Like an AI trained on its own output, they’re growing increasingly divorced from reality, and are reinforcing their own worst habits of thought.

The ideologues of Silicon Valley are in model collapse.

To train an AI model, you need to give it a ton of data, and the quality of output from the model depends upon whether that data is any good. A risk AI models face, especially as AI-generated output makes up a larger share of what’s published online, is “model collapse”: the rapid degradation that results from AI models being trained on the output of AI models. Essentially, the AI is primarily talking to, and learning from, itself, and this creates a self-reinforcing cascade of bad thinking.

We’ve been watching something similar happen, in real time, with the Elon Musks, Marc Andreessens, Peter Thiels, and other chronically online Silicon Valley representatives of far-right ideology. It’s not just that they have bad values that are leading to bad politics. They also seem to be talking themselves into believing nonsense at an increasing rate. The world they seem to believe exists, and which they’re reacting and warning against, bears less and less resemblance to the actual world, and instead represents an imagined lore they’ve gotten themselves lost in.

  • @[email protected]
    64•2 months ago

    Very good article, but it would have benefited from a few historical references, because none of this is new. The insularity and navel-gazing of royal and imperial courts, for example, are legendary — with their own customs, shibboleths, and of course everyone within believing they have the answers, despite being totally dsconnected form the “real world”.

  • @[email protected]
    31•2 months ago

    Beautiful article thanks for sharing.

    This highlights the problem that inherently exists in nature: feedback loops.

    Repeated exposure to similar information or signals amplifies/entrenches existing patterns and can lead to distortion, narrowing frequencies, and reduced adaptability.

    Its why these people turn into racists, sexists, abusers, etc. they get what they want all the time simply because they have money and power and know how to game systems. So they learn on those narrow pathways that they get what they want when they want.

    They learn a reality that doesn’t exist for the greater whole because they themselves are not living as the greater whole does. None of this is rocket science.

    I have to conclude that Extreme wealth threatens the stability of our society. Not arguing for communism or anything else. Every path has its hazards and shortcuts. Just pointing out problems and opening the floor to discussion of the problem and potential solutions

    • metaStatic
      16•2 months ago

      Not arguing for communism

      This is one of those feedback loops. Communism threatens the current system so you are told repeatedly that it’s a bad thing.

      and it doesn’t help that Communists refuse to learn from the mistakes of the 20th century.

      … Not arguing for communism either but can I interest you in a black flag?

      • @kurwa
        4•2 months ago

        We going to be pirates now?

      • @[email protected]
        1•2 months ago

        I just stated that I wasn’t interested in anything specifically, don’t have any one solution in mind. Not that it’s bad per se.

  • SparkingEnglish
    27•2 months ago

    You can label it as a trendy new tech term, but it is the age old yes-manism that I have watched eat up tech executives and CEOs that I have worked with.

    • @[email protected]
      7•2 months ago

      This is worse. They (Musk et. al) are seemingly only exposed to info that is algorithmically tailored to what they already ascribe to, and thus see a patently false view of the world. That in turn leads them to further ascribe to another layer of dogma, leading to another layer of insular views that further feed the cycle.

      I believe this goes beyond the yes-men problem.