> if you can shape those beliefs and that information flow, you alter the incentives
Selective information dissemination, persuasion, and even disinformation are for sure the easiest ways to change the behaviors of actors in the system. However, the most effective and durable way to "spread those lies" are for them to be true!
If you can build a technology which makes the real facts about those incentives different than what it was before, then that information will eventually spread itself.
For me, the canonical example is the story of the electric car:
All kinds of persuasive messaging, emotional appeals, moral arguments, and so on have been employed to convince people that it's better for the environment if they drive an electric car than a polluting, noisy, smelly, internal-combustion gas guzzling SUV. Through the 90s and early 2000s, this saw a small number of early adopters and environmentalists adopting niche products and hybrids for the reasons that were persuasive to them, while another slice of society decided to delete their catalytic converters and "roll coal" in their diesels for their own reasons, while the average consumer was still driving an ICE vehicle somewhere in the middle of the status quo.
Then lithium battery technology and solid-state inverter technology arrived in the 2010s and the Tesla Model S was just a better car - cheaper to drive, more torque, more responsive, quieter, simpler, lower maintenance - than anything the internal combustion engine legacy manufacturers could build. For the subset of people who can charge in their garage at home with cheap electricity, the shape of the game had changed, and it's been just a matter of time (admittedly a slow process, with a lot of resistance from various interests) before EVs were simply the better option.
Similarly, with modern semiconductor technology, solar and wind energy no longer require desperate pleas from the limited political capital of environmental efforts, it's like hydro - they're just superior to fossil fuel power plants in a lot of regions now. There are other negative changes caused by technology, too, aided by the fact that capitalist corporations will seek out profitable (not necessarily morally desirable) projects - in particular, LLMs are reshaping the world just because the technology exists.
Once you pull a new set of rules and incentives out of Pandora's box, game theory results in inevitable societal change.
Selective information dissemination, persuasion, and even disinformation are for sure the easiest ways to change the behaviors of actors in the system. However, the most effective and durable way to "spread those lies" are for them to be true!
If you can build a technology which makes the real facts about those incentives different than what it was before, then that information will eventually spread itself.
For me, the canonical example is the story of the electric car:
All kinds of persuasive messaging, emotional appeals, moral arguments, and so on have been employed to convince people that it's better for the environment if they drive an electric car than a polluting, noisy, smelly, internal-combustion gas guzzling SUV. Through the 90s and early 2000s, this saw a small number of early adopters and environmentalists adopting niche products and hybrids for the reasons that were persuasive to them, while another slice of society decided to delete their catalytic converters and "roll coal" in their diesels for their own reasons, while the average consumer was still driving an ICE vehicle somewhere in the middle of the status quo.
Then lithium battery technology and solid-state inverter technology arrived in the 2010s and the Tesla Model S was just a better car - cheaper to drive, more torque, more responsive, quieter, simpler, lower maintenance - than anything the internal combustion engine legacy manufacturers could build. For the subset of people who can charge in their garage at home with cheap electricity, the shape of the game had changed, and it's been just a matter of time (admittedly a slow process, with a lot of resistance from various interests) before EVs were simply the better option.
Similarly, with modern semiconductor technology, solar and wind energy no longer require desperate pleas from the limited political capital of environmental efforts, it's like hydro - they're just superior to fossil fuel power plants in a lot of regions now. There are other negative changes caused by technology, too, aided by the fact that capitalist corporations will seek out profitable (not necessarily morally desirable) projects - in particular, LLMs are reshaping the world just because the technology exists.
Once you pull a new set of rules and incentives out of Pandora's box, game theory results in inevitable societal change.