Over the last year, odds are good that you've seen what's been dubbed "AI slop"—unhinged, nonsensical "art" generated by artificial intelligence tools. Maybe you've seen a bizarre cinematic animated mini-movie on Facebook, surreal pseudo-photographs on Instagram, or propagandistic images on what was once known as Twitter, now X. After seeing enough of this, a realization dawned on Jacob Silverman, a journalist in New York who covers technology and politics: if it's machines making this art, and bots who are showering them with likes, where do humans fit in?

The answer is that actual living people are being squeezed out of what Silverman has, in a recent Financial Times article, deemed the "hostile internet". Elon Musk's X will sell advertisements, and authority, to absolutely anyone; AI-powered chatbots are worryingly easy to manipulate; and it has never been easier for people suffering from mental illness to find positive reinforcement of their ideas, both from distant humans and AI. None of this is to the betterment of humanity.

Silverman joins Phoebe Maltz Bovy on The Jewish Angle to discuss these trends of digital devolution, and how we can navigate these murky waters on a sinking ship.

Credits

• Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
• Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
• Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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Yoel Inbar rose to prominence in the fall of 2023, when he was in the process of getting hired at the University of California, Los Angeles. He didn't end up getting the job—and it was transparently about a podcast episode he'd recorded a year earlier, in which he criticized "diversity statements". The mandated letters have become part of the academic hiring process, page-long essays explaining how the candidate would contribute to campus diversity. Inbar wrote one for UCLA—and has been involved in hiring processes, finding them useful tools—but has been outspoken of the concept as a blanket rule, along with the broader scope of diversity, equtity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

Now an associate professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, Inbar studies morality and judgments, particularly with respect to belief systems, political ideologies and social attitudes. While his flare-up with UCLA happened before Hamas's attack on Oct. 7, he has since followed closely how poorly designed DEI programs are for adhering to students with differing views on political and social issues—like the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Inbar sat down with Phoebe Maltz Bovy to share his story and discuss how the campus atmosphere has shifted for Jewish students and faculty in the last two years.

Related links

• Yoel Inbar's website and podcast, Two Psychologists Four Beers
• "Saskatchewan professor blogs his way through mandatory anti-racism 'boot camp'" (National Post)

Credits

• Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
• Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
• Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The Jewish Angle

This month, the Federal Trade Commission in the United States finally brought a long-awaited antitrust court case against Meta, the company that owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. The FTC is arguing that Meta has a monopoly on the social networking space, which has squandered competition in the market. Critics point out that this might have been the case a decade ago, before TikTok entered the scene, but is simply no longer true.

That Facebook no longer has a monopoly on digital friend networks is not the only erstwhile stereotype about social media. In the bygone era before "President Trump" was a real thing, social media was a land of promise and opportunity, filled with "girl boss" memes and alleged commitments to social capitalism. But in the years since, much of that naive whimsy has flown out the window, and nobody believes the tech giants are anything but capitalist overlords.

A similar awakening strikes the main character of Self Care, a satirical novel by Leigh Stein that came out in 2020, which focuses on the virtue signalling of a fictional tech company. With Meta in the spotlight again, and with The CJN's opinion editor, Phoebe Maltz Bovy, having recently read Sarah Wynn-Williams's Careless People (which is, in essence, the real-life memoir version of Stein's novel), we wanted to bring Stein on to discuss the slow evolution of social media between the two Trump administrations and what we can learn about the ways in which social media manipulates our beliefs and emotions in an effort to keep us endlessly scrolling on.

Related Links

• Learn about Leigh Stein's forthcoming novel, If You're Seeing This, It's Meant for You
• Read Phoebe's column on Careless People in The CJN

Credits

• Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
• Production team: Michael Fraiman (producer & editor)
• Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The Jewish Angle