Yes, they definitely will. Even before AI’s care about manipulating our politics, people will direct them to.

I already pointed out they can influence elections with money.

And bots are already used to influence on social media. AI bots are going to be insidious.

I'll take a robotic vote any day over any kind of conservative bullshit. It really can only get better here, not even kidding. At least if the last things humans do is releasing artificial life forms, its still better than backwards humans killing each other for nonsense tribalism or ancient fairytale books.

> It really can only get better here, not even kidding.

I think that’s pretty extreme hyperbole.

As much as humans make a mess of things, on a day to day basis there is more good done in the world than bad.

A temporary exception would be the economically still incentivized disruption of the environment. I say temporary, because at some point it will stop, by necessity. Hopefully before.

But I can relate to the deep frustration you are expressing.

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The problem isn't individuals, for the most part. The problem is that we build up systems, to provide stability and peace, and to be more just and equitable, by decentralizing the power in them. That way the powerful can't change them on a whim. (Even though they can still game them.)

But this also makes them very resistant to change.

Another effect is that as systems stabilize myriads of seemingly unimportant aspects within themselves, that stability represents the selection of standards and behaviors that give the system its own "will" to survive. That "will to survive" is distributed across the contexts and needs of all participants.

So any pressures to make changes, no matter how well thought out, encounter vast quantities of evolved resistance, often from invisible or unexpected places.

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My view, is that this cost of changing systems needs to be accepted and used to help make the changes. I.e. get all the CFO's of all the major fossil fuel companies in a room. Establish what kind of tax incentives would allow them to rationally support the smoothly transitioning all their corporate resources from dirty energy to clean energy.

It would be very expensive. It would look like a handout. Worse, even a reward for being a bottleneck to change.

But they are the bottleneck precisely because of all the good they have done - that dirty energy lifted the world economy. And whatever it cost to "pay them off" would be much less than not paying them off.

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The costs of changing systems needs be dealt with, with realism about the costs to get the benefits, and creativity and courage about paying for them.