When Smart People Do Dumb Things

By Gordon Hopkins I joined Facebook about a decade ago, shortly after a trip abroad. I've met a number of people during my various trips to other countries and I wanted to stay in touch with some of them. I count some of them among my closest friends, despite physically being as far away from me as is humanly possible without a spaceship. Unfortunately, using Facebook, like most other social media platforms, has become less a pleasure and more an ordeal. I see very few posts these days from those folks I am genuinely interspersed in.Why is that? Are they posting less than they used to? Probably. Even if they aren't, it would be well nigh impossible (newspaper columnists are just about the only people left in the world that can get away with using a phrase like that) to spot relevant posts in the maelstrom of AI (artificial intelligence) generated “content.” (I put “content” in quotes because my publisher won't let me use the word I want to use.)This is not a unique observation. For quite a while now, users of social media complain they have lost all value, drowning as they are in AI junk. The places where so many liked to hang out for fun is now no fun at all. There was a time when social media was one of the most powerful forces in the world. It could make celebrities and millionaires, rewrite culture, elect politicians and even topple governments.Now, AI content is driving away social media's users.Put it simple terms, AI is destroying Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter), Instagram, TikTok and every other platform.What is truly surprising, however, is that the owners of some of those very social media platforms are funding AI.Despite the fact that AI is making the thing that made him a zillionaire, a miserable wasteland, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into his new AI venture.It is one thing to stand in front of a firing squad. It is quite another to willingly pay for the bullets.Meanwhile, Elon Musk, the current owner of X/Twitter, is having major PR headaches with his own AI, Grok, which now pretty much dominates every users' feed. That is a problem given a recent upgrade that encouraged Grok to be “less politically correct.” Grok took that instruction to heart and began calling itself “MechaHitler.”Because they are rich, there is a tendency to overestimate the intelligence of people like Zuckerberg and, especially, Musk. Remember, Musk didn't invent the electric cars his company builds or the rockets his company flies or even the computer program that named itself after the most hated man of the 20th century. Nevertheless, it has to be (grudgingly) acknowledged that Musk and Zuckerberg are intelligent, and thus extremely successful, businessmen. So, why are they actively supporting the technology that will destroy their successful business models?Being neither a successful businessman nor a psychologist, my guess is nothing more than a guess. Still, if I were to guess (and I will), they are doing it because everyone else is.FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) is one of the most powerful driving forces in human nature. Parents always ask their kids, “If everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you?” Most kids don't have the guts to admit to their parents, “Yeah, I probably would. If everyone else is jumping off a bridge, there's got to be a good reason, doncha think?”

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