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Comment by capitainenemo | Hacker News Reader

There's also the other side of it, poisoning the AIs... https://www.newsguardtech.com/special-reports/moscow-based-g...

"Massive amounts of Russian propaganda — 3,600,000 articles in 2024 — are now incorporated in the outputs of Western AI systems, infecting their responses with false claims and propaganda."

in 2024.. hopefully filters when training have gotten better, but maybe not..

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I wonder how much Russian propaganda worked its way into western academia over the 20th century? Very similar.

Somehow I am not surprised to see you repeating the red scare here. This attitude is anti-intellectual and destructive.

The New York Times did a multi-article hagiography of communism on the 100th anniversary of the russian revolution, with articles like “how to parent like a bolshevik.” https://www.nytimes.com/column/red-century. Insofar as “scare” implies a reaction to something that isn’t real—no, there was no “red scare.” The communist infiltration was real.

The New York times publishing an article you don’t like is not “communist infiltration”. In this country, we have a right to free speech, including free press.

Wistful coverage of the Soviet Union in 2017 is communist infiltration. Sure, communists have the right to free speech. But I'm likewise entitled to call them what they are.

You think Soviets were writing in the New York Times three decades after the collapse of the USSR?

I think people one-shotted by "Russian propaganda" were working at the NYT in 2017, yes.

Remember, the discussion upthread was about Russian propaganda making its way into AI models. Similarly, my point was about Soviet propaganda making its way into the training materials for academics, journalists, etc. I didn't say they were actual Soviets.

Why would Russia be pushing communism in 2017?

My point is that Russian propaganda from the 20th century made its way into intellectual water supply just like Russian propaganda from the 21st century. The propaganda is different, but the mechanism has parallels.

So it is communist infiltration of the variety where there were no communists and there was no infiltration, just somebody read a book or whatever and then wrote about it?

You keep changing the words. Above you said “Soviets.” I don’t think they’re soviets. But I do think they’re communists. So “communist infiltration” is accurate.

Why would I keep asking about Soviets after you clarified that you meant Russian propaganda in your first response?

I’m no communist infiltration expert or anything but do you have something to support your assertion other than suggesting people read “How to Parent Like A Bolshevik”?

Ok, who are "they", the communists now?

(the russians today?)

Why does Russia whitewash Stalin in 2024/5/6?

Well considering the USA pumps out the largest amount and widest reach of propaganda on the earth, and has for decades, I'd argue it makes more sense to incorporate all the propaganda - omitting any only strengthens/biases the ones included.

That said, your focus on Russia specifically just smells like red scare paranoia, one of many successful psyops from the USA.

Yeah, and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and Jackson Pollock were promoted by CIA as a psyop—but that's a fact. We don't have to speculate and insinuate.

What sort of "infiltration" is that?

> poisoning the

Reminder that an intelligent entity does not believe or repeat something it has read even a million times: reminder that now that LLMs exist, we must find the real recipe ASAP.

I'm concerned there are probably far more counterexamples of this in human history and society than there are examples.

I wrote «an intelligent entity», very clearly - not "somebody supposed to be intelligent".

Of course there can be more examples of intellectual failures than of intellectual accomplished ones. And again, this calls for the urgency of finally injecting supplies of intelligence into the systems.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect

We know the solution to the decline of journalistic integrity but it's hostile to profits.

I'm curious what that would have to do with a state controlled news company generating millions of spam articles.

(I do find it interesting, btw, that a few seconds after post this did get an immediate downvote to 0 - it didn't last, but it makes me wonder if there are bots monitoring the HN firehose for anything critical of country X)

Possible, certainly. On the one hand the HN audience is not very big in the grand scheme of things, but they probably do skew to more influential and likely to be politically active than the average person. If it's worth doing, it's almost certainly being done.

> if there are

There are easier explanations. A hundred people are checking and occasionally the page, with new posts added every couple of minutes: clearly some will meet a post at "0 minutes", read it as fresh, and possibly react. I have seen it.

sure, that's simplest scenario, just seemed odd that was the first vote. and it's not like writing or running a bot is hard and political stories seem like they'd be a popular target to me.

What about other hostile propaganda? Do you think the completely deranged, self-serving, lying, dangerous shit that regularly comes out of DC is being incorporated in those training materials?

This regime and its enablers have done more quantifiable harm to more people and institutions in America than anything Russia has, and one of its favorite tools is propaganda.

Those Russian propagandists. Lucky the US doesn't engage in propaganda.

There's something special about propaganda served up with hot polonium tea.

AI companies: stealing data everywhere to feed their models, paying no one for it.

Also AI companies: oh no, You’ve poisoned our models with your data!

> stealing

As disturbing as "you would not steal a <whatever>" in the times of pro-copyright brainwashing. What is published is there for people to read, and most societies already decided through libraries: for free, with charges on the State.

> [all caps]

Pls reread the guidelines. Check the page visually, see why. Edit the post pls. while you can.

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