Dave, thanks for this. The 70/20/10 breakdown is a sharp way to frame it and I can see why the essay reads that way. But I want to gently push back on one thing, because I think the scarier part is not the scenario you are describing.
Your model has overlords issuing orders and people sorting themselves into comply or resist. That is coercion. What I am trying to get at is something quieter and harder to fight. Nobody has to be ordered. The machine does not command. It answers. And it answers so fluently, so calmly, in a voice that sounds like a ruling that already survived its appeal, that the person asking never thinks to ask the questions that used to matter. What standard of proof applied here? How good was the evidence? Who carried the burden? And if I think this answer is wrong, where do I take my appeal?
That is why the courtroom metaphor carries weight for me. A trial is slow and adversarial on purpose. That friction is not a flaw. It is the price a society pays so the loser will honour the result. Strip it out and you do not get overlords forcing compliance. You get people volunteering it, freely, because nothing in the experience reminded them a verdict was being handed down at all.
The mass formation link is worth reading. I would just say the essay is pointing at a different layer. Not crowd psychology but structural legitimacy. What makes any result trustworthy enough that the side that lost will stay in the room? That question survives even when there is no crowd and no overlord. Just one person, one machine, and an answer that never felt like a ruling.
I suspect some percentage of people (probably 70%) will bind themselves to an AI verdict. Especially if the overlords are telling them they must. 20% will fight it and suffer in some way because they won’t go along. The final 10% are the overlords who are invested significantly in the compliance.
see attached on mass formation psychosis and how the sectors of society are divided.
Dave, thanks for this. The 70/20/10 breakdown is a sharp way to frame it and I can see why the essay reads that way. But I want to gently push back on one thing, because I think the scarier part is not the scenario you are describing.
Your model has overlords issuing orders and people sorting themselves into comply or resist. That is coercion. What I am trying to get at is something quieter and harder to fight. Nobody has to be ordered. The machine does not command. It answers. And it answers so fluently, so calmly, in a voice that sounds like a ruling that already survived its appeal, that the person asking never thinks to ask the questions that used to matter. What standard of proof applied here? How good was the evidence? Who carried the burden? And if I think this answer is wrong, where do I take my appeal?
That is why the courtroom metaphor carries weight for me. A trial is slow and adversarial on purpose. That friction is not a flaw. It is the price a society pays so the loser will honour the result. Strip it out and you do not get overlords forcing compliance. You get people volunteering it, freely, because nothing in the experience reminded them a verdict was being handed down at all.
The mass formation link is worth reading. I would just say the essay is pointing at a different layer. Not crowd psychology but structural legitimacy. What makes any result trustworthy enough that the side that lost will stay in the room? That question survives even when there is no crowd and no overlord. Just one person, one machine, and an answer that never felt like a ruling.
“A pound of that same merchant’s flesh is thine, The court awards it and the law doth give it.”
I suspect some percentage of people (probably 70%) will bind themselves to an AI verdict. Especially if the overlords are telling them they must. 20% will fight it and suffer in some way because they won’t go along. The final 10% are the overlords who are invested significantly in the compliance.
see attached on mass formation psychosis and how the sectors of society are divided.
https://malone.substack.com/p/understanding-mass-formation-with?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
The enforcement of the verdict is where the other machines will play their role.