epistemics

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

an informational landscape dominated by self-selection bias, where those who produce exciting lies or loyal deflections are directly rewarded by clicks and cash.

there-fore, participating in, and being victimized by, a comprehensive and con-tinually refreshed alternative view of reality from which there is virtually no political bridge to reality as seen by mainstream culture.

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

Second, it should make us understand that lies, conspiracy theories, misinformation, bias, pseudo-science, superstition and so on are not alien perversions of the public sphere. They are the epistemic state of nature that society will revert to in the absence of fragile—and highly contingent—cultural and institutional achievements.