RANT: Truths about Social Media and AI

RANT: Truth behind Social Media and AI

In this post, we are gonna look at the hidden dangers of using social media and AI. No, actually, I am going to rant about how social media and AI are bothering me.

Disclaimer: Read this at your own risk. This might just be a human hallucination amplified by the use of AI.

Ever since the dawn of talking, humans have been social because being social through talking helped us to share knowledge about resources, work together and thrive. Some talked and did good things and some did selfish things. Talking was a very good emotion reliever. But then, social media came and ruined it for all.

I don’t have to leave my home to talk with my friends. I can even talk to strangers and potentially dangerous people. Not that the other internet apps like quick commerce ones aren’t convenient. In fact, I would rather order easily online “at the press of a button”, than going through the hassle of negotiating, buying stuff from a fellow tricky seller who judges based on my language, gender, economic status, looks, religion, caste, subcaste, community, medical history, marital status and what not before selling me that bag of apples. Finding Suitable Matches is easier than buying groceries like this.

Information sharing online isn’t new. Web 1.0 started it. Also, online chatting had been around for decades now. But, we were not (all) sitting at the computer tables all day, chatting and expressing ourselves and consuming others’ emotions and thoughts and feelings, like we do with our smartphones today.

The accessibility to smartphones with social media apps have amplified in the past few years and none not uses it. I see almost all people use it when I don’t use it.

Attention is all we have

My problem with the smartphone is it’s hijacking my time, attention, emotions and willpower all at once. Smartphones with the social media when I should be cooking, show me the horrors happening at Gaza, steal my anger and make me put an angry emoji while making me believe that I had helped Gazans, Palestines somehow. Isn’t it foolishness? Then, after that cooking time passes I rely on another quick food delivery service which is in the same smartphone to deliver me food. Due to overuse of smartphone, the battery spoils and I then immediately see an advertisement for a renowned smartphone brand.

In one shot, the smartphones with the apps (capitalists) have taken my phone private details like battery data, my time, money and my emotions as well. I could have used that anger to finish that long shelved project. But, I didn’t. I could have made some healthier food for myself. But I didn’t do it either. I could just replaced my battery but I didn’t. All I was focused on was that post that was probably created by a “fringe” group and possibly AI faked too, to shake the emotional stability of the people.

It’s even worse for social media creators, because they rely on it for income.

Our time is not spent wisely, our emotions, attention and even thoughts are in danger of getting manipulated by strangers, when we use social media.

Now, coming to AI, ever since AI, the “greatest yes man of all time” ever, had come, our views have become more and more narrow, isolated, because we have a “2000₹ per month” AI that said yes, we must be right, we are right, we are astrologers, we can predict future, we can also analyse the past, we can read minds, they thought THAT, they’re wrong but I am not, I am not the narcissist and what not.

I don’t think anyone wants to carry the emotional load of others. I also think not all our emotions from social media are true, because social media doesn’t discriminate and lets everyone even the selfish ones express their emotions, and some could have been manufactured and put on purpose.

The AI as a generic talking tool is better used after people have become adults, after knowing all the intricacies of talking, social engineering, hallucinations. The scary part is, the AI gets trained on our Hallucinations, spread our hallucinations.

I’m really grateful for Social Media and AI because it’s how I am in my current job. But, We need to have some kind of gatekeeping. We need our own social media platform and own AI.

Basically, instead of becoming a user on a social media platform, we could create our own social media platform. Creators would really benefit from their own social platforms and the gatekeeper AI. They could own their content, paid subscribers. AI could feed off the social media content.

Uff, I feel lighter already.

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What do you think? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!