#128 | Frankly
Ultra-Processed Information: AI and the Coming Deluge of Noise
Description
In this week’s Frankly, Nate explores the growing sense that many people feel disoriented and overwhelmed in a world increasingly saturated with digital content. Constant exposure to headlines, hot takes, summaries, and algorithm-driven feeds can erode our sense of clarity rather than strengthen it. The rapid rise of artificial intelligence has served to dramatically increase the speed of information production while also eroding accuracy, making it difficult to differentiate between content that simply sounds confident and content that’s actually grounded in reality.
Nate draws a parallel between today’s information ecosystem and the modern industrial food system – just like fossil fuels helped create an abundance of cheap, calorie-dense but nutrient-poor food, AI may create an abundance of information that is fast and persuasive, yet has little “nourishment.” In a world where digital tools increasingly do more of our thinking for us, Nate grapples with how to prevent cognitive atrophy and filter the flood of content we likely will face in coming months/years.
How can we be rich in information and yet poor in wisdom? Why is it important for us to be able to tell the difference between content that’s engineered for engagement and content that genuinely improves our judgement and our lives? Finally, what daily practices might help us stay grounded as AI increasingly reshapes our cognitive environment?
In French, we have a motto that says that a simple drawing is often better than a long explanation. Jean-Marc Jancovici Carbone 4 President
That’s very understandable because with left atmosphere thinking, one of the problems is that you see everything as a series of problems that must have solutions. Iain McGilchrist Neuroscientist and Philosopher
We can’t have hundreds and hundreds of real relationships that are healthy because that requires time and effort and full attention and awareness of being in real relationship and conversation with the other human. Nate Hagens Director of ISEOF
This is the crux of the whole problem. Individual parts of nature are more valuable than the biocomplexity of nature. Thomas Crowther Founder Restor
Show Notes & Links to Learn More
Download transcriptThe TGS team puts together these brief references and show notes for the learning and convenience of our listeners. However, most of the points made in episodes hold more nuance than one link can address, and we encourage you to dig deeper into any of these topics and come to your own informed conclusions.
00:12 – The Great Simplification
01:04 – The Metabolic Economic Superorganism
01:48 – Elephant Path meditation
02:50 – AI will shape the future of digital marketing, AI and information dissemination, Pros and cons of social media algorithms
03:10 – Large language models (LLMs)
04:03 – The Bottlenecks of the 21st Century, Reality Blind vol. 1: Human capacity for abstract, fantastical, and wrong thinking
05:10 – Global use of AI, Referenced graphic
05:40 – AI vs human writing
06:37 – Food production’s move away from soil health and nutrient density
06:45 – Synthetic fertilizers, Haber-Bosch process and implications, Food additives
07:00 – 10-15 calories of energy used for every one calorie of food produced in the U.S. (More info pg 11)
07:20 – Global calories produced vs. Number of people fed
07:30 – ~3 billion people are overweight* or obese worldwide, ~1 billion people are malnourished worldwide
07:40 – U.S. demographics on obese and malnourished populations, Half of U.S. households have both
07:55 – Empty calories (low on the vitamins and minerals essential for building a healthy body)
08:30 – Modern food is designed to be addictive not nutritious
08:40 – Robert Lustig, TGS Ep #69: Processed Food, Metabolism, and The Ills of Society
09:15 – AI industrializes information production the same way industrial agriculture industrialized food
09:40 – Humans crave certainty and novelty
11:00 – Media engineered for engagement, virality, and to activate emotions
11:25 – The “Bliss point” in food manufacturing
11:33 – Attention economy
12:30 – Fossil energy powering “armies” of machine labor
12:57 – Health risks of a sedentary lifestyle
13:28 – Cognitive atrophy and AI use
13:42 – Zak Stein and Nora Bateson, Reality Roundtable #20: Hacking Human Attachment: The Loneliness Crisis, Cognitive Atrophy, and Other Personal Dangers of AI
14:20 – Rise of GLP-1 drugs (Pharmaceutical appetite suppressant)
18:41 – Aza Raskin (TGS Ep #22: AI, The Shape of Language, and Earth’s Species), Tristan Harris (TGS Ep #16: Social Media: Bringing the Ring to Mordor)
18:46 – Attention will be an increasingly become scarce
21:16 – Epistemic commons
22:36 – Metacrisis
