It's hard to stay positive about the benefits of technology

Having built a career around watching technology evolve from a thing on a desk in the corner of a room in your house to something that defines every waking moment of our existence, I picked a good two decades to get to be in this line of work. But the virtue of tech as a personal and social good has sure shifted in recent times.

Before I left CNET, around 2016, I remember pitching the idea for a new podcast with my boss. "The Algorithm Is Broken". They didn't get the idea. (I didn't pitch it with a detailed rundown of the concept, but I felt the title summed it up pretty well.) But it seemed to run counter to an overarching preference for erring on the side of the positive instead of raising questions about the state of the industry and the systems that were becoming embedded in society and culture.

This year, I pitched a panel to SXSW Sydney on the issues we as a society face with the rise of AI slop and how the algorithms have been promoting it in our feeds over real content made by real people. The idea was rejected. (Maybe it was my pitch, but the talent line up was top shelf and it's a topic we need to engage with ASAP.) Looking at the final schedule, it seems there was an overarching preference for boosterism around all things AI.

Maybe I'm just sour grapes guy that no one wanted to let me be more critical of the state of tech. But I don't think I'm the only one trying to find more room for these debates within the tech world. And we really need it.

We need loud and proud nuance at the heart of tech discussions. The hype is dangerous, as is a quiet avoidance of anything that might upset the advertisers and sponsors.

For me, if we don't do more and better to engage with the problems of technology we will fail to gain the benefits of the new. If the drive is only for centrally controlled platforms to demand we buy what they prefer to give us, we'll never push aside the crap we're being shoveled to get to the value hiding behind the easy money options they want to sell.

I have many issues with how AI is being foisted upon us, but I do not believe it is a useless technology. It holds tremendous value across many industries and personal use cases. But like digging up oil to simply burn it, we are being sold this incredibly powerful tool just to write mediocre words and draw serviceable pictures.

Subscribe now to avoid the parts of life that make us human.

The online era has led us to eternal subscriptions, endless feeds, and an assumption that mega business growth will forever point up and to the right. Somehow, achieving trillion dollar market caps is just another stepping stone toward the tens and hundreds of trillions. Up and to the right. Forever.

The further the graph goes, the worse the deal seems to get for users. It's hard to stay positive about the benefits when the price – financial, personal, and social – gets steeper by the day.

I'm in the thick of finalising my research proposal for my PhD candidature where I'm investigating generative AI art platforms and their impact upon online art communities. I'll write longer on this soon, but I find it interesting that many people react to that theme based on their existing love or hate for the tools – and make assumptions about where I probably sit on the love/hate binary to be studying the topic in the first place.

For the event attendees...

I'll be at PAX Australia this weekend in Melbourne and I'll be at some of SXSW Sydney next week (probably more of the games industry events than the tech, though I will look closer to hunt for any signs of critical analysis if I can find them!) If you're at either say hi!

Recently on Byteside

I continue to not send emails about every article that appears on the site. I reserve the emails for bigger thoughts and curated links. Here's a few of the recent posts you may have missed.

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So many panels it’s hard to know where to start? Here’s 15 to put on your schedule!

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Catan 6th Edition: examining side-by-side with 5th Edition

Our direct compare with 5th Edition to help you get an easy look at what exactly has changed and whether the new set is for you.

BytesideSeamus Byrne

Google Pixel 10: magnets, magic, and mentors await you!

Google Pixel 10 gets the Qi2 I said you should wait for, plus Magic Cue AI that adds contextual insights whenever you might need them.

BytesideSeamus Byrne

Australian tech issues

A lot of local "hmmm..." lately. Here's a few important reads.

Deloitte to pay money back to Albanese government after using AI in $440,000 report

Partial refund to be issued after several errors were found in a report into a department’s compliance framework

The GuardianKrishani Dhanji

Algorithm to be used for NDIS plans

The government is using an ‘instrument’ designed by the University of Melbourne to reassess support payments for disabled people.

The Saturday PaperRick Morton

From zero to neo-Nazis: what under-16s may see under Australia’s social media ban, simply by not logging in

Guardian Australia test finds scrolling shortform videos while logged out of YouTube and TikTok quickly leads to gambling, violent and far-right content

The GuardianJosh Taylor

Loot boxes are still rife in kids’ mobile games, despite ban on ‘gambling-like’ features

Games with ‘loot boxes’ should be classified for over-15s – but a new study shows many of the most popular mobile games completely ignore the rules.

The ConversationBen Egliston

This Discord story is global, but with the social media age restrictions arriving on December 10, here's an example of a Very Big Tech Company screwing up badly when trying to follow age verification rules and exposing government issued ID in the process. The more we demand verification, the more our privacy is under threat.

Discord blames third-party support outfit for data breach

: Outsourcing your helpdesk always seems like a good idea – until someone else’s breach becomes your problem

The RegisterCarly Page

Elsewhere...

Stalker Already Using OpenAI’s Sora 2 to Harass Victim

A journalist claims that her stalker used Sora 2, the latest video app from OpenAI, to churn out videos of her.

FuturismFrank Landymore

Microsoft is plugging more holes that let you use Windows 11 without an online account

Microsoft is disabling the best local account workarounds

The VergeTom Warren

AI ‘Workslop’ Is Killing Productivity and Making Workers Miserable

AI slop is taking over workplaces. Workers said that they thought of their colleagues who filed low-quality AI work as “less creative, capable, and reliable than they did before receiving the output.”

404 MediaJason Koebler

MrBeast says AI could threaten creators’ livelihoods, calling it ‘scary times’ for the industry | TechCrunch

If MrBeast is openly questioning whether AI is an existential threat to his business and others like it, then it’s fair to say that smaller creators are likely even more worried.

TechCrunchSarah Perez

Can tech make an “AI actress” so fake that male columnists won’t nut while writing about it?

Can tech make an “AI actress” so fake that male columnists won’t nut while writing about it?

AV ClubWilliam Hughes

Further insights

Some deeper thoughts from a more academic perspective. We must demand better fundamental design of large language models as well as how we teach people the hows and whys of engaging with them positively.

ChatGPT is blind to bad science - Impact of Social Sciences

A new study finds ChatGPT fails to take into account retraction notices across a wide range of research.

Impact of Social Sciences - Maximizing the impact of academic researchTaster

Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence

Both the general public and academic communities have raised concerns about sycophancy, the phenomenon of artificial intelligence (AI) excessively agreeing with or flattering users. Yet, beyond isolated media reports of severe consequences, like reinforcing delusions, little is known about the extent of sycophancy or how it affects people who use AI. Here we show the pervasiveness and harmful impacts of sycophancy when people seek advice from AI. First, across 11 state-of-the-art AI models, we find that models are highly sycophantic: they affirm users’ actions 50% more than humans do, and they do so even in cases where user queries mention manipulation, deception, or other relational harms. Second, in two preregistered experiments (N = 1604), including a live-interaction study where participants discuss a real interpersonal conflict from their life, we find that interaction with sycophantic AI models significantly reduced participants’ willingness to take actions to repair interpersonal conflict, while increasing their conviction of being in the right. However, participants rated sycophantic responses as higher quality, trusted the sycophantic AI model more, and were more willing to use it again. This suggests that people are drawn to AI that unquestioningly validate, even as that validation risks eroding their judgment and reducing their inclination toward prosocial behavior. These preferences create perverse incentives both for people to increasingly rely on sycophantic AI models and for AI model training to favor sycophancy. Our findings highlight the necessity of explicitly addressing this incentive structure to mitigate the widespread risks of AI sycophancy.

arXiv.orgMyra Cheng

We teach young people to write. In the age of AI, we must teach them how to see

Generative AI changes how we see – and how we decide what’s real.

The ConversationDaniel Pfurtscheller

And my favourite video of the year

Eat your slop, piggies!

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