#38: Decentralisation, Web3, Social Media

Ian Bowie
Hello and welcome to AI Unfiltered with me, Ian Bowie, and our resident expert, Michael Stormbom, where we will be talking about everything to do with AI in our modern digital society and what the future holds for all of us.

Ian Bowie
I got interested in the metaverse and then of course, up popped web3. So tell me a bit more about that.

Michael Stormbom
Well, I mean, first of all that the web3 is actually applied, or, actually, refers to two different things. So the Semantic Web is sometimes called Web 3.0. But when people talk about web3 these days, they’re actually referring to a completely different thing. A bit of background on why it’s 3.0, or version 3, like what are the previous two versions of the web? Because the I mean, it’s always enough after the fact construction this version numbering, but let’s not get into that one. So well, no one called World War One, World War One right after it either. Yeah, back in the good old days web 1.0 was actually known as the great web. No but anyhow, getting past the stand up comedy part of the episode. Yeah. Yes, yeah. Web 1.0, so I mean, that’s the original world wide web. Where everything were static HTML.

Ian Bowie
Tim Berners Lee.

Michael Stormbom
Yes. That was the original incarnation of the world wide web. Everything was static. There was just information you couldn’t really interact with it in any way you couldn’t. It was basically like static pages that were just presented to you and then you could browse and read and that was pretty much, pretty much it. Navigate to other pages.

Ian Bowie
And there were no deep fakes. Well, surely not as much fake news.

Michael Stormbom
Well, sure, you could create fake news, but there wasn’t many people to read it.

Ian Bowie
But was it more controlled back in those days?

Michael Stormbom
Well, to be sure, I mean, of course, it required a certain amount of expertise to get a page up. For one thing.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, but I mean, what I mean was it moderated at all.

Michael Stormbom
I would say in that sense that of course anyone could put up a webpage so in that sense probably not that moderated necessarily. But of course, you still have to put the page somewhere, there to be like a host provider. And of course, the host could have a thing or two to say about what you’re putting on there.

Ian Bowie
Although I suspect that in the beginning with web 1.0 It was probably more like the Wild West

Michael Stormbom
I think because it required a certain amount of know how to get it up there. Get a page online. That cut down quite a bit.

Ian Bowie
I think they reckon that that porn drove a lot of web development, didn’t it? I mean…

Michael Stormbom
I’m quite sure. Yeah, but that was web 1.0. The static web pages that you can’t even really comment. You can’t really post anything. If you want to talk to someone else you had to do it on email.

Ian Bowie
You can’t be a troll.

Michael Stormbom
Well, sure, you can, just not as efficient as you can today. Yes, and what we are currently seeing his then web 2.0, which is this more interactive, user generated content. social media, that’s then the web 2.0 Our current…

Ian Bowie
So we’re now looking at the evolution of social media into some other form.

Michael Stormbom
Well, this web 3.0, and I will be on record and saying it’s a buzzword. But yeah, the keyword here is decentralization. But of course in this web 2.0, where, well, people can say just about anything on the interwebs, there are still nominally at least these gatekeepers so of course, there’s Facebook, they can remove whatever content they want, want as they see fit. Or Twitter–

Michael Stormbom
They don’t seem to see fit very often, though, do they. But you see this is nothing, you know, can we really trust humanity to be able to take control of this and do something good with it? Yeah, but the trouble is, the trouble with complete free speech is who is going to protect the people who can’t protect themselves?

Michael Stormbom
Exactly.

Ian Bowie
And you know, you’ve got certain areas within society or certain people within society that are for example, very easily manipulated.

Michael Stormbom
Consider all the information with regards to COVID for example, yeah. And well I can’t say that necessarily the information dissemination was in all cases particularly clear on behalf of the governments, even given that it was a moving situation where we just didn’t know everything.

Ian Bowie
I’m trying to remember the term now for these people that were turned into jihadists. What do they call it. There’s a term for it. Radicalized, radicalization. So you know, again, a lot of these people were radicalized over the internet.

Michael Stormbom
Indeed, because they could find like minded individuals and of course you can set up your own community. Yes, where you’re not exposed to other ideas. So it becomes this echo chamber where you just keep on egging each other on. Yeah, and it becomes evermore extreme, but

Ian Bowie
This is why you need regulation.

Michael Stormbom
Well I mean, I think the point being at absolute freedom of speech, it just doesn’t exist in any society, getting a fire in a crowded theater.

Ian Bowie
There’s a massive problem with the Internet.

Michael Stormbom
For sure. Well, I think one thing, there’s also that the legislators are not really necessarily very well versed in how the Internet works.

Michael Stormbom
No, true.

Michael Stormbom
And I think that lack of understanding I mean, that means that legislation lags behind really.

Ian Bowie
I think it always has done that hasn’t I mean, there has to be a problem before there can be legislation, they’re not very good at anticipating what a problem might be.

Michael Stormbom
But now that the technology is moving so fast, and development is moving so fast, and…

Ian Bowie
Then legislation is more slowly and more slowly, more slowly. Yeah, indeed. Yeah.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah. So I mean, that’s web 3.0, the keyword is decentralization. And of course, it’s built on blockchains and I think we’ve spoken about cryptocurrencies before that are built on it.

Ian Bowie
They’re taking a hammering at the moment, aren’t they, aren’t they?

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, because it turns out, surprise, surprise, that people are using it as an investment tool rather than as currencies. And then when it comes crashing down when the rest of the economy comes crashing down. Big surprise there. Anyway.

Ian Bowie
No there was an article this morning, there’s some bloke and he was saying, oh, I think he must have been an American. I’ve got $3,000 of my own money invested and I’m rather worried about it. But I’m more concerned about the $33,000 I invested on behalf of my mother and my stepfather.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, you know the bubbles gonna burst when they have celebrities, like I think there was an advertisement with Matt Damon in it advertising some cryptocurrency or cryptomarket. Yes.

Ian Bowie
He should be ashamed of himself.

Michael Stormbom
I’m sure he’s ashamed of himself all the way to the bank.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, that’s disgraceful. I mean, didn’t you have enough money already, Matt without getting involved in something like that?

Michael Stormbom
Maybe he must be in crypto so he…

Ian Bowie
Fucking pirate.

Ian Bowie
Well, actually, if he got paid in crypto, serves him right because they’re worth nothing

Michael Stormbom
No, but of course, what’s underlying this is the this blockchain technology which actually isn’t a particularly new thing. It was actually invented in the early 90s already. Because the idea with those blockchains is of course, you have this sort of ledger, like a record of truth in a way that is not alterable. That was the idea. So that’s why that distributed ledger thing that you have this list of transactions that is basically unalterable and since it’s not possible to alter it, then no one can manipulate, so that’s the what’s the underlying thing there.

Ian Bowie
Sunds better than the Bible? Because you can manipulate that. Yeah, any which way.

Michael Stormbom
And I will add that was the idea, but I don’t know if that’s necessarily true.

Ian Bowie
So do you think blockchain could become a new religion?

Michael Stormbom
Oh, it is.

Ian Bowie
Already is a religion. Yeah. Excellent.

Michael Stormbom
I think yes, in the IT world and the tech bros have substituted the traditional religions with this.

Ian Bowie
Okay. Go blockchains. Yeah, well.

Michael Stormbom
Metaverse and cryptos and blockchains and AI even. Yeah, it’s a religion. Alright.

Ian Bowie
We love it. We love it. Yeah. So where are we going with this anyway?

Michael Stormbom
I’m not sure we were supposed to talk about Web 3.0.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, deregulation. Decentralization. Yeah, but I mean, decentralization and deregulation sound a little bit synonymous to me.

Michael Stormbom
Well, well, I mean, the problem with you if it’s the very decentralized and how do you regulate it?

Ian Bowie
Exactly, exactly,

Michael Stormbom
That has been an an issue with these with these cryptos as well, then you can circumvent legislation.

Ian Bowie
Which I just think it’s a bad idea.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, I mean, we have seen what happens when you’re just release something onto the interwebs without control.

Ian Bowie
But I saw a program about artificial intelligence and with particular emphasis on how governments use it, to follow their citizens. And they went to China, and there was this young lass probably 20 years old. And she said that, you know, she loves the fact that you can just literally get somebody’s social security number. And immediately check them out online to see if they are a good, proper and honest person. She said he’s brilliant. She’s great for dating, because then you know that you can trust that person.

Michael Stormbom
That’s an interesting one. And I’ve heard that as well. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it’s a little bit like if you’re, if you’re taking Uber and then you can, you can rate the driver and the driver can rate you and you have two stars and the driver is like “screw that guy”, but an interesting example of decentralization, which is not web 3.0 per se, but I think it’s an possibly an example of what might come is – because of course now a lot of people have abandoned Twitter now. I’m still on it. But for how long? I don’t know what…

Ian Bowie
Well, I mean, I’ve never been on it.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, do I really use it not really know,

Ian Bowie
where there was a poet, a British politician many, many years ago, famously said only ts twitter. Right? It was actually only ts twit, is what he said.

Michael Stormbom
And yes, there certainly are. A lot of tweets and also I that other words.

Ian Bowie
A good test for people who are listening who are not native English speakers. There’s a lovely word for your vocabulary. Yes, look it up folks. I’m not gonna tell you what it really means.

Michael Stormbom
No. Speaking of content moderation.

Ian Bowie
I always need moderating media.

Michael Stormbom
Aan example of decentralization when it comes to social networks is now that a lot of people are abandoning Twitter. There is this actually German one called Mastodon a decentralized social network. So the point being there’s that anyone can spin up one of the Mastodon servers. And you can register online with the servers. Each server has its own rule set and you have to abide by it. But you can still interact with people who are on other servers. So it kinda looks kind of like Twitter, but you can be still being specific communities. With their own specific rules. So in principle, we can set up an AI Unfiltered server and have our own rules there. Yeah. And then people come in and then we can well push AI stuff there, for example. So it’s kind of an interesting, interesting concept. So then, in principle, anyone can put up a can put up on social media server.

Ian Bowie
How long has that been around?

Michael Stormbom
I’m sure it’s been around for some years. It just getting popularity now that people are looking for Twitter alternatives. Okay. So it’s an interesting, interesting concept and possibly then also an example of a European social network gaining traction. So that’s an interesting one as well.

Ian Bowie
Do you think I mean, I’ve looked, for example, you know, I read articles on the internet, and something happens, I don’t know. I mean, let’s say a celebrity died. Big deal. And then other celebrities tweet. Oh, he was such a nice person. I loved him. We’re going to sorely miss him. And that’s something it’s so banal It’s just, you know, who cares what you think? Who are you anyway? Why on earth do I want to hear your miserable thoughts on this matter? I would like to listen to an expert. No, but did you know what I mean? It’s like…

Michael Stormbom
Well, yeah, I mean, absolutely. It’s very shallow.

Ian Bowie
Really shallow. You know, it’d be nice to have something that had a bit of depth to it.

Michael Stormbom
But How deep can you go with 140 characters?

Ian Bowie
No, which means the whole thing is pointless.

Michael Stormbom
Or a TikTok video.

Ian Bowie
Well, that’s pointless as well. It’s all pointless basically. I mean, you know…

Michael Stormbom
Mindless entertainment in a way yes, indeed.

Ian Bowie
Bring back properly researched and written and edited books.

Michael Stormbom
No one has time for that.

Ian Bowie
We want the deep dive. No. No, this is a problem. You know, people have been brought up onthese sort of, you know, short bites of…

Michael Stormbom
No one has the attention span anymore.

Ian Bowie
They don’t do they? No, no, no, not for anything. I mean, even documentaries are getting shorter. Yeah, yeah.

Michael Stormbom
I think we should get into it on TikTok, like, five second documentaries.

Ian Bowie
I was actually thinking of 15 minute documentary. Can’t concentrate for that long. Yeah. I mean, I have to admit, though, you know, sometimes, you know, I love sort of history and history books. But for example, if you’ve ever read a business book well, you have of course you have.

Michael Stormbom
I have read most of them.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. So, you know, if you boil a typical business book down to the actual key nuggets, yeah. You could have written it in about 10 pages. I mean, there are websites that do it aren’t there. Yhere’s quite a few sites now that specialize in boiling down.

Michael Stormbom
Well, yeah, I mean, a lot of these books, there’s just not that much content in there isn’t. Yeah, and many of them are quite selective also with their… because they’re all constructed around examples of their whatever theory they’re trying to push in. And then they have some carefully selected examples. Yeah. Nothing is said about how many companies applied this strategy and failed miserably. If the success rate is 1%, we don’t know because it just doesn’t say that. Yeah, I’m gonna come up with my own. We can push that, the Greener Pastures Strategy.

Ian Bowie
What is that website… There is a website that they keep pushing from time to time. That does this. It takes all this stuff and it boils it all down. So that you get Yeah.

Michael Stormbom
You’retoodumbtoread.com?

Ian Bowie
No, that’s a good name. Yeah, we should register it. What’s it called? I think it’s German, I think.

Michael Stormbom
Oh, you mean Blinkist?

Ian Bowie
That’s it. Yeah. That’s one of those sites, isn’t it?

Michael Stormbom
I mean, it’s an app, ain’t it.

Ian Bowie
And an app, as well. Yeah, it’s an app. Hey, AI could do that, couldn’t it?

Michael Stormbom
It could indeed, I’m just trying out this thing called, it’s called byword.ai. It’s a copywriter. So I think it’s in it’s in early access at the moment. So you can type in, for example, what is web 3.0? And then it writes an article for you about it.

Ian Bowie
Oh, yeah, we’ve we’ve played with things similar before, haven’t we?

Michael Stormbom
Yes. Well, that was GPT-3. Yeah, these are no more services that are more designed specifically for copywriting. Right.

Ian Bowie
I wasn’t thinking about that. What I was thinking about was that you could feed a book into your algorithm, and it would identify the key nuggets of information.

Michael Stormbom
Summarisation yeah, some work better than others for sure. Yeah.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. Perfect.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, summarize Infinite Jest.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. I mean, actually, I just read an article again last week about a lady who finally has given up social media and has found it so empowering. When she now feels free and liberated. Wonderful. I could have told you that. Had to write a whole article about it so the world now knows how free and liberated this lady is.

Michael Stormbom
And then share it on social media?

Ian Bowie
And then probably. Yeah, she was apparently hooked on Instagram and everywhere she went to as soon as he got out of the car. She was looking for the perfect place to take that perfect picture to post on Instagram. And now she’s got over it. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, we know it. Yeah. And so I think that’s another danger isn’t it and you know, it’s like we are being fed a world a very, very small minority people want us to have

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, I think I probably would not have your sister there are solutions looking for problems, so to speak. Yeah. I mean, I don’t… web 3.0 for example, how does that benefit me?

Ian Bowie
Yeah, you tell me I don’t know.

Michael Stormbom
No, indeed not. I mean in a hypothetical scenario where Finland becomes a dictatorship and we can’t do the AI Unfiltered podcast, then we’ll do decentralized, decentralized distribution or whatever.

Ian Bowie
I’ll give you a good good example of how for example, Facebook, might impact on my life. It starts conversations between me and my wife about things like, don’t you dare post any photograph that has me in it n your Facebook account? Because I don’t want to be there. Yeah. So you know, you have conversations like that. Yeah.

Michael Stormbom
And I think I mean, there are a lot of talk about censorship on social media. But I think the more jarring effect on free speech is the chilling effect, in that you say something and then you immediately get trolled to death or bashed to death, and you’re afraid to state your opinion.

Ian Bowie
You’ve been listening to me Ian Bowie and my colleague Michael Stormbom, on AI Unfiltered and for more episodes, please go to aiunfiltered.com. Thank you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai