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Comment by go_elmo | Hacker News Reader

Good point - its not a previously inexistent mechanism - but AI leverages it even more. A russian troll can put out 10x more content with automation. Genuine counter-movements (e.g. grassroot preferences) might not be as leveraged, causing the system to be more heavily influenced by the clearly pursued goals (which are often malicious)

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It's not only about efficiency. When AI is utilized, things can become more personal and even more persuasive. If AI psychosis exists, it can be easy for untrained minds to succumb to these schemes.

> If AI psychosis exists, it can be easy for untrained minds to succumb to these schemes.

Evolution by natural selection suggests that this might be a filter that yield future generations of humans that are more robust and resilient.

You can't easily apply natural selection to social topics. Also, even staying in that mindframe: Being vulnerable to AI psychosis doesn't seem to be much of a selection pressure, because people usually don't die from it, and can have children before it shows, and also with it. Non-AI psychosis also still exists after thousands of years.

Even if AI psychosis doesn’t present selection pressure (I don’t think there’s a way to know a priori), I highly doubt it presents an existential risk to the human gene pool. Do you think it does?

Historically, wealthy and powerful people present the largest risk to the human gene pool, arguably even larger than disease.

> Genuine counter-movements (e.g. grassroot preferences) might not be as leveraged

Then that doesn’t seem like a (counter) movement.

There are also many “grass roots movements” that I don’t like and it doesn’t make them “good” just because they’re “grass roots”.

In this context grass roots would imply the interests of a group of common people in a democracy (as opposed to the interests of a small group of elites) which ostensibly is the point.

"The interests of the common people" is a very dangerous collection of weasel words. The whole damn point of democracy is realizing that you cannot just delegate power to 'better people' and expect them to rule in interest of the common people. Because that is basically exactly what royalists were promising!

I think it is more useful to think of “common people” and “the elites” not as separate categories but rather than phases on a spectrum, especially when you consider very specific interests.

I have some shared interested with “the common people” and some with “the elites”.

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