Nice Metaphor

Aaron Ross Powell describes the current ideological insanity in Silly-Con Valley as being an example of model collapse.

"Model collapse," is when artificial intelligence starts to degrade because it is eating its own product cause it to fail.

Basically, it's coprophagy where the AI models are poisoning themselves by eating their own sh%$.

Mr. Powell is saying that the humans of Silly-Con Valley are poisoning themselves by eating their own sh%$.

Seems to be a pretty good description of most of the tech sphere:

The ideologues of Silicon Valley are in model collapse.

To train an AI model, you need to give it a ton of data, and the quality of output from the model depends upon whether that data is any good. A risk AI models face, especially as AI-generated output makes up a larger share of what’s published online, is “model collapse”: the rapid degradation that results from AI models being trained on the output of AI models. Essentially, the AI is primarily talking to, and learning from, itself, and this creates a self-reinforcing cascade of bad thinking.

We’ve been watching something similar happen, in real time, with the Elon Musks, Marc Andreessens, Peter Thiels, and other chronically online Silicon Valley representatives of far-right ideology. It’s not just that they have bad values that are leading to bad politics. They also seem to be talking themselves into believing nonsense at an increasing rate. The world they seem to believe exists, and which they’re reacting and warning against, bears less and less resemblance to the actual world, and instead represents an imagined lore they’ve gotten themselves lost in.

So, it appears that when we told the, "the Elon Musks, Marc Andreessens, Peter Thiels, and other chronically online Silicon Valley representatives of far-right ideology," to eat sh%$, they listened.

Hoocoodanode?

………

The problem with model collapse is, once it goes too far, it’s difficult to correct. The solution to model collapse is to train on better data. But accomplishing that, and undoing the rapidly radicalizing right-wing ideology of these titans of the Valley, means undoing the structural causes of that self-referential and self-reinforcing cascade. And that’s no easy task.

I disagree with conclusion.

In fact, much of this problem is a direct result of years of law-breaking by the Silly-Con Valley movers and shakers.

"Fake it until you make it," is fraud.

"Move fast and break things," is a criminal conspiracy.

If these guys had the law enforced against them in the same way that a cop enforces a law against an African American accused of shop-lifting, they would no longer have the sense of impunity, and hence the sense of superiority that makes them so toxic.

The solution is democracy and the impartial administration of justice.

In the meantime, however, why don't they all just eat sh%$.