> an a16z-funded startup that uses a phone farm to flood social media with AI-generated TikTok accounts
Isn't this a bot farm? Don't they already exist and aren't they against TikTok's terms of service? The most surprising part of this article is that a16z invested in this.
A16z’s owners have been fairly open about their societally unpalatable attitudes of late. Maybe they were always like that, just a bit more private about it in the past.
In any case, their investment into this company just fits onto a trendline of high-capital antisocial behaviour.
If that surprises you, imagine the shady shit people with too much money invest in when the thought of "what if I hired some hackers" crosses their minds.
> I thought A16Z were a top-tier VC wanting to create long-term value.
They invested in Cheddr.
We're building the TikTok of sports wagering. Accessible by 18 to 21 year olds. Live in game micro betting. Swipe to predict every moment. It's sports wagering at the pace of a slot machine.[1]
They invested in Coverd.
Bet on your bills — OnlyFans, child support, and last night’s Uber. Wipe them from your credit card by playing your favorite casino games all from the comfort of our app.[2]
"We didn't build Coverd to help people inhibit their spending; we built it to make spending exciting. We let spenders win twice – the second time is when they play it back and win. Our users want immediacy and upside. Coverd gamifies transactions with real financial leverage, meeting users where they are and turning spending into a moment they look forward to," said Albert Wang, co-founder & CEO of Coverd.[3]
Coverd is impressively next level sociopathic. I love how their first common spending example is OnlyFans, it figures the type of person who imagined this needs a paid parasocial "romantic" relationship.
Brother, the only value VC aims to create is the value in their pockets in an exit event.
Either by having the company acquired by the usual suspects or the jackpot of an IPO where the general public will be bagholders. The damage their investments caused to society is immaterial, negative externalities they don't need to account for.
> It might be a bit facetious, but if I had 10m invested with them I'd be asking questions about their investment thesis.
The obvious answer is that the sort of people that have 10m invested with them just care about ROI.
Yeah, we're talking a VC. And one run by and named after two guys who between them have publicly backed racism+misogyny+xenophobia+nepotism, have asked for more housing to be built while blocking housing in their own city, etc.
Them investing in a troll farm is pretty on brand.
Having looked at https://doublespeed.ai/ out of morbid curiosity, I have to say a simple screenshot would have sent the message more effectively. Well, that and the tagline "a16z funded this".
I have an opposite reaction for what I assume are reasons we agree on.
Social media has been a transparent race to the bottom for many years. The sooner it is shittified beyond repair the better. AI flooding content to them should help speedrun its descent, or maybe I’ve giving the average user (above child age) too much credit.
WW2 produced some diplomatically-brilliant world leaders. I think you could say that any situation that's headed in an unsustainable direction is being affected by accelerationism. In fact, the old observation "a fool will become a master if he perseveres in his folly" is much about the same thing.
I think accelerationism specifically refers to doing it on purpose. I doubt many of the decision-makers in WW2 were driven by a desire to elevate and support corrupt institutions as much as possible in the hopes that the corruption inherent in the system would lead to a collapse and people would have no choice but to cooperate towards a brighter and more progressive tomorrow.
And anyone that wants to use WW2 as a model for their theory of change is also (I hope) glossing over the abominable death toll. "Once sufficient 10s of millions of people die, everyone will be so horrified and traumatized by the widespread death and destruction that they'll be have no choice but to collaborate to enact the better world I'm picturing," beyond relying on an n of 1 and ignoring the decades of cold war that ensued, is also...hard to argue is worth it.
I think so. These sites can be hardened by relying on people following who they know, but the slop ruins discoverability. That's also partially the reason people moved to TikTok from older, more dumped-on platforms.
It's the authenticity, but even more than that it's the saturation of inauthenticity. Even if there's oodles of authentic content, if there's enough inauthentic content to drown it out, you enter a vicious cycle where plummeting interactions and new authentic content both deed each other.
I have a hypothesis that network effects kick in for social interaction before they do for monetisation, which is why the advertisers/influencers/propagandists/scammers(/trolls, though this is different) are in a constant state of hunting down and infesting whatever platform good-faith users have most recently fled them too. Part of it is likely that smaller communities are more robust and have an easier time identifying and repelling smaller-scale incursions, but I suspect a big part is that smaller communities simply aren't worth the investment of larger incursions, especially since they'll more easily be ruined before any real payout.
Anyway, I agree with you that "quality" (as in effort and craft) is lower on the list of factors than authenticity, which makes complete sense. There was a time when a well-crafted ad was worthy of note, but ads have been so sneaky and pervasive that I think many people are desperate to have a spontaneous interaction or experience that's not trying to sell them anything.
Imagine investing your hard earned money into a phone farm that spams AI content in order to manipulate people into buying shit they don’t need, while our world burns.
I don't mean to derail (and thank you for the - horrifying - link), but why the hell is that a "short". It would have been much better being a normal video (with time controls).
No way... that's the most retarded thing I've heard for a while now, and I did read about international news.
Introspection is basically THE core mechanism for learning. That's HOW one learns on any topic. It's not a "wishy washy hippie feeling" (being provocative here) but rather introspection is (and to be fair I verified with https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/introspection/ just to make sure I wasn't talking out of my own ass) precisely looking at your inner workings. How you function IN ORDER to do better. You notice flaws, inefficient behaviors, things you enjoy, etc THEN you act on it.
Having no introspection is like doing math without verifying. It's like coding without compiling, linting or even executing without looking at the output.
By the way, his notion that introspection is an "invention of the 1920s" is historical bullshit. I think he's taking potshots at psychotherapy? Whatever, man, but then do that. It's not like a Freudian concept of the self is beyond criticism - far, far from it - but using that to interdict "introspection" is just sloppy thinking.
Anyway, leaving aside anything else to be said on the topic, the idea that "great men of history don't introspect" is utter bullshit. I'll see you Abraham Lincoln, and raise you Marcus fucking Aurelius.
So, if what you really want to say is that "most 'great men of history' were sociopaths" then, well, yeah: you're probably onto something. If your next thought is "and I want to be like them", then that's 1) a pretty damning confession, and 2) also evidence that you, sir, aren't actually a sociopathic "great man" at all, just an insecure nerd who got lucky a few times, and now are getting high on your own farts.
I did some volunteer work with a non-profit conducting a survey in NYC about “food deserts”. I had to complete an hours long certification course—ethical boundaries and such—just so I can speak with people about fruits and vegetables. This audio makes it clear a16z’s rigorous approach to communication is coming from a dark and dangerous place.
This “playbook” speaks about _intentionally creating_ mental breakdown. Seems like an antichrist move to me.
Wow, this doublespeed company is abhorrent stuff. AI social media accounts masquerading as real people, coordinating to promote and distribute anything on demand.
If this is the kind of thing you can do in the open as a "reputable" company with VC investment, I can only imagine the kind of horrific industrial-scale social media spam+slop botnets for hire that exist less publicly.
Isn't this a bot farm? Don't they already exist and aren't they against TikTok's terms of service? The most surprising part of this article is that a16z invested in this.
also their website is unsettling https://doublespeed.ai/