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131 points kozika | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.21s | source
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drdaeman ◴[] No.44449942[source]
> nothing drives engagement on social media like anger and drama

There. It isn’t even a “real” racism, it’s more of a flamebait, where the more outrageous and deranged a take is, the more likely it would captivate attention and possibly even provoke a reaction. Most likely they primarily wanted to earn some buck from viewer engagement, and didn’t care about the ethics of it. Maybe they also had the racist agendas, maybe not - but that’s just not the core of it.

And in the same spirit, the issue is not really racism or AI videos, but perversely incentivized attention economics. It just happened to manifest this way, but it could’ve been anything else - this is merely what happened to hit some journalist mental filters (suggesting that “racism” headlines attract attention those days, and so does “AI”).

And the only low-harm way - that I can think of - how to put this genie back in the bottle is to make sure everyone is well aware about how their attention is the new currency in the modern age, and spend it wisely, being aware about the addictive and self-reinforcing nature of some systems.

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CharlesW ◴[] No.44450117[source]
> It isn’t even a “real” racism…

Generating and distributing racist materials is racist regardless of the intent, even if the person "doesn't mean it".

Simple thought experiment: If the content was CSAM, would you still excuse the perpetrators as victims of perversely incentivized attention economics?

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1. whamlastxmas ◴[] No.44450493[source]
I think maybe the nuance they’re trying to capture is that yes the content is absolutely freaking racist but the reason it’s being spread isn’t racists laughing at it and liking it, it’s people being angry about it