New on OnlySky: AI will be the death of the internet

I have a new column today on OnlySky. It’s about a problem we’re only beginning to glimpse that could spell the death of the internet as we know it.

From social media to e-commerce to journalism, the internet is built on the basis of the attention economy. More users equates to more views, more ad clicks, more sales, and more profit. Entire industries are founded on this model.

But AI chatbots have become scarily good at imitating people, and unscrupulous actors are already using them for everything from phony reviews to coordinated propaganda campaigns. Genuine humans are at risk of being drowned out by endless zombie hordes of bots. How will this affect the assumptions that the internet is built on? What happens when there are no humans left to advertise to?

Read the excerpt below, then click through to see the full piece. This column is free to read, but paid members of OnlySky get some extra perks, like a subscriber-only newsletter. I’m told that now everyone can post comments:

By some estimates, bots already comprise as much as 50% of total internet traffic. And these are still the early days of AI. This problem is only going to get worse. It may not be long before encountering another human being on the net is a rare exception.

The future of the internet is a lifeless wasteland. It’s a zombie funhouse of bots chattering inanely at each other, heedless of whether anyone is listening. It’s an infinite conveyor belt of meaningless words spilling into the void, with no humans in the loop at all.

But it won’t last. It can’t. The same incentives that created this digital Babel will be its downfall.

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Things I still believe

The years ahead are going to be a time of trials for us. We’re all going to face pressure to compromise our values: to keep our heads down, to avert our gazes, to play along, to profess loyalty, to collaborate.

For when that temptation is strongest, I’m writing this now, to remind myself (and you, if it benefits you) of the moral principles we should hold on to, whether the world encourages it or not. When the future looks clouded and uncertain, these values are like a lighthouse on a rocky headland. They’ll see us safely through the darkness of the night and the lash of the storm, and they’ll light the way to better days when the clouds finally clear.

First of all, I believe in kindness. In a world where cruelty is the motivation and the rule, kindness is the essential virtue. It’s a reassertion of the inherent worth and dignity of all human beings. Despite the superficial differences cited to divide us, we’re all alike in the ways that count. Everyone’s life matters. Everyone’s well-being should be protected. Everyone deserves to be safe, happy and free. When life falls short of this goal, we should do what we can to make up for it, helping people in the ways they need.

In a world where laws and institutions are slanted toward the rich and powerful, kindness is a leveling impulse. It reminds us to keep our gazes on the vulnerable, the oppressed, and those who’ve been kept in the shadows. The advocates of hierarchy say it’s right that some people should be on top and others on the bottom; the defenders of bigotry say that some people, by virtue of who they are, are outside the circle of moral concern. Both of them are wrong. Kindness is radical because it refuses these limitations.

Most of all – because I’m sure we’re going to hear this a lot – we should reject the argument that kindness is weak. Nothing could be more wrong. Cruelty is a trait of the fearful and the insecure. It’s the mindset of people who want to keep others down because they believe it’s the only way they can stay on top. Those who help, who are willing to reach down without fear of lowering themselves, prove that they’re the strongest.

At the same time, I believe in justice. Justice means that we should treat people as their actions deserve. It’s the abstract form of the Golden Rule, that enduring moral principle that every society and culture has discovered. Those who do right should be rewarded; those who do wrong should be punished, to give them an incentive to make a better choice next time.

I don’t view kindness and justice as values in opposition to each other, but as two sides of the same coin. Kindness would be meaningless and absurd if it was given in equal portion to oppressor and oppressed. As I’ve written before, I don’t believe in tolerating intolerance. Those who treat others with cruelty, malice, or disregard deserve the same treatment in return, and we shouldn’t feel empathy for them when they’re reaping what they sowed.

This principle applies with particular force to the Americans who supported fascism in this election. Millions of those people, in the coming months and years, are going to be unpleasantly surprised. In fact, the red-state footsoldiers of fascism are likely going to suffer some of the worst repercussions. That too is justice, even if only in a roundabout and approximate sense. We shouldn’t extend sympathy to them when they get what they voted for.

As an essential complement to these moral values, I believe in knowable objective reality. The world exists independently of us, and it’s not inherently shaped or governed by our desires. There are physical laws and material facts that are beyond our power to change. (Among other things: Climate change is real. Vaccines prevent disease. More guns means more violence. Cutting taxes on the rich doesn’t trickle down to the poor.) If we try to ignore them, we’ll wreck disastrously on the rocks of reality.

At the same time, we can learn what those laws are and use them to our benefit. The more we know about how the world works, the greater our power to alter it in accordance with our desires. Truth is a map and a tool for forging the future we want.

Those in power dislike the idea that reality isn’t malleable to their will, so they fight against it. Dictators, strongmen and propagandists all want to bewilder you with a blizzard of bullshit. They want to flood the public square with lies until the truth is drowned out. They want you to believe that objective truth is nonexistent, so you might as well believe what you’re told without asking questions.

But a lie is still a lie and a truth is still a truth, even if all the powers of the world are pushing you to believe otherwise. Holding to this principle is a vital defense against unjust power.

These three values – kindness, justice, empiricism – are the stable three-legged stool of my secular humanist philosophy. All are equally necessary.

Kindness without justice is undeserved charity to the oppressor; without knowledge, it’s as likely to make things worse as it is to make them better. Justice without kindness is mere cruelty, and without knowledge of who’s in the right, it becomes injustice. Knowledge alone, without kindness or justice to channel it to the right ends, can make the world worse instead of better. But when these three are combined, they create a whole that’s greater than the sum of its parts.

Last but not least, I believe in joy. This isn’t a moral value as such, but the savor that makes life worth living. However maddening and cruel the world becomes, we have the power to choose how we react. And our reactions, more than anything else, are what determine whether we’re happy.

If you have the misfortune of knowing a fascist, then you know that their worldview is bleak and bitter. Their every thought is shaped by fear, rage, and revulsion. Their lives are full of pain and suffering, which they accept as inevitable rather than seeking to change. It’s this worldview that they want to export to the rest of us. They only win a final victory if they can make us as miserable as they are. That’s a victory we shouldn’t grant them.

Millions and millions of people who lived in, objectively, more unequal and more brutal times than the present didn’t lose their capacity for joy. They found ways to bring pleasure and meaning and happiness into their lives. We’re far more privileged than them, so why can’t we?

Living with joy, refusing to let go of happiness even in dark times, is a victory all its own. We may not find that in politics for now, but there’s still love, friendship, community, art, music, literature, creativity, and helping one another – all the other ingredients that make life worthwhile. Those values aren’t at risk. We just have to remember that we still have them.

New on OnlySky: Heading into the dark

I have a new column today on OnlySky. You can guess what it’s about.

Read the excerpt below, then click through to see the full piece. This column is free to read, but paid members of OnlySky get some extra perks, like a subscriber-only newsletter. I’m told that now everyone can post comments:

What now, for those of us who care? What should we do in response?

Should we plan on moving to another country? (But what country can truthfully say it’s free of bigotry, conspiracy theorists, cruel and selfish people, or would-be authoritarians? These aren’t American flaws, they’re human flaws.)

Should we go Galt—or whatever the liberal equivalent is called—and withdraw from society to build our own enclave of tolerance, decency and human rights? (But there’s an inconvenient shortage of handy mountain refuges with limitless free energy.)

Should we conclude that if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em? (I get nauseous just contemplating it.)

None of these responses are suitable. As hard as it is, there’s only one thing to do—only one course of action that’s thinkable.

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Living in the middle of hope and fear

A misty path surrounded by water on both sides

I’ll say this first of all: I’m not making any predictions about this election. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t think anyone does.

Polls

It seems to me that polls aren’t as trustworthy as they once were. This may be because most people have ditched landlines and only use cell phones, which aren’t tied to a particular place. That makes it harder to survey voters in a specific state or district. On top of that, rampant spam and scams mean that many people are unwilling to answer the phone for a stranger. The ones who respond to pollsters may be those who are most want to advance their own views, introducing an element of selection bias.

Also, polls can find out what people are thinking and feeling, but can’t necessarily predict whether they’ll show up to vote. That measure (“likely voters”) is based on guesswork, assumptions, statistical models, and what-happened-last-time inductive reasoning. All of these are factors that may be wrong or may change from one election cycle to another.

And, of course, we shouldn’t discount the possibility of unethical pollsters rigging the numbers on purpose. There’s statistical evidence of herding: pollsters, because they’re afraid of being wrong, are massaging or discarding results in order to better agree with each other. This has the effect of reinforcing conventional wisdom rather than objectively reporting their findings.

Our democracy is split very nearly down the middle, especially in swing states. In this state of rigid partisan polarization, most elections are extremely close. A fraction of a percentage point in turnout, well within the margin of error of any poll, can decide the outcome. Anything that makes one side even just a little bit more motivated can make all the difference.

For these reasons, I’ve come to hate polls. They enable the worst kind of political journalism: the “horserace”, which tells you who’s winning rather than who’s right. It’s lazy hackwork that adds no value to anyone’s life. It’s much like financial journalism, which spends far too much time scrutinizing the random short-term jitters of the stock market, and not enough on economic trends and data that are genuinely useful to know about.

In the long term, polls are useful barometers of demographic and ideological change. But for short-term prediction, they’re almost completely useless. Instead of obsessing over poll numbers, the media should stick to the issues: what promises a candidate is making, whether that candidate has a record of honesty, how likely it is that they’ll be able to keep their promises, and what all that means for average citizens.

Vibes

In the absence of reliable polling data, people turn to vibes. We fix on small clues and guess that they’re indicative of larger patterns – like trying to extrapolate the forest from the leaves scattered around your feet.

If you look at things one way, you can see reasons why Donald Trump will win: voter anger over high prices and immigration, RFK as a third-party spoiler, an uninformed and apathetic citizenry that’s all too willing to believe lies, media bias toward conservatives, billionaire dark money and Russian misinformation farms, far too many racists and sexists who only support white men, the undemocratic tilt of the electoral college, conservatives in positions of power who are ready and eager to steal the election… the list goes on.

If you look at things another way, you can see reasons why Kamala Harris will win: voter anger over high inequality and Project 2025, RFK as a third-party spoiler, the growing secular voting bloc, women enraged by abortion bans, a significant fraction of Republican voters repelled by Trump’s sleaze, independents turned off by his old age and criminality, people of color turned off by his flagrant racism, Democratic outperformance in the last cycle indicative of a highly motivated base… the list goes on.

Which one is the more accurate guide? Which set of signs should we believe?

There’s no way to know. Especially since 2016, I’ve come to realize that predicting the future is impossible, so I try to spend as little time and mental energy as possible on it.

Human nature

In some respects, this goes against human nature. Humans are obsessive future predictors: it’s our evolutionary legacy, our chief survival strategy, our biggest asset as a species. Our brains are constantly guessing what might happen next, and using that to inform our decisions in the present. But when we dwell on outcomes that are beyond the power of a single individual to change, it becomes an endless loop of rumination: unproductive at best, actively harmful at worst.

As I’ve noted, conservatives are the party of toxic optimism. They’re recklessly overconfident, whatever their actual chances. That’s what you’d expect from a party run by religious fundamentalists who believe God is on their side. Blind faith is the supreme virtue, and admitting to any doubt is ferociously discouraged and will get you cast out.

Progressives have the opposite problem. We’re excessively pessimistic, often more so than the facts support. We’re overly susceptible to doom and gloom and catastrophizing. After bad headlines, I often find social media becomes unbearable for a few days, as people I follow engage in a collective lamentation.

I try to bear this in mind and calibrate my expectations accordingly. I find it’s most pleasant to live in a state of mild optimism: hoping for the best, but being prepared for the worst.

Going too far in either direction will lead you into disaster. If you’re overly optimistic and you lose, then the emotional blow will be that much more severe and damaging, because you weren’t expecting it. On the other hand, if you’re excessively pessimistic, then you’ll inflict potentially unnecessary suffering on yourself by fretting about an outcome that might never happen. It’s like paying interest on a loan you haven’t taken out yet.

For the sake of my own mental tranquility, I try to stay in that middle ground between hope and fear. That’s not to say it’s easy. It’s like standing on a narrow precipice with steep valleys falling away on either side. Any fleeting sentiment, any piece of news good or bad, has a tendency to push me in one direction or the other. It takes effort to maintain my equilibrium, but it pays dividends in peace of mind. No one could live in this borderland of uncertainty forever, but it’s a temporary state. One way or the other, we’ll know soon enough.

New on OnlySky: How selecting for Harvard in utero could go sideways

I have a new column today on OnlySky. It’s about the prospect of genetic technology creating a new caste system, and what, if anything, we can do about it.

It’s easy to sequence the DNA of embryos conceived through IVF. We can use that technology to screen out the ones carrying genes for devastating disorders, which no one could object to.

But what happens when we don’t stop there, and start selecting for embryos carrying the genes that parents want? In a world of capitalism and rampant inequality, it’s inevitable that people will want to give their offspring every possible leg up. What happens when the rich and the privileged start creating custom-tailored children, selecting the genes that make them the tallest, the most handsome or the most intelligent? Should we embrace this brave new world of eugenics, or is this a Pandora’s box we don’t dare open?

Read the excerpt below, then click through to see the full piece. This column is free to read, but paid members of OnlySky get some extra perks, like a subscriber-only newsletter and the ability to post comments.

An American startup, Heliospect Genomics, charges prospective parents as much as $50,000 to screen embryos for desirable genetic traits, especially intelligence. According to undercover footage, they claim they can help parents select the embryos genetically predestined to be the smartest. And if Heliospect’s founders are to be believed, the first children selected through their screening process have already been born or will soon be.

Naturally, this is an opportunity available only to the wealthy. Heliospect only does the genetic screening; it doesn’t help create the embryos. Those have to be obtained through IVF, which costs tens of thousands to start with, on top of whatever Heliospect charges.

We don’t need to imagine the dystopias that might spring from this. Hollywood has already depicted sci-fi worlds with a genetic caste system, where the elite modify their offspring to be superior while the rest of us are an oppressed underclass. We’re barreling toward that future in reality, which is a terrifying prospect.

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