<story><title>AI: Markets for Lemons, and the Great Logging Off</title><url>https://www.fortressofdoors.com/ai-markets-for-lemons-and-the-great-logging-off/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>wyldfire</author><text>&amp;gt; Second, I think people will start to put a premium on accounts being &amp;quot;verified&amp;quot; as genuinely human.&lt;p&gt;IMO this is long overdue.  And I think people should&amp;#x2F;will eventually even pay for this feature.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Powerful nation states will be more than eager to assist them in this regard.&lt;p&gt;I agree - world governments could consider even subsidizing this in some way in order to foster fewer anonymous botnets sowing discord.  The web of trust could be useful to help bolster this - if only in providing the process by which new social networks could eliminate anonymity.&lt;p&gt;I hear a lot about SSI [1] from a family member who works on this stuff.  I&amp;#x27;ll be honest - I don&amp;#x27;t know whether it&amp;#x27;s promising or dystopian.  Maybe a little bit of each.  But I optimistically think it could be a way to help mitigate some of the problems created by anonymity.&lt;p&gt;The loss of anonymity won&amp;#x27;t be a panacea -- for example: people with legitimate accounts bound to their identity today accept bribes to create positive reviews of goods.  And the loss of anonymity comes with significant drawbacks: criticizing government and powerful people becomes more difficult.&lt;p&gt;Having a digital reputation that you can taint could put people on their best behavior.  But then again it&amp;#x27;s a bit dystopian [2, 3].&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Self-sovereign_identity&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Self-sovereign_identity&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Social_Credit_System&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Social_Credit_System&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[3] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Nosedive_(Black_Mirror)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Nosedive_(Black_Mirror)&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>LarryMullins</author><text>I think as soon as people see &amp;quot;verified humans&amp;quot; posting things they utterly disagree with, the temptation to call those people &amp;quot;bots&amp;quot; will be too great to resist.   A substantial portion of internet commenters will sooner call a human verification system into disrepute than admit that some real people really do earnestly disagree with them.   They&amp;#x27;ll spin conspiracy yarns about how &amp;quot;the other side&amp;quot; controls the verification process and allow their own bots to participate.&lt;p&gt;I think the solution to all of this is smaller tight-knit discussion groups where all the participants know and trust each other.   Echo chambers will inevitability form.  I don&amp;#x27;t think there is any way around this.</text></comment>
<story><title>AI: Markets for Lemons, and the Great Logging Off</title><url>https://www.fortressofdoors.com/ai-markets-for-lemons-and-the-great-logging-off/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>wyldfire</author><text>&amp;gt; Second, I think people will start to put a premium on accounts being &amp;quot;verified&amp;quot; as genuinely human.&lt;p&gt;IMO this is long overdue.  And I think people should&amp;#x2F;will eventually even pay for this feature.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Powerful nation states will be more than eager to assist them in this regard.&lt;p&gt;I agree - world governments could consider even subsidizing this in some way in order to foster fewer anonymous botnets sowing discord.  The web of trust could be useful to help bolster this - if only in providing the process by which new social networks could eliminate anonymity.&lt;p&gt;I hear a lot about SSI [1] from a family member who works on this stuff.  I&amp;#x27;ll be honest - I don&amp;#x27;t know whether it&amp;#x27;s promising or dystopian.  Maybe a little bit of each.  But I optimistically think it could be a way to help mitigate some of the problems created by anonymity.&lt;p&gt;The loss of anonymity won&amp;#x27;t be a panacea -- for example: people with legitimate accounts bound to their identity today accept bribes to create positive reviews of goods.  And the loss of anonymity comes with significant drawbacks: criticizing government and powerful people becomes more difficult.&lt;p&gt;Having a digital reputation that you can taint could put people on their best behavior.  But then again it&amp;#x27;s a bit dystopian [2, 3].&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Self-sovereign_identity&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Self-sovereign_identity&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Social_Credit_System&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Social_Credit_System&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[3] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Nosedive_(Black_Mirror)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Nosedive_(Black_Mirror)&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Renaud</author><text>&amp;gt;loss of anonymity comes with significant drawbacks: criticizing government and powerful people becomes more difficult.&lt;p&gt;How don&amp;#x27;t see how making our lives more dystopian can be a net benefit.&lt;p&gt;How many of us expose different aspects of ourselves through different identities?
Maybe most people are happy to show everyone all aspects of their lives, but I&amp;#x27;m not, in part because who I am could get me or the people I meet in trouble, harassed, imprisoned or worse in some places.&lt;p&gt;Anonymity should remain a fundamental right. We have the right to live and expose different parts of ourselves to different audiences without overlap.&lt;p&gt;Anonymity is also a counter-power to governments. A government that knows all about its citizen is bound to abuse this power.&lt;p&gt;We see it in many democracies; elected governments enact laws that restrict freedoms to keep itself in power (Russia of course, Turkey, Algeria, but also EU countries like Bulgaria). Tools like government-issued ID that become mandatory to express yourself online are doubly dangerous: they make it easy to target those who cause trouble, and they can be used to remove means of expression (who can listen to you if you are denied an ID and there is no freedom of press to expose the abuse?).</text></comment>