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Losing Trust in the Internet

13 points by vlan121 ↗ HN
The rise of AI websites and generated content pushes me rn to a point where I am not certain that a given fact is a fact itself and AI did not made it up. It becomes more and more indistinguishable and less trustworthy.

How can I be sure that things haven't been made up? The only thing left to do is consult books from before the AI boom. How do you do it?

5 comments

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_jsmh
I follow content from accounts that seem to consistently post facts.

I try to understand what is actually being stated instead of what is implied; facts vs opinions.

I wouldn't be surprised if falsity starts to get penalized. Elon said something along the lines of Grok will start to rank content based on whether its true.

Also built a system that prevents posting things that are made up. Maybe posting lies should carry a penalty, where you deposit something to lose if it's later discovered that you told a lie.

mytailorisrich
The internet was never trustworthy. Specific websites backed by reputatable organisations with strong editorial rules may be trustworthy within reason.
rfarley04
Sources from 30 years ago are more reliable than 30 days ago: pithandpip.com/blog/why-write-about-tech-history
_jsmh
Another minor note: in my opinion, and it seems in Elon's opinion too, spam and generating lies and so on comes down to cost. If this cost is increased high enough so it becomes uneconomical for bots to pay it, then they won't pay and they'll stop. I hope it will remain economical for humans to post.

It'd be a grim future, in my opinion, if posting online requires identification. Some type of work is done better when it doesn't receive external validation.

This doesn't seem to conflict with freedom of speech. It's free to say whatever you want, but there seems to be a cost in getting others to hear what you have to say. Consuming one's attention seems to have a cost. Although freedom of speech in the form of hosting an online blog has a small cost too, it's not exactly 100% free.