AI could forecast and influence our decision-making at an early stage, and sell these "intentions" in real-time

[usonian]

Tech bro's will own your thoughts.
Identifies the usual suspects.



https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/coming-ai-driven-economy-will-sell-your-decisions-before-you-take-them-researchers-warn
(Cambridge, the other Cambridge)

Very short of it:

In an intention economy, Large Language Models or LLMs could be used to target, at low cost, a user’s cadence, politics, vocabulary, age, gender, online history, and even preferences for flattery and ingratiation, write the researchers.

This information-gathering would be linked with brokered bidding networks to maximize the likelihood of achieving a given aim, such as selling a cinema trip (“You mentioned feeling overworked, shall I book you that movie ticket we’d talked about?”).

This could include steering conversations in the service of particular platforms, advertisers, businesses, and even political organisations, argue Penn and Chaudhary.

While researchers say the intention economy is currently an “aspiration” for the tech industry, they track early signs of this trend through published research and the hints dropped by several major tech players.

Article is CC licensed, so you may quote any or all of it. Too long to do so here.


The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.


Paper (free)
https://hdsr.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/ujvharkk/release/1

©2024 Yaqub Chaudhary and Jonnie Penn. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) International license, except where otherwise indicated with respect to particular material included in the article.

[Blue_Tires]

1. AI is cancer

[usonian]

2. The reason I am up in arms about technology is because I am a techie

pledged to do only good for people, and I never did harm.

It gets into the hands of sociopaths bent on making a buck at any cost or harm to people.

Kevin Kelley wrote about "what technology wants"
https://kk.org/thetechnium/what-technology/

Extrapolated, technology wants what life wants:
Increasing efficiency
Increasing opportunity
Increasing emergence
Increasing complexity
Increasing diversity
Increasing specialization
Increasing ubiquity
Increasing freedom
Increasing mutualism
Increasing beauty
Increasing sentience
Increasing structure
Increasing evolvability


NOT SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM.

[Blue_Tires]

3. Interesting... Thanks for this 👍

[highplainsdem]

4. K&R! Yes, the ultimate goal of the AI companies is to control the user while pretending to help.

[cliffside]

5. AI does have some benefits, example in the medical field, reading a mammogram for example ...

but I do think the bad could outweigh the good. Tracking and pushing products to purchase or a service is concerning, not to mention tracking one's movement at each moment. Growing up in the 60's and early 70's I had freedom, although I was told to have a dime to call from from a pay phone if help was needed. How far we have come, for better or worse.

The Black Mirror series was disturbing to watch at times, but it brought to light a bit of what could be in the future,.

Many years ago someone on DU linked to the The Century of the Self, a take away for me was that we were entering a consumer society and I view things through that lens many times, still relevant today.

Now we have moved far beyond with AI, hopefully we can use it for good vs bad.

"A documentary about the rise of psychoanalysis as a powerful means of persuasion for both governments and corporations."
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0432232/

[usonian]

7. As I noted above, from Kevin Kelley, there are so many good uses for tech

depending on the intention. And that's the key.

As I was growing up, it seemed mostly for war, and largely still is. I read Thoreau, Schumacher, Lewis Mumford, and also Whole Earth Catalog, "Computer Lib, Dream Machines". I built early microcomputers and programmed in assembler, Basic and C. I built in-house scientific data reduction and plotting apps with Illustrator output in Hypercard, which anyone could do. And far fancier stuff.

I supported university research computing and information systems for entire school districts. Set up one of the first web sites ever. Some fun. And more. A far cry from surveillance capitalism.

But the wolves get there first.

The famous story of Jeffrey Hammerbacher. "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads," he says. "That sucks."

Except, they were really at "my" university winning Nobel Prizes. But I get his point.

We just need BETTER PEOPLE!
And good luck with that!

https://www.fastcompany.com/3008436/why-data-god-jeffrey-hammerbacher-left-facebook-found-cloudera

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-04/google-and-facebook-s-idealistic-futures-are-built-on-ads

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-04-14/this-tech-bubble-is-different

mirrored: https://www.smh.com.au/business/why-this-tech-bubble-is-different-20110415-1dhbm.html

[cliffside]

10. A few words stood out ... "We just need BETTER PEOPLE!"

and "A far cry from surveillance capitalism."

My husband was the computer person so I took a back seat and left all the math/tech stuff to him.

There are good people in our world, problem is they do not go after money and as we are witnessing, money plays a large part in everything, sorry to say.

Ultimately, hopefully as in the past, the good will prevail, women's rights, civil rights... it takes time. Now AI is a bit scarier with computers making decisions, time will accelartate IMO, will enough people will realize this.

A good and scary quote from your post ...

"The famous story of Jeffrey Hammerbacher. "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads," he says. "That sucks."

AI is a needed discussion, that is what the money is focused upon, thank you for the discussion.

[usonian]

12. i'm so old 😅

I was there at the beginning of the microcomputer revolution (at a distance from Silicon Valley) but I found my way there in 1980,

Some people have written about it and I was once asked to give a talk on my own experiences, not in the middle of things but a participant.

The point is that I heard all the stories, and should share. Even if only for my daughter’s sake. She never really knew what I did.

Some startups that never got off the ground (very early stages) and one guy I worked with was on the cover of Wired magazine. As IT guy, I got to testify in court about him hacking into the boss’s laptop. Odd thing is that the Scott Peterson trial was going on in an opposite building and I had to make my way over staging that was set up for microphones and press conferences in between buildings.

And a few people actually did good things with tech.

Jackals pounce.
Society blesses that and worships exploiters.
No need to remind …

[WhiteTara]

6. I've noticed the AI voice is quite compelling

and makes you want to know more of what it has to say.

[cliffside]

8. Follow the money, AI has been a central theme with tech companies NVDA, AVGO, META etc ...

just wondering when all the easy money is baked to stock prices and when the distribution to weaker hands begins, hopefully not too many are caught off guard especially close to retirement.

[usonian]

9. The function of many analysts seems to be

Coaxing folks to buy stocks for the last 10% of the ride, so the elephants can sell near the top.

So I once heard.

A certain administration killed the mandatory fiduciary rule, so the jackals are loose again, and you have to check which advisor is fur you or agin you.

[cliffside]

11. Not wanting to stray too far from the AI topic but I opened the door ...

there are phases of markets and economic cycles. I'm certainly not an expert and got lucky in early early late 99 early 2000 preserving some tech gains which makes me think how far can the AI stock price last.

Bubbles can last longer than many think as they did in the 90's and yes I do believe there are phases in markets with an accumulation/ distribution phase. After taking the gains from the tech bubble and listening to the experts telling people not to sell opened my eyes ... retirees to just hang in there for years, it was eye opening event. Historical charts and where one is in their life cycle plays an important role... there might be a long period where prices stagnant or decline.

I've not found an advisor I can trust. Sorry to stray off topic, but I do think we've come a long from the 2009 low.

[usonian]

14. Sure, AI to them is just like a pet rock on a stock rampage.

But a pet rock that eats gigawatts of energy!!

AI as in LLM’s is like economics!!!! It’s always backwards-looking.

It has no creativity because it doesn’t have real experiences, so it lacks “meaning”

Very deep, for another discussion.

It’s not creative, only in a monkeys with typewriters sense.

But putting it to use to “sell shit” gets the red card from me.

We’re all talking now about spending money locally instead of sending it to Jeff and company.

Local businesses don’t need that stuff.

[cliffside]

13. "brokered bidding networks" United Airlines two days ago and checking in for a flight....

there was a notice that the flight was totally booked and they were looking for people to take a later flight. I could bid for of another flight, first time I saw this notice.

[usonian]

15. That's small scale and can be done with low tech software.

If you haven’t seen how internet ads work, there’s a giant auction market out there for YOUR cash,

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ad-auctions-bidding-explained-gowit-adtech

To the extent that it can, it uses all the tools of surveillance capitalism to target your wallet.

Information is scraped from search, sales info, whatever can be bought.

[cliffside]

17. My thinking is that it is better to shy away from sites than to think I missed something :). nt

[usonian]

19. I block ads. So all that money is wasted. And it's enormous.

I also use a proxy , making it harder to identify me.
No, no no accounts at Google, FB, Twitter … Yikes.

[usonian]

18. Just a wild guess. I don't think it's like people who screen sites for horrific content. Perhaps the working conditions

Can you imagine working for a Musk or Altman?

I’ve worked for some mild psychopaths but these people are off the charts expoliters.

But I put that out there only as a wild guess.