The issue of morality and character wasn't just raised by Democrats and the "fake news" media. It was also raised by Republicans who directly served in the administration. When your former VP, chief of staff, military leaders and scores of former cabinet officials say issues of character made him unfit for command, I think people should and ought to have taken that very seriously in both the primaries and general election. This is before you even get to his numerous legal issues both civil and criminal. It is unfortunate that so many still choose to see this through only a political lens.
This. I don't use twitter for political discourse and since new guy took charge and made his political inclinations clear I'm being bombarded with political content and "news"/"hot takes" that skew a certain way. If wanting to use the tool for topics that are of interest to me, is me being in an echo chamber, then so be it.
I don't have a problem with Musk supporting one candidate or the other. But I do have a problem with Musk apparently tweaking the algorithm to specifically promote one candidate and to bombard me with political content that skews a certain way even when I selected other interests or never used the platform to engage in political discourse. This while bellowing about X being a platform for free and open speech.
I realize that in this epoch we are living in the only rule is that money and power gives you the right to do as you please. This may be old school but I think that values, honesty and ethics matter too and should guide our behaviors in life and in business. Kudos to the Guardian for taking a stand even if it costs them a few dollars.
> I do have a problem with Musk apparently tweaking the algorithm to specifically promote one candidate and to bombard me with political content that skews a certain way even when I selected other interests
He has been doing that since almost a year. The "For you" page would be filled with content you don't like, and clicking "not interested" doesn't help.
The only solution I found was to mute the accounts that were showing up there that I didn't like.
This was a major factor that led me to leave X / Twitter
I do have a problem with musk supporting a political candidate. Not for any kind of high minded reason. Just because I am uneasy that someone has so much power. It is simply a threat. And people get too wrapped up in the argument to notice that.
I do not know if Musk tweaked the algorithm in favor of Trump as I've left Twitter several years ago due to getting tired of propaganda bots. But what I do know is that Google and Facebook (as well as previous Twitter owners) practicing targeted propaganda for years already, pushing political agenda in your throat no matter how you ask them to not recommend you specific authors, channels or topics. I don't think we actually have any social platform for free and open speech.
Don't forget youtube. Of course, when they were doing that, it wasn't "pushing political agenda" it was just "doing what's right" and "respecting the rights of others".
Are there books recounting the history of editorial positions put forth by these platforms? I really had no idea where google stood on political issues in the 2000s. I remember thinking they were quite pro-free speech sometimes callously so through that decade. I do remember them putting forth issues on gay marriage when it was a live political issue, though.
I watch a lot of YouTube, often without an ad blocker, and I see almost no political content on my home page. The only place I regular saw political content was in the in-video ads which appeared to be just normal paid ads purchased by the campaigns.
It depends on what country you live in. Youtube was throwing Navalny and his friends videos into my feed no matter the "don't recommend videos from this channel" button. It somewhat lowered the intensity, but they still tried to mix their political agenda into my feed.
> I don't have a problem with Musk supporting one candidate or the other. But I do have a problem with Musk apparently tweaking the algorithm to specifically promote one candidate and to bombard me with political content that skews a certain way [...]
But for some reason, it was okay the other way around a few years ago?
You would be better off getting your content from mainstream news outlets than relying on podcasts, substacks, blogs etc. for factual neutral reporting. Specifically I'm referencing the news divisions of the mainstream outlets that offer actual reporting and not the opinion jockeys that dominate prime time.
The alternative news sources you mentioned are merely opinion echo chambers that serve to reinforce preconceived ideas and inflame passions rather than offering up any kind of neutral reporting.
What a lot of people find refreshing in podcasts, etc. is that they don’t hide their biases. They might tell the truth, or maybe they lie, but at least they tell you (or clearly signal) their position.
People I’ve spoken to are sick of media that pretends to be neutral, while they are clearly serving the interests of the rich. In that sense it’s really refreshing to have someone tell you what they really think.
I don’t have any solutions, but I can certainly understand the thought process.
I see this got flagged, but when big tech players had such a significant role in the election and will have significant say in policy going forward, me thinks this is more than an intellectual curiosity and relevant to the board.
He also easily brushed aside the Republican contenders during the primaries so I think it is a bit more than voters can't stand woke democrat policies.
All of the character issues were raised and known during the Republican primaries and they still selected him as their candidate.
This is also a source of great frustration to me. That so many people discounted the character issue when many who worked directly with him including his own former VP, Chief of Staff and military leaders said that his character issues disqualified him for the job is amazing to me.
My motto for the rest of the year and going forward is to no longer try to understand the actions of others, but to just accept. Peoples actions won't necessarily match my paradigm of what is rational and logical.
That many people from his previous administration and own party coming out against his character issues? It's unprecedented. Mind boggling.
Plus January 6th and all his legal problems(plus convictions). That whole government documents circus.
And we have collectively looked past this and put him back in office? He won the GOP PRIMARY?! I know people aren't "feeling the economy vibes" but dang.
I'm not really convinced of the "economy" argument. It's easy to make, but there is no reason to think that the other guy is actually any better. They may not be thrilled with where they are now, but they were not noticeably better off four years ago.
Some are worse off; some are better; many are about the same. It's just not sufficient to explain electing a literal criminal.
I'm sure it figures in somewhere, but I don't think it's anywhere near enough to explain the situation.
Been following the story, mostly on twitter don't know if any of this is true but at this point it is just pure entertainment reading some of the speculative theories:
If Q* is what I think it is… this is absolutely BONKERS
Q-learning has existed for decades already. It’s just a basic reinforcement learning algorithm. A* is also fairly old- it’s a heuristic-based path finding algorithm.
In typical engineering fashion, they may have found an intersection of the 2 and named it Q*. This is total speculation, but if this is a “breakthrough” that means OAI built an algorithm that can feed a highly efficient heuristic into Q-learning. That is MASSIVE.
Kids grow up so fast these days, you know.
<Snark>