What about Quantitative Political Analysis? How about Compuational Propaganda...

Computational Propaganda, Biased Algorithms, Quantitative Political Analysis, and Meme Warfare

In an environment where algorithms send us memes according to which demographic we are in. In an environment where machine intelligence learns about us in order to better serve us propaganda.

Yes it is true that computational propaganda is real. If you've ever noticed that the videos you are bombarded with on Youtube are not necessarily videos you are interested in but videos the algorithms assume you should be interested in. This highlights the problem with the centralization of AI and not just that but the real problem I mentioned in many previous posts which are listed below:

• The problem of lack of wisdom. It's not an Internet which promotes wisdom.
• The problem of lack of ability to be moral. To be moral in a way which matters (in terms of outcomes) can be computationally expensive. This is why people use shortcuts we call heuristics to try to make the computation a bit cheaper. These shortcuts introduce a lot of the problems and the black and white thinking. The examples can include the golden rule, the non aggression principle, or the 10 commandments. These are heuristics which people follow because they believe these rules lead to the better consequences a majority of the time.
• The problem of mental illness (as a result of infectious memes). These memes might not be so harmful to 99% of people but there is the 1% which when exposed to something such as Slenderman memes will be triggered to go on a rampage. These memes may be having tragic adverse effects and the thing is that everyone spreads them subconsciously. A meme could be thought of as a mind virus and just as the common cold or the flu can spread it is the same with memes. Most memes are harmless viruses, some even might be beneficial, but then some are the kind which lead to genocide or mass murder.
• Computational propaganda is in essence applying the best technologies we have for automation, for AI, for machine learning, to be put to use to deliberately generate pandemic memes which can be used for warfare purposes. In other words weaponized memes developed by governments or sponsored by governments are used. Whether or not you agree with the stories about a certain foreign government using bots to influence the US elections it is clear that if one government could be doing it then they all could be doing it. The technology to do it exists, is accessible by most governments, and why would they not be using it?
• Quantitative Political Analysis which I will discuss in more detail in my next post is a data-centric way at looking at the political atmosphere. In order for people to have insights from this way of looking at things the average person would need a newsletter.
• The problem of lack of trusted sources. Even if we know what kind of insights to look for or which kind of information we need then the problem is whether all information sources are biased or spreading fake news or perhaps just their own twisted versions of the actual news. We have no way to know which conspiracy theories are true or which are false and we have no sources which we can trust absolutely. Do you want to trust your local government to tell you the truth when you know in the past the same government has been willing to lie to bring the country to war (false flags)?

References

1. https://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/