Post
277
Interesting piece on epistemic drift, the gradual shift in what societies accept as reality due to AI-generated content.
The author (a physicist) makes a solid point about AI marking a qualitative break from previous media technologies. Where print/radio/TV changed how we consumed information, generative AI changes what we accept as real.
The technical implications are worth considering: when training data increasingly includes synthetic content, we get recursive loops where models learn from their own outputs. The "artificial intimacy" point about AI companions shaping social norms is also underexplored in most ML ethics discussions.
That said, the piece overplays AI's novelty in information manipulation. Humans have been manufacturing consensus reality through propaganda, PR, and institutional capture for centuries. AI just makes it more efficient and personalized.
The proposed solutions (cryptographic watermarking, tamper-resistant archives) are interesting from a technical standpoint, though implementation at scale remains an open problem.
It's an interesting framework for thinking about societal-level effects beyond the usual fairness/bias discussions.
https://www.outlookindia.com/international/the-silent-threat-of-ai-epistemic-drift
The author (a physicist) makes a solid point about AI marking a qualitative break from previous media technologies. Where print/radio/TV changed how we consumed information, generative AI changes what we accept as real.
The technical implications are worth considering: when training data increasingly includes synthetic content, we get recursive loops where models learn from their own outputs. The "artificial intimacy" point about AI companions shaping social norms is also underexplored in most ML ethics discussions.
That said, the piece overplays AI's novelty in information manipulation. Humans have been manufacturing consensus reality through propaganda, PR, and institutional capture for centuries. AI just makes it more efficient and personalized.
The proposed solutions (cryptographic watermarking, tamper-resistant archives) are interesting from a technical standpoint, though implementation at scale remains an open problem.
It's an interesting framework for thinking about societal-level effects beyond the usual fairness/bias discussions.
https://www.outlookindia.com/international/the-silent-threat-of-ai-epistemic-drift