I'm not quite sure if centralised social media sites being boycotted by AI safety researchers or even the entire Lesswrong readership will decimate Big Tech.

But even if you somehow managed to convice billions of people to decide to join the boycott and actually stick to it, social networks could rein back algorithmic curation of feeds and get people back on after reassuringly demonstrating a simple time based feed of posts by people you follow, maybe with optional filters.

Also, even if centralised social media doesn't implement any sensor tracking and analysis, it's pretty solid advice for people to try to avoid spending too much time on it for various reasons, especially if they have important, highly cognitive jobs.

That said, AI safety researchers (and everyone else) can benefit from networking, but a dedicated Mastodon server or other independent, community run, open source network can have all the benefits without the massive downsides.

So my point is, rather than trying to speculate about advanced algorithmic manipulation and how to mitigate it, a much simpler solution is to shift away time and attention from centralised social networks. Oh, and install various ad blockers and other privacy preserving and tracking prevention browser extensions and stop using official social network mobile apps that don't make this filtering possible. These actions would also protect people from whichever geopolitical or criminal power is trying to manipulate and exploit them.

Posts

Wikitag Contributions

Comments

Posts

Wikitag Contributions

Comments