Some of the worst "abuses of AI" are going to be things we've already fully normalized—we just fail to reflect adequately on our culture and in what ways it's broken.
True, the AI part will make this worse, especially if states get into really targeted advertisements. But the morality line is already being crossed daily.
Advertising it is encouraging addictive behavior.
I think it is fine that the state runs it, but not the way that many do.
It being a charity doesn't absolve them from bad behavior, plenty of charities have been... controversial.
Well, it does highlight the fact that AI will make this sort of manipulation so much easier and faster.
Imagine a world where there the only vehicles are bicycles and people crash frequently. Now, the first car is introduced and someone crashes at 100MPH -- would you really say that the car is irrelevant to the situation because people have been crashing for decades?
Yes, you are right: the root problem is the way we view people's minds as a resource to be exploited through psychological manipulation, but that does not make irrelevant the very real new danger of AI.
The tragic irony being that's basically what we did and continue to do.
* Must be licensed
* Must have a minimum level of liability insurance that covers other participants in an accident
* Can be fined, get higher insurance premiums, and lose their licenses for breaking driving laws
* Can be put in jail for felonies for sufficiently reckless driving that has the potential to endanger others
As I understand it, commercially licensed drivers usually have even higher requirements and lose their licenses more easily for driving infractions.
GenAI makes a lot of creative actions much easier, faster, automatable, and available to everyone, and "everyone" includes a lot of people with no foresight or discipline whatsoever.
Eventually jaywalking was invented as a concept by the car lobby.
> And then the automobile happened. And then automobiles began killing thousands of children, every year.
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-76-the-modern...
Not illegal, but immoral
People in America are fat and depressed because of a culture of looking to blame biology for poor self control rather than take responsibility for their own behaviour. Advertising is just as much of a thing in East Asia but it doesn't have the obesity problem that the west has, because there it's regarded as a personal failing. Advertisement was just as much a thing in America 50 years ago as it is now, but people weren't fat and depressed then, because people were told to take responsibility for their diet and their state of mind.
Willpower is like a muscle, it's been proven to strengthen with use. Letting people get away with blaming advertisement, biology or whatever for their failures prevents them ever needing to develop their willpower.
The introduction of fast food caused America to get fat. The introduction of Ozempic is helping America reverse that.
Neither of these changes are because the average American gained or lost willpower.
These changes are because of biological cause and effect. Fast food and Ozempic are products that hack ancient biological circuits that drive behavior. It's empirically falsifiable causality, not vague woo.
I say that as an ex-obese who can now say he's 'fit'. I wouldn't pose on magazine or on Venice beach, but I'll be quite happy to go shirtless this summer for the first time in more than a decade. I'm constantly hungry, and will be all my life. I fucked up my hormones by eating too much. I don't have any food I can just eat at home. I have to prepare it before. I eat out a lot, and always place myself away from food at gatherings. Each decision I make to avoid eating, I transformed into rituals, so they aren't decisions anymore.
If I had to also stop smoking/drinking/gambling, I wouldn't have succeeded. If I had half my salary, I wouldn't have succeeded.
Obesity in men is quite hard to see/feel at first, especially since I bummed my ankles before putting on weight, so most physical diminutions I put on my accident and not my weight. When my fat showed on my chin, I was already at 34 BMI (I'm at 24 now, I've been around 26-28 for 4 years).
I also was fit as a teen, my upbringing gave me a very good support system and 'community', so my willpower is easy to refill: a good demonstration, a 1st of may, a short night/weekend in a 'ZAD' (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_to_Defend) and I'm good to go do any soul-crushing task for hours.
State lotteries are a compromise: They inhibit underground lotteries. The goal of the state lotteries is to divert people away from the danger of the underground while keeping itself from being overly attractive.
In most (or at least a lot of) countries states regulate casinos _so much_ than it becomes almost a technicality that casinos are privately owned.
Also with lotteries you have the scale factor -- in order to have an attractive lottery, you need a ton of ticket buyers, so if you have a national level lottery you can definitely make neighborhood lotteries way less appealing.
Blackjack and poker tables don't scale the same way.
Accessibility and marketing matters.
It has always been a significant part of 20-30 yo male paychecks, now it's just acceptable to advertise on ESPN.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1332999/gross-gaming-rev...
As someone who was a 20-30 year old male for 10 years, it’s not something I would have ever considered, the effort, risk, and return doesn’t seem worth it vs. just buying VTI or SCHB and then letting them sit?
Are the majority of 20s males really gambling a significant percentage of post-tax on sports? Has this displaced social fantasy football type games or the basketball brackets?
You have ex-crypto/dropship bros who turned to sport betting to make 'millions'. basically they're rolled by the apps for half their bets, their winnings are the payment, and their balance is always positive since their EV is 1.60 (when normal customers EV is .80).
That, plus advertising on college sports (including 'free bets'), it is really a big thing, even for 30yo+ people to be fair.
Most of the lotteries were started with the promise that they would "fund education" but in reality dollars are fungible. To the extent that they even try to maintain the facade, that's all that it is.
This doesn't matter. It's that they're given for a separate service, vs compulsory extraction. That's the reality.
It seems that society can't delineate between accepting a practice and promoting a practice.
but it would cut off a lot of services and opportunities for everyone else who is able to pay with their attention (to ads) instead
Dig a little into the idea that people can "pay" with their attention (and with their poor health, crappy buying decisions, personal freedoms) might fit the dictionary definition of sinister.
why should those at the top 5% pay for more than basic subsistence to the 25% at the bottom? Welfare is for survival (and survival only), not for services that is not essential.
Maybe that wont happen in our current system for a generation or two. But then the question those 5% at the top have to ask themselves is whether they feel lucky to avoid an uprising against them in their lifetime.
The bottom of that 5% looks like extremely upper middle class. Big houses, probably a vacation somewhere nice once a year, new cars fairly regularly, etc.
The middle most likely live in gated communities, with any kids going to private schools. They fly first/business class everywhere and can probably even afford to buy one of those tickets at a moments notice. Their closet is worth more than most people will earn in several years of working.
At the top end, these people have multiple tennis courts, pools, basketball courts, etc in their back yard. If there is something they want, they most likely have staff on hand to handle it. If they want to go somewhere, they hop in one of their private jets, helicopters, or chauffeured cars and go there. Oh, and they have a team of lawyers ensuring they never pay a dime in taxes.
Source: spent some time with each of these personas in my life.
Not Having Enough Information is the least of anyone’s problems.
> I do think a lot of ads go too far, but I think some form of advertisement is necessary to get new awareness of new brands and products. Otherwise only the pre-established large brands and products will ever get sales, which would lead to a lack of competition and all the negatives that come with that.
This is a very post-hoc rationalization. Given that this isn’t how advertisement was invented and I have seen no evidence that this is how it works in practice, I don’t see a reason to accept it as a premise.
See political advertisement in America. That massively, massively favors the big players, not the little ones. Not only to boost them directly but also by actively smearing the other candidates, which moves the outsider candidates from the category of “never heard of” to “scumbag” in the minds of voters. (If you have no other information you have nothing else to go on.)
You don’t advertise until you are confident that 90% of your potential market segment knows about you. You advertise continuously as long as the desire-making makes a profit according to whatever projections the marketing department makes.
You say that that Coca-cola is one of the biggest advertisers. At the same time everyone knows about them. Are they simply pouring money down the drain?
One of my favorite is Kenshi. [1] Within a few months after launch, the dev was left with literally tens of users. Yet he continued working on it endlessly (while working as a part time security guard) and today it has near to more players than ever. And that's because of word of mouth. Which I suppose is something I'm also here partaking in. It's a great game!
If word of mouth is the only advertisement replacement allowed, it would force many companies to rely on fake sockpuppet customers to try to get started.
It will actually benefit small structures that have no money for marketting anyway.
And big ones won't be able to rely on their treasure chest to generate more of it, they will have to earn it.
The age old use of advertisements that were generic and placed on TV channels were IMHO the "peak" of what advertising could be. All other forms of advertisements have proven to be predatory. Sites DEMAND you view their ads so that they can receive money to keep the site going.... That inevitably results in traffic to the site going elsewhere and the same result is that the site dies so I absolutely agree that if the site/product requires continuous profit through advertisements because otherwise it would not be able to continue operating then maybe that site/product does not need to continue existing.
There's no "society". Obviously people can tell the difference. You're the one saying the law should treat them differently - why? We have certain exceptions, but what's your case for a blanket rule, or a deny by default rule?
No, you cannot. You are meddling with the forces of nature with this sort of talk!
Without unregulated online advertising, there is no Facebook or Google or Twitter. Modern Silicon Valley could not exist without the fortunes made by showing people ads. Apple, Netflix, Amazon are all deep in it now as well.
Awesome!
The Silicon Valley full of genocide cheerleaders? Sounds like you're threatening me with a good time.
Facebook is ghoulish, and has scammed and brainwashed a huge portion of the most vulnerable people. Google is evil. Twitter is the dumpster fire other dumpster fires are ashamed of.
People seem to be missing your Network reference. Regardless of how you intended it, yes, advertising is undoubtedly one of the greatest and least noticed evils of our age. There have been many warnings over the decades, but they don't get much airtime for some completely unsurprising reason.
If it were up to you, what would you allow to be advertised? What’s your allow-list? And how would you define it in a way to allow the advertising of future products and services?
Advertising can be annoying and a bad influence, but I think it's one of those things you'll really miss when it's gone.
The bottom line is that advertising comes about from a need - that need will emerge again, even if you tried to make it inefficient to fulfil that need.
We also have a need for food and sleep, but that doesn’t mean we should accept being forced into eating or sleeping when visiting web pages or consuming media. The absurdity of that example should prove the point.
no? promoting stuff with a plausible chance of adding value to someone's life is not bad imho
the problem is the stuff that kills value, like smoking and gambling. not advertising in general. so yes advertising (the many) bad stuffs is bad if that's what you mean by "most things"
This clip [1] where Coke managed to get a couple of bottles placed in front of Ronaldo during a presser is awesome. A visibly agitated Ronaldo places them aside out of the frame, grabs a water, holds it up, says 'Agua!' and the carries on. But Coke is so dependent on these false associations, that that one little event saw them lose some $4 billion in market capitalization! Imagine if advertising wasn't a thing, and people only associated Coke with the sort of people who regularly drink Coke. The world be a much better, and healthier, place.
And Coke, as scummy as they are, are one of the less scummy advertisers in the advertising world - such as it is.
but you decided (for others) that this stuff kills value. Not all people would agree with you. And while it's pretty clear that smoking is harmful, the smoker might want it as it relieves stress or for whatever reason, and they're willing to make the health trade-off. Ditto with gambling.
These are not the only things that kill value. Turn off adblock for a week and count the ads you see for quality products that you actually need, that you would not be worse-off for purchasing. Generally if something would actually add value to your life, nobody needs to trick you into buying it.
Yes.
Advertisement is in practice predatory. Predatory psychology. It’s not a symmetrical exchange of want-information vs. has-information. It preys on us.
And I don’t think lotteries are particularly bad. They sell daydreaming and one-in-ten-million chances. Not a bad thing for anyone in moderation. Not that last part: all other vice sellers (candy, other unhealthy food, tobacco, alcohol) have no better arguments for their existence.
Is it advertising lotteries that is immoral, or the lotteries themselves?
There are already a lot of sleazy ads that I see for gambling and the lottery. But this is extremely predatory since it personifies the possible winning.
This should be straight up illegal.
This reeks of someone doing absolutely no market research
(*) of course, this is my opinion, you might not have the same morals as I do.
I would even say it's only negatives.
But unfortunately, it will have to stay legal, otherwise people would still seek it through illegal means, possibly exposing themselves to much worse dangers.
It's the same problem with drugs (including Alcohol) and tobacco, they need to be legal in order to he regulated.
The same could be said about prohibition for alcohol and tobacco. Raising the age for legal tobacco consumption did reduce consumption, and prohibition did lower consumption permanently for alcohol.
> Some of the worst "abuses of AI" are going to be things we've already fully normalized
In this case, I can't see more advertisement substantially altering the experience.
Possibly micro-targeted images? But is that really going to change the net effect of advertising?
Exactly. Especially at the government level. Fine, some states allow casinos to operate, but it's pretty evil when they run lotteries themselves. The ridiculous reason "we're using these funds this to help educate people about math" is just that, ridiculous.
Fixed this for you bro
"It is very immoral to stab someone with a knife."
"It is very immoral to kill a billion people with a bomb."
And we should treat these situations with the same attention. Whatever happened to considering magnitude?
Magnitude is a question of pragmatism. I don't think pragmatism is very popular among people when looking at things like the war on drugs (despite so many people being against it, nothing has changed).
The outcome for "It is very immoral to stab someone with a knife." and "It is very immoral to kill a billion people with a bomb." is very different in scale and kind. What I highlighted is that the means by which a common objective is reached is irrelevant when the objective is inherently immoral.
I hope this helps you understand how language works.
I disagree completely if after the initial objective is reached, the means then propagates the reaching of further objectives that are also immoral. And the more advanced the technology, the more immoral means will be reached.
I'm reminded of the film They Live (1988). The protagonist, Nada, seeks a job at a construction site, as that is his trade. Due to the union, the foreman can only hire Nada as a day laborer, as Nada is not in the union. His way of life is gate-kept by powerful interests controlling the hiring process, and access to capital is constrained by these interests. By the time Nada obtains the sunglasses, he has already lost that job and is well down the path of becoming radicalized. Ironically perhaps, he first heard about the group producing the sunglasses when they hijacked the TV signals to essentially advertise their ideology.
Once Nada acquires the glasses, he could be said to be enlightened, but I also view it as a sort of cautionary tale, considering how the film ends for Nada. Along the way, he sees through all of the ads, and in fact much of the surrounding content itself rings hollow for him. His actions are reminiscent of Ted Kaczynski in this context. Why didn’t he instead seek to join the union? Were the glasses actually what they purported to be, or were they a kind of rose-colored glasses that were designed to manipulate the wearer just like the advertisements did, but while making them believe they were seeing things more truly? Nada thought he was acting under his own agency before putting on the glasses, and yet he so readily trusted that he was still after putting them on, while adopting an anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian ideology as part of an underground fringe group.
Perhaps Nada was just tired of being part of the system, but by rage quitting as he did, we as the viewer are led to believe he goes out in a blaze of glory, but I view his exit to stage left thusly as “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,” to quote the Bard of Avon. There is no exit from capitalism that way, if there is any alternative at all if capitalist realism holds true, and Nada’s final line is perhaps an admission that he was himself used all along, and he was simply tired of scraping by and being in scrapes. He had gone down the path he was on as long as he was willing to go, and there was no way back, as he was already too far gone to come back.
I’m reminded of the is/ought distinction, and I’d make a similar distinction between advertisements/content. Content is itself a similar kind of appeal to believe or think about concepts and ideals and ideas that come from outside ourselves. Due to the power of belief, capital seeks to gate-keep access to content, and advertising acts as a sort of escape hatch, blow-off valve, or side door through which access to those seeking content are able to be reached, accessible for a fee. It’s not exactly ideal, and not without its own hidden costs to the buyer or seller.
Lack of capital is the conflict that leads to the crisis in Nada’s life, but I wish that his story had a happy ending. I feel that Nada was perhaps less free after putting on the sunglasses than he was before, as strange as that may sound. He fell for a classic blunder, believing that he actually was immune to advertising, rather than being sold an even bigger lie: that he could (only?) effect change through violence, that his life was no longer worth living.