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How Meta Plans To Crank the Dopamine Machine With Infinite AI-Generated Content
Breaking: tech companies have figured out a new way to upend humanity
I still remember when science fiction fans worried about Skynet, HAL 9000, VIKI, or The Matrix. They thought killer robots were humanity’s ultimate threat. How many of you have played out that scenario in your mind, strategizing your best moves in case it ever came true? None would have worked but that’s beside the point: killer robots is terrible business. They will never dominate the world because corporations need humans to give them cash. No humans, no money. So, curse those clever money-makers — they went and wrote a completely different end-of-humanity story. One we didn’t see coming: Perfectly customized brain-hacking entertainment.
You may think, “Why is this guy writing about custom entertainment? This isn’t news. TV, the original ‘idiot box’, is a thing of the past and we’re mostly fine! We did not amuse ourselves to death, right?” Right, but you have to remember that AI is also a thing of the past. Wasn’t it invented in 1956? TV is barely 30 years older than that. Both are older than most of you. Why did ChatGPT only happen in 2022? Why did the AI community wait 60 years? I hope you don’t think it’s because they’re altruistic and waited for us to slowly adapt to this revolution through carefully designed waves of iterative deployment.
No, the reason is that ChatGPT couldn’t have existed back then even if the theoretical framework was in place. Other constraints, like fast computers and plenty of web data, were missing. Gradually, and then suddenly, everything comes into place, and BOOM! You’ve got an all-knowing talking computer in your pocket. The same thing will happen with entertainment that can actually kill you out of amusement. Television — not just as a device but even as a concept — was a prototype. A shy first attempt at manufacturing mental numbness. You couldn’t even decide what it showed you — how primitive. Now you have Netflix. You at least choose the movie. But, if you’re a junkie for American shows, you’ve probably already reached the phase where you’ve seen so many that you spend more time scrolling than watching. The fact that nothing can yet fill that leisure gap makes current technology feel…
