Back again to that old story of mine that I never got around to
writing. The plot was centred around a guy who builds a sentient
computer from code and computers collected from a university where
he works. It hacks into communications systems and manipulates
society by subtly changing all the communications that everyone
sees to shape each individual's specific behaviour. First he uses
it for his own fun and benefit, then to try and further social
causes he's passionate about. Then the story goes on to have the
hacking traced back to the guy's house, the computer gets shut down
after the guy flees the cops, but when this complex system of
manipulation is removed it plunges society into chaos as nobody
believes anyone is who they thought they were. The economy
collapses, new political divisions quickly develop, and eventually
civil war breaks out. The guy, however, was left a hint from his
computer on where to go for safety, and eventually encounters a
bizarre armed cult, preparing since before the switch-off, and
entirely devoted to following him. The cult, with its arms and
organisation, is able to establish growing territories under its
control. Slowly the guy realises that perhaps the computer had
planned this all along, using him as an unwitting tool towards
achieving his own power as a new ruler. But who, then, was really
in charge?
Yeah, I still like it, but it would take me absolutely ages to try
and write the story. Better to just work away at taking over the
world myself instead. :)
To that end, what I'm really thinking about is just the start of
that story - the AI hacking into communications to manipulate them,
which leads to its (apparant) undoing when found out. Would such
tricks actually be needed today? In today's world of echo-chamber
social media and news platforms, imagine an AI app, now seemingly
quite feasible, which rewrites everything you read on the internet
to make you feel happier. Instead of selecting stories and people
that an 'algorithm' thinks you'll like, it actually changes the
news stories and people, just slightly, to make you like them more.
It would be like rose tinted glasses for the internet.
It's easy to see how the news stories can be manipulated by
comparing bias in different media sources. Even the same media
source following the break of a story can change its angle
strikingly. Being old fashioned, I listen to news bulletins on
analogue broadcast radio. It's facinating when a new story breaks
you first hear it reported as something like "government announces
new policy x [yadda yadda], also so-and-so said x was because y was
z", then an hour later you listen to it again as "so-and-so said y
was z [yadda yadda], also so-and-so said that while the government
announced new policy x". You hear while the story shifts around,
while journalists (hopefully _just_ journalists) decide what the
real story is. The manipulation is, or would be, all so easy.
For manipulating talk between individual friends, that would have
to be more subtle since you actually talk to those people in real
life (maybe). But here too the AI could change emphasis towards
aspects of other people's personality that you like, even ego-boost
you by having them explictly reference you more often when they
echo or expand upon things you've said. You'd still be reading
roughly what they talked about, so in direct conversation it would
still make sense to discuss things further, but the emphasis
changes, and perhaps eventually the conversations would change too,
ideally emphasising mutually agreeable topics.
If social media already works much like this just by selecting
which content to show you, and people (except me) lap that up, it
seems like AI-manipulated content could be embraced as well.
Especially in a society filled with climate worries and faultering
standards of living. But, as in my story, the underlying control
granted to the operator of that AI would be unprecedented. The
power to manipulate the reality of an entire internet-connected
society. And I don't imagine that avoiders of such technology like
myself would have any more ability to stand up to the resultant
changes than against the societal changes already driven by social
media today.
- The Free Thinker
PS. This isn't that "big website idea" I keep mentioning. Just an
alternative one for 'evil me' to contemplate.
