Is the AI Mania a Psych-Ops? | Hacker News Reader

Is the AI Mania a Psych-Ops?

charleshughsmith.blogspot.com

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I don’t know if it’s PsyOps or not, but this is recognizable:

> We have been fed a steady diet of bullshit for the last several years.

--General purpose agents that turn out to suck so badly people struggle to find real-world use cases for them.

--Allegedly godlike models that turn out to be incremental advances.

--Claims like 'We now know how to build AGI' that never turn out to be true.

--Promises for world-changing science that rarely materialize.

--Cherry-picked studies, benchmark-gaming, and now even vibe-coded graphs, with zero transparency about how systems work or how they have been trained; public science is in the rear view mirror.

> Psychological operations (PSYOPs or Psych-Ops) aim to achieve narrative dominance by molding perceptions and attitudes via multi-channel information and persuasive messaging. PSYOPs seeks to achieve control through non-violent means by influencing the minds of the target audiences.

This definition sounds like a bunch of fancy words for Propaganda? How is “PSYOPS” different?

Psych ops is different from propaganda because the former has a component of weakening an opponent through messaging, whereas the latter is more concerned with trying to convince others to your side or view point. But you’re right that there could be overlap, it just depends on who’s the target.

Thanks. So propaganda is the message, while psyops is the campaign that might use propaganda (and other tools) as part of a larger psychological strategy.

Tinfoil hat time:

Let's say that I can make a stochastic parrot with a tunable bias. Let's say I want to run the world. If I can get everyone to accept the parrot as actually smarter than humans, and so everyone listens to it as an authority, and I control the parrot, then I run the world.

No tin foil hat needed, You've adequately described the Catholic Church. Their methods, however, are starting to look a little outdated as of late. The new standard in mind control is due to arrive soon.

well then! to flag, brigade against, or ignore..

(if he is right, then one of the above is likely, right?)

(otoh, if he is wrong, does anyone have some very solid, well considered counterpoints to share?)

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