Turning off Your Brain

There’s a video from Technology Connections that’s been making the rounds on the internet. If you haven’t seen it yet, go watch it, it’s worth your time:

The video talks about “algorithmic complacency”, where many people would rather let computers do the thinking for them, whether it’s through social media algorithms or AI.

Now, I understand why people are like that. Because for most people, using the internet isn’t part of their job, and chatting with AI isn’t part of their job. They are already mentally exhausted from their jobs and daily lives, so they just want to turn off their brains and be mindlessly entertained.

The problem is, when you turn off your brain, you don’t stop receiving information. In fact, you become even more susceptible to misinformation. You start believing everything you see on TikTok and everything ChatGPT says, especially when the topic is outside your expertise.¹

Then there are malicious actors spreading misinformation everywhere so the AI learns from them:

This tactic, Dougan claimed, could not only help Russia extend the reach of its information, but also corrupt the datasets on which the AI models rely. He cited a NewsGuard audit that found that the top 10 generative AI models repeated Dougan’s Russian disinformation narratives 32 percent of the time. “The more you do this [narrative laundering], the more diverse this information comes, the more that this affects the amplification,” he said. “Not only does it affect amplification, it affects future AI … by pushing these Russian narratives from the Russian perspective, we can actually change worldwide AI.”

When you put these two things together, it’s not hard to imagine the potential consequences. Obviously, nothing bad could come from this, and I see a bright future ahead of us.