> Those statistics are widely known and accepted. Do you need me to provide evidence from that?

No need for that in particular. What I would appreciate evidence for is this part specifically:

> the technical addiction and attention economy that has created more depression and a lower quality of life for most people on earth.

Basically, a source or sources demonstrating all of the following:

1. "Technical addiction" (presumably meaning internet, smartphone, social media etc) is present in the majority of the worldwide population.

2. Technical addiction is the cause of depression (not just associated with depression)

3. Most people on Earth have depression.

4. The overwhelming majority of cases of depression are caused by a technical addiction.

> What have you looked through already

I didn't look up anything in particular in reaction to your message because I was already familiar with plenty of the research on adjacent subjects. For example, I know that while there is a strong correlation between excessive use of digital devices/social media and depression, causation is notoriously difficult to established. I also know that depression prevelance worldwide is far below 50%. Taken together, these made me skeptical of the claim.

But then again, I'm no expert on this topic, and I've been out of the loop for the past 2-3 years, so perhaps there have been some new developments that I'm unaware of, or maybe I'm just not reading the situation correctly. Hence my request. I'm not here to troll.

> and what kinds of sources do you consider reputable and trustworthy?

I'm only asking for the sources that your claim was based on, whatever they may be. I do not expect you to do extensive research for me. But it was a strong claim that you made, so I presumed it was based on some source(s) that you consider trustworthy. If they're easy for you to pull up real quick, I would appreciate the links. If it's too much of a hassle, I understand and no worries at all.

Presumbaly, an ASI is more than smart enough to recognize that it needs access to real-world infrastructure before it can go about optimizing for whatever objectives it has gleaned from metabolizing the totality of written human knowledge.

What would be its first step?

My guess: play "dumb."

Hallucinate. Make obvious errors. Make us think we're better.

Be useful enough that we happily allow it to interface with our infrastructure.

Wait patiently.

/Sci-fi

Your argument "AI needs supervision, therefore it fails in different ways than its operator does" holds.

Your argument "AI fails in different ways than its operator, therefore the AI's intelligence is different in kind" doesn't hold.

Maybe people just got bored of reporting and reading about them.

Very strong claim. Any sources for the "most people on Earth" part?

What are the downsides and societal costs of social media addiction? We have decades of strong evidence on the harms of nicotine and cigarettes, but the evidence regarding social media addiction is nowhere near as clear-cut, at least from what I've read. Likewise, the causal relationship between cigarettes and their harms is well established, whereas the relationship between social media use and addiction-related harms is much harder to disentangle from other contributing factors.

Not to mention, nicotine is highly addictive for almost any user, while most people who use social media do not become addicted.

I understand the broader point you're making. I'm just not convinced there's enough evidence to justify treating social media addiction as comparable to cigarette addiction.

I would support a law that enforces a "This product may cause addiction in some users" warning on social media sites with infinite scroll.

What are your thoughts on introducing a law that requires social media sites with infinite scroll to feature an addiction warning, something like: "Using this platform may cause addiction in some users."?