The Trust Collapse: Infinite AI Content Is Awful

If they didn't, we wouldn't be having these problems.

The problem isn't AI, it's how marketing has eaten everything.

So everyone is always pitching, looking for a competitive advantage, "telling their story", and "building their brand."

You can't "build trust" if your primary motivation is to sell stuff to your contacts.

The SNR was already terrible long before AI arrived. All AI has done is automated an already terrible process, which has - ironically - broken it so badly that it no longer works.

Net-growth society: new wealth is being created, if you can be part of the creation you get wealth

No-growth society: only way to acquire wealth is to take it from someone else

Oh plus because essentially every society that experienced it legislated it's way into a no-growth situation. The problem was not that growth was not possible, it's that people used state power, for a lot of different excuses, to prevent growth (and of course really to secure the position of the richest and most powerful in society)

The excuses range from religion, morality separate from religion, wars, avoiding losing wars (and putting the entire economy in a usually futile attempt to win or avoid losing a war) and of course the whole thing feeding onto itself: laws protecting the rich at the direct expense of the poor (that can happen even if there is economic growth, though of course, the more growth the less likely)

Btw: "futile attempt to win or avoid losing a war" these attempt were futile not because they lead to a win or a loss, but because the imposed cost of a no-growth society far exceeded any gains or even avoided losses ...

This, too, goes into the probability of something being right or wrong. But the problem I'm pointing out is an inconsistent epistemology. The same kind of test should be applied to any claim, and then they have to be compared. When people trust a random TikToker over the NYT, they're not applying the same test to both sides.

> It’s also why things like calling your opponents dumb, etc is so harmful.

People who don't try to have any remotely consistent mechanism for weighing the likelihood of one claim against a contradicting one are, by my definition, stupid. Whether it's helpful or harmful to call them stupid is a whole other question.

Could you quickly summarize how and why you felt let down by the media in regards to COVID?

The key is that distrusting one side or source does not logically entail trusting another source more. If you think that the media or medical establishment is wrong, say, 45% of the time, you still have to find a source of information that is only wrong 40% of the time to prefer it.

Regardless, clearly labeled opinions are standard practice in journalism. They're just not on the front page. If you saw that on the front page, then I'd need more context, because that is not common practice at NYT.

The problem is that often we have to choose because decisions are binary: either we get a vaccine or not. For example, to decide not to get a vaccine, the belief that the medical establishment are lying liars is just not enough. We must also believe that the anti-vaxxers are more knowledgeable and trustworthy than the medical establishment. Doctors could be lying 60% of the time and still be more likely to be right than, say, RFK. It's not enough to only look at one side; we have to compare two claims against each other. For the best outcome, you have to believe someone who's wrong 80% of the time over someone who's wrong 90% of the time. Even if you believe in a systemic, non-random bias, that doesn't help you unless you have a more reliable source of information.

And this is exactly the inconsistent epistemology that we see all around us: People reject one source of information by some metric they devise for themselves and then accept another source that fails on that metric even more.

But billionaires are making and keeping ever more money than before, so it isn't a problem.

"We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us", may be the apposite bon mot.

That aside, I did enjoy your article. Thank you.

Our issue was water intrusion along a side wall that was flowing under our hardwoods, warping them and causing them to smell. The first contractor replaced the floor and added in an outside drain.

The drain didn't work, and the water kept intruding and the floor started to warp again.

When we got multiple highly rated contractors out, all of them explained that the drain wasn't installed correctly, that a passive drain couldn't prevent the problem at that location, and that the solution was to either add an actively pumped drain or replace the lower part of the wall with something waterproof. We ended up replacing that part of the wall, and that has fixed the issue along that wall. (We now have water intrusion somewhere else, sigh).

If anything, I was originally biased for the cowboy, as they came recommended, he and his workers were nice, and the other options seemed too expensive & drastic. Now I've learned my lesson, at least about these types of trickier housing issues.

Also, no one mentioned evaluating someone by how they're dressed - the issue was family/friend recommendations vs online reviews, and I while I do take recommendations from friends and family into account, I've actually had better luck trusting online (local) reviews.

Nit: that is not how it worked. You took your horse to the blacksmith and he (almost always he - blacksmiths benefit from testosterone even if we ignore the rampant sexism) make shoes to fit. You knew it was good because the horse could still walk (if the blacksmith messes up that puts a nail in their flesh instead of the hoof and the horse won't walk for a few days while it heals). In 1600 he made the shoes right there for the horse, in 1800 he bought factory made horseshoes and adjusted them. Either way you never see the horseshoes until they are one the horse and your check is only that the horse can still walk.

In any case, I can’t complain anyway because I have received my share of favorable coverage. It is just less frequent when you don’t have the personal connections.