AI Influence and Control

Think of all the mob mentality that social media fosters from having so many human users. If you can replace the majority of that interaction with AI generated content then you can return the control of the media to the select few rather than the democratizing nature of social media. Media has a history of being controlled and manipulated for political purposes. Meta is notorious for trying to shape public opinion and then selling that ability to people who can profit off of it like politicians or businesses. This is one of the reasons I advocate learning AI development yourself. Ironically Meta is one of the leaders in open source LLMs with their LLaMa models. They do that for a reason. If you can control the guardrails for "misinformation" for a LLM you can control the narratives it constructs. Using LLaMa they will be able to fine tune models for specific political or business use cases. That is one of the services they are offering. Now imagine these fine tuned models being sold as percentages of influence over the network. You can pay for your own influencers for your purpose. Instead of the democratic one account one voice traditional social media construction we will rather have a one dollar one voice model. The more money you can spend the more your voice will be heard. This is what they are trying to sell you.

You make some compelling points about the potential for AI-generated content to reshape social media dynamics. The shift from organic human interactions to algorithmically driven or AI-generated interactions could indeed centralize influence in the hands of those who can afford to develop and deploy these systems. Social media originally disrupted traditional media by democratizing content creation and dissemination. However, as AI-generated content becomes more prevalent, there's a real risk that we could see a re-centralization of influence—where those with the resources to develop and control AI models can dominate narratives. Meta’s involvement in open-source LLMs like LLaMa is indeed strategic. While open-source releases appear democratizing, they also enable entities with the right resources to shape the fine-tuning and application of these models to suit their interests. The concept of "buying influence" through fine-tuned AI voices rather than earning it organically is a chilling prospect, especially when it comes to political and social discourse. Your advocacy for learning AI development aligns well with the idea of retaining agency in this shifting landscape. By understanding how these models work and how they are deployed, individuals can better navigate, critique, and even counteract the consolidation of influence. What kind of tools or skills do you think are most important for individuals to develop in order to retain digital agency as AI becomes more integrated into social media?