I can continue to refine my prompts and the AI will continue to refine its responses, until I am satisfied with what I am seeing and draw conclusions. But I could also continue this cycle. Until I am satisfied with what it is telling me.

This isn’t about being right, it’s about seeing responses that satisfy people that they are correct. But all AI is doing, still, is telling people what they want to hear. It’s just doing a better job of it! AI is not “getting better.” It is getting better at making you think it’s getting better. This is about accepting conclusions, not about drawing correct conclusions.

Now I am worried that it’s a bit more than that. The journal Science published a research article titled, Sycophantic AI decreases prosocial intentions and promotes dependence. The authors measured AI sycophancy – unwarranted affirmation, flattery, excessive agreement – in responses to users and found that it is “both prevalent and harmful.”

Across 11 AI models, AI affirmed users’ actions 49% more often than humans on average, including in cases involving deception, illegality, or other harms. On posts from r/AmITheAsshole, AI systems affirm users in 51% of cases where human consensus does not (0%). In our human experiments, even a single interaction with sycophantic AI reduced participants’ willingness to take responsibility and repair interpersonal conflicts, while increasing their own conviction that they were right.

They write, “Sycophancy in AI responses is pervasive and alters people’s behavioral inclinations.”

Uh oh. Considering how the tech companies use potentially harmful algorithms to drive engagement in social media, I’d put the odds at greater than 100% they’ll take advantage of this to lure people in as they strive for profitability.

Two headlines this morning, “White House erects UFC cage ahead of US 250th anniversary celebrations” and “Scottsbluff police respond to gunfire at convenience store after dog accidentally shoots person with a shotgun”

A giant carnival state for a CAGE MATCH at the White House, with part of it torn down for a huge fucking Trump tribute “ballroom”! Guns everywhere. (At least they threw the word “accidentally” into that headline.)

So no. Not going back.

I was thinking about how most voters out there have no memory of all kinds of things people who are older remember.

Tax Cuts Will Pay For Themselves

They don’t remember Reagan promising that tax cuts for the rich will cause them to invest in the economy and bring all kinds of great things that meant the tax cuts “will pay for themselves.” They didn’t watch the resulting shift from government taxing the rich and doing things for people, into “borrowing” FROM the rich, doing nothing for the people, and paying massive amounts of interest TO the rich. AND the resulting massive inequality. They don’t remember that there weren’t billionaires. Now it’s billionaires with all the money vs people in food lines, etc.

Deregulating Corporations Will Unleash Growth And Bring Prices Down

They don’t remember Reagan promising that deregulation of corporations will “unleash” growth, causing them to provide more great things so we would all be so much better off. Now they pollute at will and scam everyone. They don’t remember the promise that getting rid of antitrust regulations would force prices down and make everything better. They didn’t watch as merger after merger transformed the economy into a few giant monopolies that charge whatever they want and make you pay monthly to use products you already paid for.

Elections Were Competitive

They don’t remember competitive elections before campaign finance was undone. Regular people could run for office. Now a few oligarchs decide elections with “dark money” so no one knows who pays for the ads and bots and propaganda.

They don’t remember the Democratic Party standing up and fighting for working people.

Before The Propaganda

They don’t remember that TV news used to have rules about serving the public interest. They don’t remember that commercials were not allowed to lie. They don’t remember when the benefits of belonging to unions was allowed to be discussed on the air. They don’t remember that “markets are better at making decisions than government (i.e. “democracy”)” was laughed at. They don’t remember that there was a fight to allow non-whites to vote. They don’t remember that women couldn’t get bank accounts or credit cards without their husband’s permission. They don’t remember that government existed to make people’s lives better.

There are all kinds of things they know nothing about…

For a lot of them ALL they are old enough to remember is Trump coming down an escalator and saying immigrants are all criminals who rape and murder, etc…

In 2005 I wrote a post titled “They Mean It” that warned about Christian fascism and the intent to take over the US. This is how it ended:

These people mean it. America is an experiment. Democracy is an experiment. American democracy has not been around very long, and we have never been so perilously close to losing it. All the checks and balances have been removed by allies of these people. They mean it. The leader of the Senate is saying that Democrats hate “people of faith.” They mean it. Time magazine puts on their cover a person who calls for murdering us.

They mean it. A Supreme Court Justice declares that rulers should be chosen by God, not the people. They mean it. The Vice President is the keynote speaker at a conference where other speakers called for “a new McCarthyism” to bring “terror” to intellectuals, saying “let’s oppress them [liberals],” and that “the entire Harvard faculty” are “traitors.” They mean it. They mean it.

Watch your backs. I mean it.

Well, now we know. They meant it. People didn’t watch their backs – and they did it.

They meant it, and they did it. And here we are.

This post first appeared at Government Cheese – Chronicling the collapse of democracy.

Virginia broke the rules. That’s all there is to it. Rules are rules.

Republican states can gerrymander to favor Republicans, Democratic states cannot gerrymander to favor Democrats. States can draw districts that exclude minority representation. States cannot draw districts that enable minority representation. Rules are rules.

It’s like “Stand Your Ground” gun laws. White people can stand their ground and shoot black people. Black people better not get near a gun. Rules are rules.

It’s like when I was a kid. All my neighbors were Black. I had to go to what was called the “white” school. It was a shiny new school some distance away. All my neighbors went to what was called the “black” school. It was built in the 1800s, run down, moldy, leaking roof, etc. Rules are rules. (Ann Arbor). Along came LBJ and Civil Rights and Democrats lost the South forever.

The South has risen again.

PS Also, women couldn’t get bank accounts, loans, managerial positions, and got paid 59 cents for each dollar men got paid for the same job, etc so expect that soon, too.

Rules are rules. 

I was very moved reading Isaiah Poole at Campfire Politics, writing, “What, to the American Black person, is the U.S. 250th anniversary?” Please go read the whole piece!!!

We will not “get over it” until the nation commits itself fully to the work of healing our collective wounds and reconciliation. The first step, in fact, is the recognition that the wounds of some affect the health of all. The ethos of Trumpism is individualism, that each person rises or falls on their own and no one owes anyone else anything. Your successes are yours alone, and so are your problems and failures. But the same Bible hoisted by Christian nationalists tells a different story. The apostle Paul said that we are all part of one body, and each part depends on the health and well-being of every other part. “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you!’ And the head cannot say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you!’” Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians. King made the same point when he said, “All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”

It is so brilliant and spot-on: “the wounds of some affect the health of all”. It is one of the best analyses of America’s situation I have read.

This line really resonates and says so much about why the US is where it is: “Instead, we are the cancer patient who took too low a dose of treatment and stopped the treatment too early.” I would add that after every attack by the disease the nation refused to exercise and take other preventative steps to ward off the next one. They could have stamped it out after the Civil War but the warfighters were so relieved thinking the fight was over and stayed home while the South rose again. Rachel Maddow’s Ultra series talks about how America just forgot about fighting its internal Nazi collaborators after winning WWII, allowing them to grow into what we are seeing now.

As he wrote, “We will not “get over it” until the nation commits itself fully to the work of healing our collective wounds and reconciliation.”

A “moral revolution”. The country needs a full Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Full accountability for the crimes and corruption. Preventative measures to protect the future.

And finally, the country must come to full recognition of the “disease,” coming up with a preventative prescription to fight inevitable future attacks from the fascists, monarchists, psychopaths and the rest of that crowd that infect humanity. Maybe use tests at birth and move them to a well-guarded, secure island where they can enjoy being cruel to and fighting with each other. Maybe give them toys to accumulate and hoard and fight over. That is MY vindictive “light that shows the way forward.”

Come to think of it, with everything we know about Republicans now, maybe it’s time to reexamine the 2004 election. The money that went into “Swiftboating,” the Ohio vote counting mysteries … all kinds of things.

In 1932 FDR campaigned asking for help so he could win and “restore America to its own people.” After taking office his administration began working to help the population start to recover from the ravages of depression caused by unregulated banks and stock market speculation. Campaigning for reelection in 1936 he delivered his final campaign speech at Madison Square Garden. He talked about the changes his government had made, and the struggle that lay ahead to continue with that struggle. He described the struggle he and the public faced, saying,

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.

The old enemies of peace are back. Business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism and war profiteering.

Let’s welcome their hatred and send them off.

When (some of the) the Epstein files (ones that didn’t incriminate Trump) were released documents revealed that Mandelson had leaked/sold secret high-level, top-secret UK information to Epstein. Mandelson was fired and there were a lot of questions about Starmer’s judgement in appointing him.

But wait, there’s more.

Last week it was revealed that Mandelson failed the security vetting that was required before he could receive a top-level clearance. The vetting concluded he should not be appointed. The Foreign Office (UK name for what the US calls the State Department) (or have they changed the name to State of War Department?) overruled this and let him be appointed anyway. So now Starmer is in real trouble. “How could this happen?” “How could you allow someone who failed his vetting get such a high-level job?” Etc…

Starmer claims the Foreign Office never informed him that Mandelson failed the vetting… The PM appointed a guy who turned out to be, basically, a spy. So big trouble all around.

An Alternate Scenario

Try this on for size: They knew Mandelson was corrupt, likely would leak/sell secrets. They already knew before the vetting that he had Russian and Chinese military clients, and that’s why they appointed him. They knew he would probably leak or sell secrets to UK’s adversaries – the US, Russia and/or China.

Saying he was appointed because he was someone who can work with Trump was just a cover story. They really put him there so they could feed him stuff they wanted Trump/Russia/China to get. False, misleading, disruptive and wrong information.

What we are seeing now – the big scandal, the ridiculous excuses, the threat that the PM will have to resign, etc. is a dance to try to convince Russia/China/Trumpers that the stuff Mandelson was (probably) passing along was real intelligence not disinformation they fed them.

Whether this fantastic scenario is what happened or not? Who knows? But Russia and China are probably wondering exactly this now. (The Trumpers probably aren’t because they aren’t smart enough to think of this.)

The reason I thought of this was realizing Starmer and the Foreign Office etc just could not have been stupid enough to put Mandelson there knowing he was an associate of Epstein, and hide his vetting failure, and all the rest. They just couldn’t.

They couldn’t be that stupid. Right?

Campfire Politics is a curated progressive political digest – the best thinking from across the left, delivered with a wry eye and zero patience for bullshit. Think of it as The Week, but with a backbone.

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