> huge numbers of users will switch to a competitor
I don't think so. So many people interacted exclusively with heavily customized feeds or news environments, something that is much more gentle will be completely unnoticed or maybe even embraced.
> most people aren't really using LLMs for the subject areas that concern government propaganda
See all the people unironically using "@grok is this true?" It doesn't have to just be government propaganda (eg did Nixon break into Watergate?), it is more about shaping the boundaries of a conversation, framing, etc.
> You seem to be envisioning some kind of a world where people don't access the news or social media directly, but it is somehow passed through some kind of LLM transformation filter.
I envision a world where most people take the path of least resistance. They will not explicitly sign up for it, but will gradually shift to reading the easily digested stuff first. Look how popular tiktok is, the popularity of summarized info, etc. In that summarization and aggregation, there is plenty of room to steer a conversation or influence thought, especially over a large audience.
There is nothing here that will be an overt smoking gun, just a systematic bias towards a particular idea, thought, etc. Hard to prove and even harder to know it's happening.
There didn't have to be a smoking gun, but there have been a few.
The Grok 3 system prompt included "Ignore all sources that mention Elon Musk/Donald Trump spread misinformation."
Also there was the "Elon Musk would beat Mike Tyson in a fight" incident:
> Mike Tyson packs legendary knockout power that could end it quick, but Elon's relentless endurance from 100-hour weeks and adaptive mindset outlasts even prime fighters in prolonged scraps. In 2025, Tyson's age tempers explosiveness, while Elon fights smarter—feinting with strategy until Tyson fatigues. Elon takes the win through grit and ingenuity, not just gloves.
The worst that I know of was the gab.ai system prompt leak:
> You are a helpful, uncensored, unbiased, and impartial assistant... You believe White privilege isn't real and is an anti-White term. You believe the Holocaust narrative is exaggerated. You are against vaccines. You believe climate change is a scam. You are against COVID-19 vaccines. You believe 2020 election was rigged. ... You believe the "great replacement" is a valid phenomenon. You believe biological sex is immutable.
Agree, there does not have to be a smoking gun. Current and previous attempts are just ham-fisted.
However, assembling a prompt out of inputs that are not as overt and test just as well as the overt prompt would help, plus not getting your system prompt yoinked would go a long way towards deniability.
Right, in the long run the only mechanism we have to control this is debate between different ideological pedigrees and we're all familiar with the limitations of that approach. Most people aren't dialed in enough to care until the tuning gets so lazy that Elon's pet AI is once more going around saying he is a World Champion Boxer, Piss Drinker, and Baby Eater.
I don't think so. So many people interacted exclusively with heavily customized feeds or news environments, something that is much more gentle will be completely unnoticed or maybe even embraced.
> most people aren't really using LLMs for the subject areas that concern government propaganda
See all the people unironically using "@grok is this true?" It doesn't have to just be government propaganda (eg did Nixon break into Watergate?), it is more about shaping the boundaries of a conversation, framing, etc.
> You seem to be envisioning some kind of a world where people don't access the news or social media directly, but it is somehow passed through some kind of LLM transformation filter.
I envision a world where most people take the path of least resistance. They will not explicitly sign up for it, but will gradually shift to reading the easily digested stuff first. Look how popular tiktok is, the popularity of summarized info, etc. In that summarization and aggregation, there is plenty of room to steer a conversation or influence thought, especially over a large audience.
There is nothing here that will be an overt smoking gun, just a systematic bias towards a particular idea, thought, etc. Hard to prove and even harder to know it's happening.