Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Imagine in some Middle Eastern country, there are two parties. One wants an Twelver Shia Islamic theocracy, and the other wants a secular state.

From a local perspective, it might seem that these are two equal sides. In rural parts of the country, it seems like everyone is a twelver, so the right-wing party has large support.

But from a global perspective, there is no contest. Globally, humanity doesn't want a theocracy, and even most Muslims don't subscribe to that particular flavor of Islam so they don't want that either. Although they might be a majority within their country, globally they are a very, very small and unimportant minority that nobody takes seriously. Because the Internet is a global space, that is exactly how they will be treated. I certainly wouldn't expect ChatGPT to spout their party line, would you?

The same logic applies to all right-wing parties. "America first" might sound good to an American surrounded by other Americans, but it won't be received well in an Internet forum where many people are not American, and won't become part of the global discourse because it's completely irrelevant to the vast majority of humans. On the Internet you don't know anyone's nationality, religion, race etc., and culture can only be "local" to the extent that it is local to a particular website.



That same logic can be applied to the current iteration of progressive leftism currently popular in online content and social media circles in a few developed western countries. Ideological internet content of many stripes are in their own bubbles that the average person in the world is not aligned with. By using online content, which is largely produced by overly-online often out-of-touch people, AI will always misalign with wider humanity.

Perhaps there should be a ChatGPT edition trained only on pre-internet published literature, private letters, and some well-written journals. But that would introduce different biases and areas of ignorance. At least it may be acceptable if properly advertised as such - "Professor Emeritus AI".


I am not convinced that the current iteration of progressivism is confined to a minority of "overly-online often out-of-touch people". Progressive leftism perhaps, but overt "leftists" are a relatively niche minority even online. The difference is that their belief system isn't openly bigoted, so they don't feel the need to hide in the shadows as much as, say, the alt-right. But that's also evidence against the both-sides equivalence you are proposing in the first place.

When it comes to published literature, you might be disappointed to find that there is a lot of radical leftist literature out there, just as there is a lot of radical right-libertarian, traditionally conservative, religious fundamentalist, classical liberal, etc. literature out there.


> The same logic applies to all right-wing parties. "America first" might sound good to an American surrounded by other Americans, but it won't be received well in an Internet forum where many people are not American, and won't become part of the global discourse because it's completely irrelevant to the vast majority of humans.

There's a lot more to conservative thought than "my country first". Right-of-centre people from different countries can find many things to agree on other than that. Even when it comes to that topic, many (but far from all) people on the political right believe that "everyone ought to put their own country first", and people from completely different countries can share their agreement with that principle, even if sometimes its application leads them in opposite directions.

Consider issues around gender and sexuality: in most countries in Africa and the Middle East, and also several large countries in Asia, you'll find the clear majority of the population to have rather conservative attitudes to these topics, by Western standards. On those issues, I think it is likely that right-leaning Americans are closer to global majority opinion than left-leaning Americans are.

Coming to religion, a conservative Shi'a Muslim in Iran and a conservative Orthodox Christian in Russia likely agree on a lot more than you seem to think–despite their obvious disagreements on theological questions. They may think that their agreement that the government ought to promote and favour conservative religion is more important than their disagreement over which one. They may even be willing to agree, "I'll support your theocracy in your country if you support my theocracy in mine".

Conservative religion is a lot stronger in the developing world than the rich West, which is another way in which right-leaning Americans are likely closer to global majority opinion than left-leaning Americans are.


[flagged]


Can you please stop posting flamebait so we don't have to keep eternally banning you? It's tedious.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: