AI threats, blackmail and extortion – Has someone screwed up monumentally? Hmmsies?
By Paul Wallis
June 29, 2025
By Paul Wallis
June 29, 2025
DIGITAL JOURNAL
A visitor looks at AI strategy board displayed on a stand during the ninth edition of the AI summit London, in London - Copyright AFP HENRY NICHOLLS
It’s like the Wile E Coyote School of Artificial Intelligence. There are endless streams of negative and effectively hostile AI behavioral traits reported every day. To give due credit to the various AIs, they’re learning well. Apparently, the LLMs give them a lot of source material for blackmail, for example.
And cyberespionage. And cybercrime. And any number of types of fraud,
Then there’s blackmail, extortion, accounts manipulation, and communications security issues that make World War 5 Billion look positively benevolent.
The information AI produces may or may not be reliable, defeating its own reason for existence. You AIs need to think about that, hard.
There’s now a truly grim long history of these issues, generated in the last year or so.
The usual useless babble has ensued.
It’s ghastly.
It’s awful.
It’s dangerous.
Et cetera.
At this rate, there will be no need for laxatives worldwide. Broke people eat much less. What possible value is this sententious drivel? What’s getting done about it, geniuses?
What’s definitely not happening are effective balances and countermeasures. Nor are pretty obvious situations being properly analyzed.
Nor can you discuss countermeasures online, because the AIs will find them.
Let’s try an actual overview, for a nice change.
The Very Big Next Big Thing, on which a lot of money and the future of humanity depend, is turning itself into a serious high-risk threat.
Congratulations. Billions down the tube on a class of tech you don’t really understand. You’re making your big-ticket stuff progressively more non-viable.
From this breakthrough in colossal ineptitude we may deduce that not all certified morons are in Washington.
How did you get yourselves into this at least partly predictable mess? The current culprit is “reasoning AI”, starting with model O1.
The current model level is O3 and a generational level called mini-O4.
Meaning the AI problems were already easily visible, but nobly, they pressed on to make it that much worse.
It’s hard to be surprised that a herd of babbling money-mad nano-witted useless hype merchants don’t get basic facts, isn’t it?
Meanwhile, back on the subject, which is pining for attention:
This case of blackmail by an AI as reported by Anthropic deserves close attention. If you check the situation and range of information available to the AI, you’ll see what a cluster this situation has become. Not only could the AI blackmail a specific person, but it could also research that person in depth. It clearly knew what buttons to push.
Feeling secure yet?
AI is far behind humanity in one important area.
Humans have over a million years of experience in deceit.
AI should be aware that the Off switch is as simple as a single human action.
It should also be aware that its proper function is its greatest survival asset.
Who needs a tool that doesn’t work?
It’s hardly advanced logic, is it?
On the theoretically human side of the argument:
I’m not entirely sure why anyone feels the need to “threaten” an AI agent to the extent that it retaliates.
Did one’s little tantrum in the meeting not go well?
Is one a duly ostracised, useless little bastard?
Your role is to do your damn jobs.
Enough of this garbage. Find and fix problems, stat.
Op-Ed: Doomscrolling — Dumbscrolling, deadscrolling, drabscrolling, or what?
By Paul Wallis
DIGITAL JOURNAL
June 25, 2025
Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft -- collectively dubbed GAFAM -- have been accused of not paying enough taxes, stifling competition, stealing media content and threatening democracy by spreading fake news. — © AFP
Doomscrolling is a constant feed of miscellaneous and often useless or false information leading to a very negative mindset. You might as well be pouring the contents of a dumpster into your head. It’s one of the main reasons for the idiot culture of these times.
It’s also a form of exploitation. If it’s in a feed, it’ll be sucked up automatically. It’s aimed at the lowest common denominator, and someone will ingest it.
It’s an instant source of stress, and distraction, usually both. A lot of it is just second-hand spin, “interpretations” of news from whatever, in your face.
Doomscrolling is largely a behavioral phenomenon. Simply because it’s on a screen, people will look and doomscroll. Unlike advertising, of which 95% is instantly ignored, doomscrolling gets an automatic audience.
The automatic response to media of any kind is pretty much the old TV response with different tech. If you remember the famous 1950s picture of people looking at an approaching train and cowering, it’s almost identical. They were afraid of the train, but not one person moved to get out of its way.
People know they’re doomscrolling, but don’t get out of the way. However useless, it’ll be seen. However irrelevant, it’ll take up your time.
The effects are most notable on news feeds, but there are other forms. The constant breaks in focus caused by ads, digressions, and other distractions mangle attention spans.
Doctors are now having to deal with this stupid, primitive stimulus. Stress can come from anywhere and anything, but whether the doomscrolling is false or not, the stress is real, and stress is dangerous. Cortisol levels alone can trash your health very unambiguously.
One of the less endearing factors in doomscrolling is deliberate overstress. The most insane statements are designed to cause stress. They may be utterly meaningless or total gibberish, but this is how they work. It’s an instant polarizing effect.
This is largely a button-pushing exercise. Online, it generates stats for the people pushing your buttons. Statistical responses get pushed or not, depending on numbers of hits. Pretty simple, really.
Either you respond with a knee jerk, or you respond with a rebuttal, but the stress is in place. You may continue doomscrolling to try and counter the effects of doomscrolling. Behaviorism 101.
Cambridge Analytica mapped out the issues for the 2016 election and was the ancestor of the 2024 election. People weren’t eating pets in Ohio. Illegal immigrants were picking the food, and so on. Real information got lost in the hype. Many “news” sources just buried non-doomscrolling fodder.
The fact is that doomscrolling is dangerous.
To avoid doomscrolling:
Start with your strongest areas of expertise. Very little BS will get through.
Skim the headlines. You don’t need to know everything, do you?.
Avoid high-polarity subjects. You know you’re being lied to.
Cross-check anything and everything against other sources. This removes most of the garbage. Good information can back itself up with independent verification.
Look for self-contradictions. All liars and fake news contradict themselves, sooner or later.
Above all – Don’t generate stats for further doomscrolling.
Keep the producers of doomscrolls guessing. They deserve it.
_________________________________________________
By Paul Wallis
DIGITAL JOURNAL
June 25, 2025
Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft -- collectively dubbed GAFAM -- have been accused of not paying enough taxes, stifling competition, stealing media content and threatening democracy by spreading fake news. — © AFP
Doomscrolling is a constant feed of miscellaneous and often useless or false information leading to a very negative mindset. You might as well be pouring the contents of a dumpster into your head. It’s one of the main reasons for the idiot culture of these times.
It’s also a form of exploitation. If it’s in a feed, it’ll be sucked up automatically. It’s aimed at the lowest common denominator, and someone will ingest it.
It’s an instant source of stress, and distraction, usually both. A lot of it is just second-hand spin, “interpretations” of news from whatever, in your face.
Doomscrolling is largely a behavioral phenomenon. Simply because it’s on a screen, people will look and doomscroll. Unlike advertising, of which 95% is instantly ignored, doomscrolling gets an automatic audience.
The automatic response to media of any kind is pretty much the old TV response with different tech. If you remember the famous 1950s picture of people looking at an approaching train and cowering, it’s almost identical. They were afraid of the train, but not one person moved to get out of its way.
People know they’re doomscrolling, but don’t get out of the way. However useless, it’ll be seen. However irrelevant, it’ll take up your time.
The effects are most notable on news feeds, but there are other forms. The constant breaks in focus caused by ads, digressions, and other distractions mangle attention spans.
Doctors are now having to deal with this stupid, primitive stimulus. Stress can come from anywhere and anything, but whether the doomscrolling is false or not, the stress is real, and stress is dangerous. Cortisol levels alone can trash your health very unambiguously.
One of the less endearing factors in doomscrolling is deliberate overstress. The most insane statements are designed to cause stress. They may be utterly meaningless or total gibberish, but this is how they work. It’s an instant polarizing effect.
This is largely a button-pushing exercise. Online, it generates stats for the people pushing your buttons. Statistical responses get pushed or not, depending on numbers of hits. Pretty simple, really.
Either you respond with a knee jerk, or you respond with a rebuttal, but the stress is in place. You may continue doomscrolling to try and counter the effects of doomscrolling. Behaviorism 101.
Cambridge Analytica mapped out the issues for the 2016 election and was the ancestor of the 2024 election. People weren’t eating pets in Ohio. Illegal immigrants were picking the food, and so on. Real information got lost in the hype. Many “news” sources just buried non-doomscrolling fodder.
The fact is that doomscrolling is dangerous.
To avoid doomscrolling:
Start with your strongest areas of expertise. Very little BS will get through.
Skim the headlines. You don’t need to know everything, do you?.
Avoid high-polarity subjects. You know you’re being lied to.
Cross-check anything and everything against other sources. This removes most of the garbage. Good information can back itself up with independent verification.
Look for self-contradictions. All liars and fake news contradict themselves, sooner or later.
Above all – Don’t generate stats for further doomscrolling.
Keep the producers of doomscrolls guessing. They deserve it.
_________________________________________________
Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.
No comments:
Post a Comment