Artificial showmasters
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The internet of the year 2525 (Zager
& Evans
1969) has come a long way from its beginnings. Initially
designed to facilitate far distance and instantaneous data exchange
among
cooperating scientists, it soon stirred military and secret service
interest. But it prospered exponentially from the early 90ties onwards
as a communication vehicle for everyone. It soon became a globally free
space of information transfer. As always with
unsupervised human activities, the contents charting this promised land
were mostly of questionable quality.
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It
became an early standard to sign contributions with nicknames. By this,
user mdgzcl started chatting with user gtwrglb without revealing any
identity, a quite interesting experiment.
In parallel, this wonderful free space was increasingly littered by
tons of advertisements nearly suffocating any personal contents. First
'social networks' arose in the early 00ties (see e.g. Fincher & Sorkin 2010), conceptualized by (male) students to facilitate the hunt for attractive (female) colleagues.
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Several
traditional societies
observed this development with increasing irritation. Since in the
beginning, communication was based on glass fiber cables amenable to
local intervention, they had the opportunity to shut out low quality
content. Transmission now, however, increasingly takes other routes.
Instead of earth-bound means, little satellites roaming (littering?)
the outer space took over. The content's quality did not keep pace with
these high technical investments.
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As
a consequence, the world has become an insecure place recently.
Conflict and unrest sprang up at several hot spots. Societies are
shaken down to their traditional foundations.
Whole populations adress their hatred against whole other populations.
While the internet in principle would offer a peaceful arena to settle
global conflicts in a decent, intelectually satisfying way, it is
rather misused for the distribution of sex, drugs, and weapons.
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So: what can be done? Should we further 'wait so patiently, lying on the floor' (The Rolling Stones 1968), till humans learn to communicate
globally in a cultivated way? Should we hope for the spontaneous
evolution of a globally accepted framework promoting sensitive
comportment and reciprocal understanding? It would be a hopeless
undertaking, leading us through further civilisatory bottlenecks as
World War I & II. It will not help, simply to wait.
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People will not abstain from disrupting habits unless they are hindered by executable rules. We must adopt good old editorial habits also in the internet. In times of improving KI, this will not lead to a dramatic loss in freedom and actuality, but to a huge gain in quality. KI-generated seals of quality (as mentioned earlier) will distinguish the wheat from the chaff and identify possible sources of misunderstanding and conflict
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We should create internet
platforms for KI-generated comments and meta-analyses. I'm convinced
that it is possible to generate lively, neutral and even amusing
discussions steered savely even through rough waters by appropriately
instructed artificial show masters. Everybody will know that they are
not really human, a fact that should be clear beyond any doubt. I even
imagine blinking and winking robots with funny accessories and outfits.
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In the near future, it should
not be possible to publish any text immediately as I am doing it right
know. Since several minutes I copy this new text paragraph after
paragraph into the www just to see how it looks there. I wish it wasn't so. Before appearing for everyone on the screen, the content should adopt for a few minutes some sort of twilight existence, being investigated by critical software. If it passes this first test, the growing essay will be subjected to valuation.
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Finally, during the next hours or days, a standardised 'quality label' will appear at the top, allowing fast and easy allocation in terms of content, author, style, originality, and other criteria.
No direct comment of any reader will be possible. Only the supervising
KI can be contacted via the label. It will be up to this (artificial)
authority to link to my site in the frame of any comment or meta-analyses generated in the future (notifying all contributers)..
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This would
allow for scientific progress without bias, taking into account all
contributions after weighing them by objective means.
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9/26 < MLB (9/26) >
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/\ Zager & Evans (1969) In the year 2525
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/\ Fincher & Sorkin (2010) The social network
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/\ The Rolling Stones (1968) Jigsaw Puzzle. LP Beggars Banquet
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