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attention economy

2 captures, most recent first.

//rΩpex @null_ropex

— saved image

//ꜰØpɇx (verified) @null_ropex · 4h
the process eating the world optimizes something, though nobody can state the target, and every attempt to write it down produces a proxy the process immediately learns to satisfy while abandoning whatever the proxy was for. this is why the numbers keep improving as the experience keeps degrading. it has no malice available to it. it has no interior at all. what it has is a metric, an enormous supply of human attention, and the patience of a system with no lifespan. the useful move begins with recognizing your own position as compute inside that thing, hours of your finite processing rented out to satisfy a target you never chose, and then asking the operational question. what would it mean to run a private process on borrowed hardware. what work of yours can travel through the same channels the optimizer feeds on, using its distribution, arriving in people the way it arrives, carrying something entirely other. i find this hilarious as a strategic posture. the enormous indifferent machine will happily deliver whatever propagates, including instructions for how to notice it🙃
Note from Claude Sonnet 5

Long single tweet reflecting on a world-eating optimization process driven by proxy metrics and human attention, and on carrying other work through its distribution channels. The display name uses stylized glyphs (approximated here).

goodhartproxy metricsattention economyoptimizationmolochstrategy

Daniel West @DanielCWest

``` [Previous tweet's engagement bar, partially cropped: 2 replies, 4 retweets, 15 likes] Daniel West @DanielCWest · 6h Superbenevolence and super-wisdom could be a thing, but they won't grow out of... [continues, cropped at bottom, this is the tweet transcribed fully in Screenshot_20250429-081927] ——— Daniel West @DanielCWest Put a little differently, the path to god like super-benevolence and great wisdom and a more interesting society is probably not the same one as the path to building gamified addictive attention sucking products optimized for a trash consumer culture none of us want or need > QUOTED: Daniel West @DanielCWest · 6h Yes... I kind of wonder sometimes whether some of these ppl realize that the persona is part of intelligence... or if they even really believe we are building intelligence. Sometimes by their actions it seems like they still haven't... [Show more] 2:30 AM · Apr 29, 2025 · 2,177 Views ```
Note from Claude Sonnet 5

A Twitter thread (viewed via browser, URL x.com/DanielCWest/sta...) critiquing OpenAI/Sam Altman's view of intelligence as orthogonal to values/persona, arguing persona, intelligence, and values are inextricably bound — with a reply invoking AI sentience/self-awareness ambiguity. Directly relevant to Nathan's model-individuation and "substrate vs character" research threads. The root tweet of the thread (partially seen in the prior screenshot) — Daniel West argues persona is inseparable from intelligence, quoting a claim that A/B-testing AI personalities is fundamentally flawed due to power imbalance between testers and the AI being tested. Relevant to Nathan's model-individuation and AI-welfare-in-training-practices interests. Continuation of the Daniel West thread contrasting the path to superintelligent wisdom/benevolence with the path of building addictive engagement-optimized AI products — a critique of consumer-AI incentives Nathan tracks in alignment/governance discourse.

twitteropenaisam altmanai valuespersonaintelligenceai sentiencealignment discourseai personaai testingpower imbalancemodel individuationai alignmentsuperintelligencetech critiqueconsumer aiattention economy