epistemics
truth is not the default
epistemics
Each of these new systems—Grokipedia, Truth Social’s AI, the parallel media ecosystem they lean on—is a different answer to the same question: who gets to define what’s true? That’s the real battle, now unfolding in the reference layer most people never even see.
Renee DiResta • Source Wars and Bespoke Realities
... See moreBespoke realities are made for—and by—the individual. The collision of the propaganda machine and the rumor mill gave rise to a choose-your-own-adventure epistemology: some news outlet somewhere has written the story you want to believe; some influencer is touting the diet you want to live by or demonizing the group you also hate. Other people,
The breakdown in the old agreements about reality is now the most significant reality, and the world can perhaps best be explained in terms of conflicting and often incompatible narratives.
We have changed our environment enough that our current ways of understanding what’s going on no longer hold: technology and globalization have changed our information streams and our patterns of life drastically enough that the ways we calibrate around incoming information are becoming increasingly dangerous for us, and this trend will only... See more
Everyone’s Existential Crisis
an informational landscape dominated by self-selection bias, where those who produce exciting lies or loyal deflections are directly rewarded by clicks and cash.
The Democratization of Information Production is Killing Democracy
But it is not clear whether such systems – even if they work as advertised – can solve the problem of reliable knowledge in a balkanised public sphere. Just as commercial incentives led to fake content and filter-bubbles, LLMs likely face the same pressures in a world of sharply diminishing returns. Because the firms training them desperately need... See more
The sovereign individual and the paradox of the digital age | Aeon Essays
Our Shared Reality Will Self-Destruct in the Next 12 Months
honest-broker.com
the problem is not that the red tribe has wholly abandoned any concern with truth. The problem is that without knowledge-generating institutions and their norms and procedures (e.g., in science and professional journalism), caring about the truth achieves nothing. The consequence is instead a reversion to an epistemic state of nature in which... See more