This week, Newsmax — a far-right news organization with a strong allegiance to President Trump and a history of pushing wild conspiracy theories — announced it had struck a deal with Meta.
More evidence that AI technology isn't neutral. If there's bias in the data it's fed or in how it's designed, it'll mirror that bias. What egregious for Meta dealing with Newsmax is that it’s making no pretense at neutrality. It's deliberately putting its thumb on the scale, and its AI output should be judged summarily by users as unreliable, assuming they even know about this relationship.
Humans aren’t neutral, therefore no AI will ever be, because all AI does is steal and regurgitate what humans created. This is yet another grift at our expense of course.
Zuck is pandering to the increasingly Alt-Right users of Facebook, a key financial property of parent company Meta. It's a purely business decision, that willfully ignores the lies, mis-information and innuendo that underlies most of Newsmax's reporting.
Early in the development of computer programming programmers coined the phrase "garbage in garbage out" to describe the fact that if you input flawed, biased or poor quality information, the output will be equally flawed, biased or poor quality information. Feeding people garbage is just part of meta Enshittification.
Wow, we are no longer living in a free society but a brand new one created by a handful of insecure men aka techbros who will do literally anything to keep power and amass billions of dollars. All of my neighbors are on FB and now all of them have been brainwashed and will continue to be confused by reality v fiction. It sure looks like a duck and quacks like a duck but Meta says it's a swan so who am I to argue.
This is horrifying and needs to be shared far and wide. People using these platforms need to be made aware that they are being manipulated. Thank you once again, Judd Legum, for the clarion call.
You can understand why Elon wants his LLM to parrot his worldview, as he is the closest thing we have to a Bond villain, but Zuckerberg choosing to deliberately instill right-wing bias in his LLM is a bit of a head-scratcher.
Zuck has no fixed beliefs and simply chases whatever he thinks will make him the most money, which right now means sucking up to Trump. But Trump’s fuse is running out, and he’ll naturally change his political leaning based on the next political wind shift. It’s not like he can quickly change his LLM’s bias once the MAGA fever breaks (or, who knows, maybe he is designing it to be as politically vague as he is, and it will first check to see what opinions are popular before answering).
AI is programmed to judge what you already believe, then reinforce that, just telling you what you want to hear. Of course Facebook gives AI tons of information to use as it discerns what you already believe. None of us can ever trust that AI, as it is currently designed to function, is telling us truth. It is nothing like a worldwide encyclopedia of history or current events (though many people make the mistake of believing it is). It doesn't know the difference between truth and lies. It's purpose is to keep you engaged and happy, not to provide useful or accurate information.
People PLEASE, get off Meta products. Zuckerberg is killing us and y'all are giving him the money to do it. Along with all the other corporations who are sucking up to trump.
Can't you do without some of these things? Do you still stop at Starbucks on the way to work? Go to Walmart for a quick grab of whatever? Run into Target because "it's on my way home?" We're giving these companies the money to give to trump and the GOP.
I suppose I'm a Luddite, but about the time I was considering moving from My Space (which I was on because a kid I knew who was stationed in Kuwait during the Iraq war was using it) to Facebook, Zuckerbot started screwing with the privacy settings so that you couldn't be sure that anything you posted as "private" would actually stay that way. This absolutely did not work for communications related to the job I had at the time. Consequently, I've never used Facebook. Somehow, I'm still alive... ; - )
When FB first appeared on the scene, I started to open an account. During the process it asked me for my birthdate. Whooa! Why TF do they need that? It's just a social app, right? And it wouldn't let me bypass it. I could have put a random date, I guess, but I would have eventually forgot what I put!
So I stopped right there and never opened an account. I'll be damned if I'll just blindly hand over that info to some rando company on the internet. And I'm shocked at the number of people who do. And lo and behold, I've never had my ID stolen either.
Such excellent work. But this is hardly new in AI. Ever larger AI LLMs are based on every more rubbish data. Worse, the design of LLM has no concept of accuracy or truth.
That's why no one should use AI for anything other than entertainment.
There is always been so much inherent bias in News and how information is consumed, but here you can see where the LLMs are taking this to the absolute highest next level that’s ever been possible. This partnership is alarming, but sadly nothing new and I’m not sure the ways we need to counteract it but I’m in the fight.
This is what worries me about AI. We need to know where the information originated? I can see health info being strongly biased by MAHA insanity. Vaccination rates will plummet, men will be roided up and tanning their balls, etc. Garbage in, garbage out. Disinformation in/disinformation out.
Mark Zuckerberg can go suck a lemon - which is exactly what he is doing by tying in with Newsmax!!! Please………..take your billions and just go away. You are a disgrace to America.
Media is not neutral. One would think that AI would aggregate from all sorts of sources creating neutrality, but I guess we are learning that is not the case.
One thing that Meta needs to answer is whether Newsmax will be one of many or the sole/majority resource for current events and other news.
More evidence that AI technology isn't neutral. If there's bias in the data it's fed or in how it's designed, it'll mirror that bias. What egregious for Meta dealing with Newsmax is that it’s making no pretense at neutrality. It's deliberately putting its thumb on the scale, and its AI output should be judged summarily by users as unreliable, assuming they even know about this relationship.
Humans aren’t neutral, therefore no AI will ever be, because all AI does is steal and regurgitate what humans created. This is yet another grift at our expense of course.
But being trained on the NYT will give you a lot better quality than using Fox and Newsmax.
Zuck is pandering to the increasingly Alt-Right users of Facebook, a key financial property of parent company Meta. It's a purely business decision, that willfully ignores the lies, mis-information and innuendo that underlies most of Newsmax's reporting.
AI IS NOT NEUTRAL ⚡🤬💯
Early in the development of computer programming programmers coined the phrase "garbage in garbage out" to describe the fact that if you input flawed, biased or poor quality information, the output will be equally flawed, biased or poor quality information. Feeding people garbage is just part of meta Enshittification.
Exactly what I was thinking!
And as LLMs get ever larger, there will ever more garbage
SAY IT LOUD!
AI IS NOT NEUTRAL!
GIGO!
Ah yes, the old GIGO rule! Those were the days…
Started working in the field in the 70s. Glad I’m retired now.
Wow, we are no longer living in a free society but a brand new one created by a handful of insecure men aka techbros who will do literally anything to keep power and amass billions of dollars. All of my neighbors are on FB and now all of them have been brainwashed and will continue to be confused by reality v fiction. It sure looks like a duck and quacks like a duck but Meta says it's a swan so who am I to argue.
This is horrifying and needs to be shared far and wide. People using these platforms need to be made aware that they are being manipulated. Thank you once again, Judd Legum, for the clarion call.
Facebook is one of the worst, although not as bad as X.
I have donned my fireproof suit for this post.
ANYBODY WHO GETS THIER NEWS OFF OF facebook IS A FUCKING IDIOT.
CONSTITUENT MEANS DONOR
I mean really! News from social media. What could go wrong?
You can understand why Elon wants his LLM to parrot his worldview, as he is the closest thing we have to a Bond villain, but Zuckerberg choosing to deliberately instill right-wing bias in his LLM is a bit of a head-scratcher.
Zuck has no fixed beliefs and simply chases whatever he thinks will make him the most money, which right now means sucking up to Trump. But Trump’s fuse is running out, and he’ll naturally change his political leaning based on the next political wind shift. It’s not like he can quickly change his LLM’s bias once the MAGA fever breaks (or, who knows, maybe he is designing it to be as politically vague as he is, and it will first check to see what opinions are popular before answering).
AI is programmed to judge what you already believe, then reinforce that, just telling you what you want to hear. Of course Facebook gives AI tons of information to use as it discerns what you already believe. None of us can ever trust that AI, as it is currently designed to function, is telling us truth. It is nothing like a worldwide encyclopedia of history or current events (though many people make the mistake of believing it is). It doesn't know the difference between truth and lies. It's purpose is to keep you engaged and happy, not to provide useful or accurate information.
People PLEASE, get off Meta products. Zuckerberg is killing us and y'all are giving him the money to do it. Along with all the other corporations who are sucking up to trump.
Can't you do without some of these things? Do you still stop at Starbucks on the way to work? Go to Walmart for a quick grab of whatever? Run into Target because "it's on my way home?" We're giving these companies the money to give to trump and the GOP.
We're helping with our own elimination.
I suppose I'm a Luddite, but about the time I was considering moving from My Space (which I was on because a kid I knew who was stationed in Kuwait during the Iraq war was using it) to Facebook, Zuckerbot started screwing with the privacy settings so that you couldn't be sure that anything you posted as "private" would actually stay that way. This absolutely did not work for communications related to the job I had at the time. Consequently, I've never used Facebook. Somehow, I'm still alive... ; - )
When FB first appeared on the scene, I started to open an account. During the process it asked me for my birthdate. Whooa! Why TF do they need that? It's just a social app, right? And it wouldn't let me bypass it. I could have put a random date, I guess, but I would have eventually forgot what I put!
So I stopped right there and never opened an account. I'll be damned if I'll just blindly hand over that info to some rando company on the internet. And I'm shocked at the number of people who do. And lo and behold, I've never had my ID stolen either.
Like you, I lived... 🤣
Such excellent work. But this is hardly new in AI. Ever larger AI LLMs are based on every more rubbish data. Worse, the design of LLM has no concept of accuracy or truth.
That's why no one should use AI for anything other than entertainment.
Find another way to entertain yourself. The environmental damage that AI does is massive and totally unnecessary.
Very important story.
There is always been so much inherent bias in News and how information is consumed, but here you can see where the LLMs are taking this to the absolute highest next level that’s ever been possible. This partnership is alarming, but sadly nothing new and I’m not sure the ways we need to counteract it but I’m in the fight.
This is what worries me about AI. We need to know where the information originated? I can see health info being strongly biased by MAHA insanity. Vaccination rates will plummet, men will be roided up and tanning their balls, etc. Garbage in, garbage out. Disinformation in/disinformation out.
Health related misinformation can result in death. Natural law of thinning the herd. So I don't worry about that.
Madam, I am a Black man. My balls are already tan! Hahahahaha. Based on the opinion you expressed, you may be interested in a special t-shirt.
"Science is for Sissies/s"
Break away from big tech, people—it's just lying to us all.
Run from Meta apps as fast as you can. I did and, guess what? You don't need any of them! Shocking.
Mark Zuckerberg can go suck a lemon - which is exactly what he is doing by tying in with Newsmax!!! Please………..take your billions and just go away. You are a disgrace to America.
Dump Facebook!
Media is not neutral. One would think that AI would aggregate from all sorts of sources creating neutrality, but I guess we are learning that is not the case.
One thing that Meta needs to answer is whether Newsmax will be one of many or the sole/majority resource for current events and other news.