Is #mastodon becoming an echo chamber?
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@scottjenson @carnage4life I think one opportunity we have on the Fediverse is using AI for richer, deeper social engagement, making ourselves happier and more fulfilled.
We have access to platforms through open APIs that have no gatekeepers. We could have MCP or RAG interfaces to servers that we own and operate. We could use them to ask questions like, which of my friends need some support today? Who have I had good conversations with in the past, that I should keep up with better? Who should I follow to help with my career? What volunteer opportunities in my area align with my values?
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@evan @carnage4life @scottjenson @MozillaAI
It is unfortunately very easy to convince yourself that abuse and harrassment are OK as long as they're in service of a morally just cause.
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We have access to platforms through open APIs that have no gatekeepers. We could have MCP or RAG interfaces to servers that we own and operate. We could use them to ask questions like, which of my friends need some support today? Who have I had good conversations with in the past, that I should keep up with better? Who should I follow to help with my career? What volunteer opportunities in my area align with my values?
@scottjenson @carnage4life Facebook, LinkedIn, and X don't allow this kind of API access. No one can keep us from building it here, though.
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@seanwolter @scottjenson You were making decent points until you called everyone here a loser.
@ramsey @scottjenson I’m on here tooooo! 🤪
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@Gargron That is a personal choice and one which I totally respect. But I do think Mastodon should be big enough, and open enough, to allow an "AI community" to form, even thrive.
Too many people in my replies don't seem to agree with that.
@scottjenson @Gargron “AI people” are not a protected class. It seems much more important that we focus on being a welcoming and inclusive platform for protected classes, particularly actual marginalized communities.
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@scottjenson Likewise, while I don’t feel your perspective aligns with mine I’m glad you’re asking the questions.
I will reiterate tho; the fairness that matters is in *access* and *safety* for people to engage.
It is not then about whether the current Mastodon user base is “morally obligated” or “socially owes” anyone any attention at all. (1/2)
The core culture value here is equal access and freedom of expression. Everything after that is self-governing. Including segmentation of interests. No one is owed an audience. No one. (2/2)
@scottjenson -
@mattwilcox First, thank you for this conversation, it's very helpful. Second, while not shipping shared block lists was an issue, there was also issues at the culture level that chased people away. Finally I don't think AI folks need anything, they are just a lightning rod for the "people I don't personally want around" problem. It's a test for how we navigate this going forward.
There are people saying in my replies "we don't want them here". I realize a line that needs to be drawn somewhere (e.g. nazis) but my point is that "as a culture" we should want to have more voices here (in general)
@scottjenson Likewise, while I don’t feel your perspective aligns with mine I’m glad you’re asking the questions.
I will reiterate tho; the fairness that matters is in *access* and *safety* for people to engage.
It is not then about whether the current Mastodon user base is “morally obligated” or “socially owes” anyone any attention at all. (1/2)
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As this conversation is spiraling a bit I want to make a few things clear:
1. I'd like Mastodon to be MORE inclusive and bring in more voices
2. Some people don't seem to want that
3. This is core problem to solve: How do we let more in, but not "pollute" your feed?
4. The solution is NOT "gatekeeping", revelling in the fact that AI journalists aren't welcome
5. This is the same reason we lost "Black Twitter" when it came over in 2022Yes, a lot of you don't want AI posts in your feed (or pick any other topic) but the solution isn't to keep "AI People" from joining Mastodon, any more than it is keeping marginalized communities off of Mastodon.
@scottjenson
wowowo please don't turn things around. AI people are _not_ marginalized, it's the exact opposite. AI people are rich, white, male tech people who see the increase in personal comfort as more important than others' actual life. Those are the people who are _anti-black_. By letting AI people in you are not learning the lessons of the past. You are specifically repeating the mistake, letting racists, sexists, ableists in, pushing away the people who made activitypub what it is today.
Please think better about what "marginalized" actually means -
@Gargron That is a personal choice and one which I totally respect. But I do think Mastodon should be big enough, and open enough, to allow an "AI community" to form, even thrive.
Too many people in my replies don't seem to agree with that.
@scottjenson @Gargron There is nothing, absolutely nothing, stopping anyone from creating and cultivating an AI community on Mastodon. Start a server. Knock yourself out.
But expecting to *farm acceptance* from a group of people, one which most members vastly dislike AI, is quite the hubris.
But sure, the community at large is the problem.
Clean up your kitchen and maybe folks will join you for a meal.
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@skyfaller@jawns.club I don't think that using LLMs is unacceptable. I don't buy the "built on stolen property" argument for this, every developer ever has searched for how to do something in stack overflow etc, I don't know why LLMs shouldn't be trained the same way in order to automate work for us. I get the climate impact argument, but again, flying with airplanes has much more of an impact, but it is normalized by now, practically nobody will tell you it's unacceptable to visit a foreign country by plane. @evan@cosocial.ca @carnage4life@mas.to @scottjenson@social.coop
@panos @evan @carnage4life @scottjenson This is what I'm talking about. You're both minimizing/denying harms and saying they don't matter. This is one of the biggest problems with LLMs, they turn people into apologists for the fossil fuel industry because they don't want to think they're helping destroy the world.
*If* flying is more harmful, that's no excuse. There's always something more harmful until you reach the top, and then the excuse will be it's too important or too difficult to stop.
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@vfrmedia @mattwilcox
But even in these last two replies, you're perfectly making my point for me. Do I want AI Grifters? Of course not! But should people be allowed to discuss possible uses of AI? Absolutely! The person I quoted is NOT a grifter but due to our culture, he is seen as one and gleefully shoo'ed away.That is the slippery slope I'm worried about. We can likely agree on many bad actors that should not be here. What we can't seem to agree on is "what is honest debate"
@scottjenson @vfrmedia I don’t agree with the assertion people are being shooed away. Away from who? This isn’t one space.
But if Mastodon feel thy are, then make the tooling to solve that. And yeah; it’s the same tooling as black people wanted and it’s damning it takes rich white guys complaining to be considered as a problem worth fretting over and maybe tackling now.
Mastodon isn’t a monoculture. Mastodon is a tech stack.
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@scottjenson @carnage4life Facebook, LinkedIn, and X don't allow this kind of API access. No one can keep us from building it here, though.
@scottjenson @carnage4life I think AI skeptics raise some very important questions. I love reading posts here -- especially when they skewer the conventional wisdom in Silicon Valley about productivity gains from AI. And the threat of further power concentration in big tech is very real.
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@carnage4life @evan Strongly agree. The current AI companies have done much to be criticized but the tech itself, especially the open source and local versions (which this community should love) is actually a positive force here. We need to have discussions to understand the differences.
@scottjenson @carnage4life @evan I think step 1 is not calling all of it AI, an extremely broad vague term makes it very hard to have a nuanced discussion. If Mozilla uses a local ML model to detect which field on the page is which type to autofill better, that's very different from a remote LLM chat bot.
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@evan @scottjenson @MozillaAI Mastodon as a community is quite hostile to AI and anything that isn’t a criticism of AI is viewed with skepticism at best and typically with hostility as the default.
It’s unfortunate because, as in your Mozilla example, there is still time to shape how AI is used in our industry. It’s better to engage and try to influence it versus stick your head in the sand and have the change thrusted upon you.
@carnage4life @evan @scottjenson @MozillaAI I’d probably be less hostile toward a harmful technology if it weren’t costing me and my friends so much of what we built, just so those who have disproportionately benefitted from our labor could take more short-term profits.
Nobody should be expected to apologize for standing up for themselves, their friends and colleagues, and what they’ve built together that is being poisoned.
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@evan @cratermoon Exactly, even asking that question "What value do they bring" is kind of scary.
It's a fine line, I get it. We draw the line at nazis and scammers but let's not cross the line into "intellectual purity" tests
@scottjenson @evan The AI Boosters have used their money and influence to keep their ideas and views on blast from the highest levels. It's almost impossible *not* to hear their claims. What value does it bring to the FediVerse to have those claims repeated here?
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@scottjenson @carnage4life I think AI skeptics raise some very important questions. I love reading posts here -- especially when they skewer the conventional wisdom in Silicon Valley about productivity gains from AI. And the threat of further power concentration in big tech is very real.
@scottjenson @carnage4life so, what can we do about it? One thing is just being brave enough to talk honestly about how AI affects your life and your work.
Another is calling out bad behaviour. If someone you know is yelling at a stranger to die in a fire because they used Claude Code, maybe give them some private feedback that it's not cool.
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@scottjenson @Gargron “AI people” are not a protected class. It seems much more important that we focus on being a welcoming and inclusive platform for protected classes, particularly actual marginalized communities.
@scottjenson @Gargron it may be that “AI people” are sometimes not treated nicely or fairly. And we shouldn’t tolerate abuse. But I also really value that we rarely see AI hype which is often misinformation and disinformation that pollutes other platforms. That’s not just a personal preference but super important for a healthy media environment.
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@scottjenson @carnage4life so, what can we do about it? One thing is just being brave enough to talk honestly about how AI affects your life and your work.
Another is calling out bad behaviour. If someone you know is yelling at a stranger to die in a fire because they used Claude Code, maybe give them some private feedback that it's not cool.
Lastly, and carefully, maybe we should put some technological speed bumps in the way of random abuse of strangers. Mastodon experimented with an AYS pop-up when replying to a stranger. I don't know what the results of that experiment were, or if any others are planned.
Improving the quality of conversations on Mastodon
In our most recent Mastodon for Android release, we’re testing a new feature aimed to curb unneccesary negativity that comes from being on the Internet.
Mastodon Blog (blog.joinmastodon.org)
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@carnage4life @evan Strongly agree. The current AI companies have done much to be criticized but the tech itself, especially the open source and local versions (which this community should love) is actually a positive force here. We need to have discussions to understand the differences.
@scottjenson @carnage4life @evan There are some valid arguments to be against our current LLM-dominated AI landscape (and also some to be optimistic), The current debate is mostly "AI haters" vs "AI bros", which is a pity. It's extremely exhausting to constantly see these black and white takes.
Personally I want to be optimistic about this tech, but I'm not confident enough to see it as more than a fancy autocomplete at the moment, especially with the slew of security nightmares we've seen regarding agentic tools such as OpenClaw recently.
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@osma The number don't lie, active users on Mastodon are going DOWN not up, we're hemorrhaging users, most likely because we're chasing many of them away with these 'purity tests'. I certainly am not experiencing this diversity you are referring to.
That's the point. Unmoderated servers see a completely different view, while the mainstream is heavily policed - and the majority of the still active seem to like it that way.
@scottjenson
