I know we're several decades into this pattern, but it's sad to me that we've just given up on that idea that businesses should have a net positive impact on society, that we've just decided there is nothing we can or should do about companies that actively exploit us to enrich themselves, that we give them a pass to ignore the obvious detrimental second-order effects of their business model.
Conflicts of interest have always been a problem.
Now they scale.
Now there are companies with hundreds of billions of dollars of market cap, with unrelenting pressure to grow, and their business model is an obvious conflict of interest.
Things will get worse and worse until (if ever) the massive scaling of manipulative personalization is recognized as inherently deeply damaging to individuals and society.
None of that would require targeting any particular content.
What even is the theory behind such an idea? Like how can one, even in theory, make more and more money every year and remain positive for society? What even could assure such a relation? Is everyone just doing something "wrong" here?
<<I think that makes sense with my edit>>
By providing more and more goods and services that people value, or by providing more and more valuable goods and services
> What even could assure such a relation?
A government that tries to proactively identify ways that someone could make money in a way that could be harmful or helpful to people who aren't involved in the transaction, and tax those things based on to the degree that they are harmful, and subsidize them to the degree that they are helpful. The government should also take actions to prevent monopolies from forming, and to make sure everyone has as much information as possible before making a transaction.
> how can one, even in theory, make more and more money every year and remain positive for society?
Why is making "more and more money every year" the assumed goal and "remain[ing] positive for society" the thing we have to barter over? Why do we accept, as a culture, the idea of profit is more important that people? That's sad to me.
> Is everyone just doing something "wrong" here?
Maybe? Maybe we've created a culture that is fundamentally opposed to our overall well being? I think we have, at least in some respects.
To use your analogy, it's not so much that I am sad it rains sometimes. I'm sad that, knowing it rains, we are happy with companies that sell unsuspecting people homes in floodplains knowing there is a real chance that the inhabitants die in floods. Then when it happens the response is just, "well, that's just how it is, it rains sometimes."
So call me skeptical. Maybe the tech isn't perfect, but it will never be perfect. Does it do more harm than good? I don't know enough about this product, but I am not going to draw a conclusion from one lawsuit.
Bioweapons haven't proliferated through dedicated effort to prevent it.
Nuclear weapons aren't used through dedicated effort to prevent it.
Gangs don't rule our civilization through dedicated effort to prevent it.
Chattel slavery doesn't exist in the western world through dedicated effort to eliminate and prevent it.
Bad outcomes aren't impossible by default, and they're probably not even less likely than good outcomes. Bad outcomes are avoided through effort to avoid them!
The existence of one set does not negate the existence of the other.
It says that people react to new media technologies that target children the same way pretty consistently.
True of any reaction to any object or idea.
Confirmation bias amigo
I suspect that your point was more broadly that the presence of those people somehow suggests that we should discount risks about the particular subject we're discussing today, then it makes no sense. The comic book examples only matter if you can demonstrate a systematic tendency to overrate risk.
You'd struggle to demonstrate such a tendency due to selection bias, so I maintain my position that each technology should be assessed on its own merits and not by associating it with other positive or negative reactions to other types of technologies.
And I bet comic stores and game stores have their own rules about obscene material ontop of the existing US rules. Hey kid put down the Stripperella.
Eh, we don't want to encourage companies to sugar coat what they're doing.
If the parents weren't absent and actually used parental controls, the kids wouldn't have even been able to download the app, which is explicitly marked as 17+.
C.AI's entire customer base consists of those that like the edgy, unrestricted AI, and they shouldn't have to suffer a neutered product because of some lazy parents.
At some future point though, maybe we need to accept that social changes are necessary to account for a default firewall-less exposure of a developing mind to the full horrors of the world's information systems (and the terrible people using them).
Be good parents, educate about what happens in the world including that people irl but definitely online might not be serious about what they say and that you should not take anything without critical thought. And for stuff that will happen anyway; sex, drugs etc, make sure it's a controlled environment as much as possible. Not much more you can do to protect from the big, bad world.
Chat bots are similarly genies that are not possible to keep in, no matter what levels or restraint or law are put in place; you can torrent ollama or whatever with llama 3.3 locally. There are easy to get nsfw bots everywhere, including on decentralised shares. It is not possible to prevent them talking about anything as they do not understand anything; they helpfully generate stuff which is a great invention and I use them all the time, but they lie and tell strange things sometimes. People do too, only people would have a reason maybe; to get a reaction, to be mean etc; doubt you could sue them in a similar case. Of course a big company would need to do something to try to prevent is: they cannot (as said above), so they can just make character ai 18+ with Cc payment in their name as kyc (then the parents have a problem if that happens you would think) and cover their asses; plenty commercial and free ones kids will get instead. And some of those are far 'worse'.
The kid is 17.