An appeal to journalists and media opinion leaders.
Dear journalists and media opinion leaders,
When you decide that your headline should be "X versus Y" or “X is broken” or “Y is dead, let’s do X” please reflect on your choices and write something better for us - your readers - the people that you have a responsibility to inform, not manipulate.
I believe in the profession of journalism. I believe that the public journal is a public trust; that all connected with it are, to the full measure of their responsibility, trustees for the public; that acceptance of a lesser service than the public service is betrayal of this trust.
The Journalist’s Creed
Previously, it was WFH vs. RWO or Boomers vs. Zoomers or Woke vs. Anti-Woke and so on ad nauseum. Surrounding OpenAI’s tumultuous leadership revolt and recent exodus, it has been Doomers vs. Accelerationists. Such a frame for conflict is entirely spurious and vapid.
The progress of AI is not about two tribes, it is about bringing forth a series of scenarios and responses for a development that will have a profound effect on the future of humanity; a spectrum of possibilities largely beyond the control of normal people. AI will not just lead to doom or to a singularity, since that pre-supposes people know the future, rather than just gambling with it.
It must be so tempting to simplify human mindsets down to binary thinking, where a person sees issues in one of two opposite and mutually exclusive ways, also known as the 'either-or fallacy' or the false dichotomy. This has been accelerated by progressive cognitive overload, thanks in no small part to the content supply chain and success of clickbait. If you can’t beat them join them, right?
The psychular economy: a new system for clout, attention and growing your brand.
I guess it is not a new problem - “better a false belief than no belief at all.” Still, it is ironic that computers built on switching 0s and 1s (for now) can already envisage a greater spectrum of outcomes than humans. That in itself should be pause for thought.
If we can’t appeal to your better judgement, perhaps the only answer is to regulate display of a score for journalistic integrity, similar to Ground News, with high-indexing clickbait articles clearly marked as "for entertainment purposes only".