistic some of my positions were until I was challenged by my more conservative friends, colleagues, etc. Social networks like Facebook made it even harder to see anything outside of my existing views by primarily reinforcing content and folks who held similar views. It’s been years now since I’ve had an active social network account, and in hindsight, it’s amazing just how much these social networks have helped turn so many of us into ideologues. To now see a world where the same thing is going to happen via these GPT-based AI’s is scary to me.
Even more unfortunate is knowing that these biases will only get stronger as they’re further reinforced, especially in an industry that’s so biased to the left. While so many folks/companies claim to value “diversity,” in my experience, it’s almost never actual diversity (i.e., diversity of thought), but instead, a bunch of folks who believe the same things and think the same but look different (sometimes, they don’t even look different — *facepalm*). It’s always hilarious the reactions I get from folks who claim to value “diversity” when they find out I’m not a liberal, because, you know, as a black person, I must be a leftist!