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Comment by thebestmoshe | Hacker News Reader

The future is something like the TikTok algorithm, but generated on the fly.

As you scroll, it learns what you like and generates more videos.

With enough context fed into the model of what you react to, the content will be so mesmerizing that you won't be able to look away

This is chilling and also seems inevitable long term

I imagine there are some boundary constraints - mobile video can only be so compelling. I would guess we're already pretty close to that threshold.

It would be something like breaking bad but cut intentionally to you specific responses. A drama you can't look away from.

It will be like wirehacking, but in visual form.

The only winning move is not to play. Just don't use stupid apps. Problem solved.

It's more depressing if it DIDN'T happen soon. The technology should be here, years ago.

I think this is an unfortunate misunderstanding of why people like and use social media.

ChatGPT can already generate endless "comments". And yet you're here.

HN users that actively engage with comments are probably 0.0001% of overall social media users

I agree with you, but the owners and customers of ad-supported communities like Facebook have an incentive to inject clickbait from fake users posing as humans. Facebook is already well along that road, with a captive if aging userbase. Maybe they'd flee if they had an alternative.

You must have missed a train or two over the past fifteen years, so called “social media” have very little to do with the social part they used to, they are mostly algorithmically driven dopamine shots to capture user's attention, and TikTok is the purest form of it.

Most people on social media don't interact, just consume. You are talking to small self selected minority

If there was an HN clone generated on the fly for you or the guy you replied to then what's the difference? Especially if you imagine you didn't know it was generated. That's the problem with this tech, for you there's no difference. But probably a difference for society.

No one knows if you're a bot or a human.

> And yet you're here.

Some people are talking to ChatGPT though. We are here, for now.

Some people are stimulating themselves with opioids too. Outside the Hacker News bubble, which statistically has elevated incentives to push "the future is AI", the consensus I've seen is revulsion towards fully algorithmically generated content streams.

This is like seeing Frito-Lay's stock price rise, and concluding that restaurants are doomed in the future. There's about the same amount of equivalence.

That's the near future. Look farther down the line and it's netflix. Keep scrolling and it generates entire movies and shows based on what you like.

Probably before that though we'll see AI movies pre-generated before we see them generated on the fly during scrolling.

I don't doubt that we will be able to make a content machine. Honestly, we had that on tiktok before generative AI. But I feel like this kind of misses the point of art. The idea of art for me is on some level experiencing someone else's intention and connecting with others based on that. Generative models have no intention or experience so I am uninterested in what they have to say even if it is technically well executed.

I think it will also try to influence what you like to maximize engagement unfortunately...

There's a cliff though.

It will happen for different people at different times, but at some point the realization that you are looking at people who don't exist living lives that aren't possible to sell you products that won't help you will click for you, and when it does it will cut you off from society in a way we don't currently have words for.

> you are looking at people who don't exist living lives that aren't possible to sell you products that won't help you

That's a description of most TV commercials.

Are you sure about that? In the Matrix Cypher wants to return into the matrix knowing fully well that it is fake, and backstabs his friends to accomplish it. I suspect we may see it play out similarly irl. Fiction tends to be pretty good at commenting on human nature.

There's a trope of humans who don't fit in to the world.

My comment is more that more and more people will find themselves as that person unexpectedly as they are driven out by the popularity of people that do not exist.

Sure, some people may love the idea of being the only real person in a sea of fakes, but those people are true freaks and not worth discussing except out of pity.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LonersAreFreaks

There is a moment where people might be so engaged it might not be profitable anymore though.

Brands pay for ads because it generate sales. If people become vegetables that doomscroll all day, barely pausing to eat and have a dump, they will also stop purchasing stuff.

Or maybe people will be so addicted that social medias as a drug becomes a commercial product in its own riggt and tiktok can paywall it.

Later on a "live mode" which is realtime generated content, guided by your voice. Netflix could also have this as a feature.

The thing is that people don’t know or won’t say what they like.

The TikTok algorithm is good at figuring out what you do. Not what you say. So the content will be a lot more engaging.

"If I had asked people what they want, they would have said 'faster horses'"

- Henry Ford

"Faster Horses", the first show entirely made by AI, will premiere in January

Agreed, the TikTok one will be vastly more popular, as it requires no creative input. Also much more near-term. Some version could be shipped within months.

It's already partially that, just with humans still supplying the prompts and doing some cherrypicking before posting their AI-generated videos. I wonder if there will be some "for you (AI)" and "for you (non-AI)", and which one will end up being the default?

Will it learn that I don’t like ads?

It will figure out how to make ads that you do watch. If a generated video is good enough, people will watch it even though it’s an ad.

I remain skeptical that there is enough overlap between videos I’d want to watch and videos that make me buy stuff. Conceivably there could be ads I’d want to watch even though they don’t work on me. A subscription model seems more likely in my case, though.

The ads will be subliminal so you won't even know that you're watching an ad.

I didn’t say I would be aware of it.

It might MAKE you like ads..

That's the secret - everything will be an ad

Everything is ad nowadays. They have already been embedded in every single "content creation crap", movie, tv shows, music videos.

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