Stock brokers are increasingly leveraging the well-tested wireheading techniques used by casinos to make their customers into gambling addicts.
Confirmed. They’ve reached my co-workers. I can’t get through a day without hearing these newly-minted day traders arguing about which crypto is going to do what. They specifically talk about how this is so much easier than going to the casino and still scratches the gambling itch. (sigh)
I completely agree, and wasn’t aware that stock brokers were doing this.
This is a minor point—I wonder if it’s worth coming up with another term for what people typically mean now when they say ‘wireheading?’ Recently when I see people using the term now, they almost never mean literally mean wireheading.
People used to say things like “chasing the dragon’s tail” or “pushing the envelope.” I suppose they’re both a bit more of a mouthful…
It’s a bit of a tangent, but just saying…
EDIT: I suppose the article on it does say: “If we take wireheading as a more general form of producing counterfeit utility, there are many examples of ways of directly stimulating of the reward and pleasure centers of the brain, without actually engaging in valuable experiences. Cocaine, heroin, cigarettes and gambling are all examples of current methods of directly achieving pleasure or reward, but can be seen by many as lacking much of what we value and are potentially extremely detrimental.”
I was taking it more as a “high-tech cyberpunky form of pleasure-seeking” but I suppose most people don’t share the connotation.
Wireheading is expanding rapidly.
At first it was drugs, with packaging and delivery carefully designed to maximize addictiveness.
Then gambling, social media.
More recently...
Stock brokers are increasingly leveraging the well-tested wireheading techniques used by casinos to make their customers into gambling addicts.
Confirmed. They’ve reached my co-workers. I can’t get through a day without hearing these newly-minted day traders arguing about which crypto is going to do what. They specifically talk about how this is so much easier than going to the casino and still scratches the gambling itch. (sigh)
I completely agree, and wasn’t aware that stock brokers were doing this.
This is a minor point—I wonder if it’s worth coming up with another term for what people typically mean now when they say ‘wireheading?’ Recently when I see people using the term now, they almost never mean literally mean wireheading.
I can’t find the Tweet now, but I’m pretty sure I saw Roko describe masterbation as wireheading recently, when (absent some crazy tech you’re applying to it) it’s maybe one of the least cyberpunk things you can do in terms of our long human history of it.
People used to say things like “chasing the dragon’s tail” or “pushing the envelope.” I suppose they’re both a bit more of a mouthful…
It’s a bit of a tangent, but just saying…
EDIT: I suppose the article on it does say: “If we take wireheading as a more general form of producing counterfeit utility, there are many examples of ways of directly stimulating of the reward and pleasure centers of the brain, without actually engaging in valuable experiences. Cocaine, heroin, cigarettes and gambling are all examples of current methods of directly achieving pleasure or reward, but can be seen by many as lacking much of what we value and are potentially extremely detrimental.”
I was taking it more as a “high-tech cyberpunky form of pleasure-seeking” but I suppose most people don’t share the connotation.