Bhagpuss, I have no problem with the use of AI in, for example, a game- so long as I know it is an NPC, that’s a good use.

But I am very worried about the use of AI to create simulated human accounts with the directive to drive social media engagement. We’ve already seen how social media can and does get used to radicalize people through the implementation of simple ‘rewards’ driving content creators. Multiply that by several orders of magnitude and you have what I expect a Facebook or Instagram managed AI bot army would do.

The whole problem seems to be that the human brain isn’t wired to engage as strongly with happiness or kindness. We pay more attention to things that incite fear and hatred: that is the clear message of the last 20 years or so of social media that gave us the extremist political situations we have in the world today. The engagement algorithms don’t care about right or wrong, good or evil: they just reward whatever generates the highest “time on screen” metrics.