“You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who has spent more time creating or obsessing over the online zeitgeist, for better or for worse,” introduced Alexis Ohanian at the BRIDGE Summit in Abu Dhabi on Monday.
Ohanian, a founding partner of venture capital firm Seven Seven Six, is perhaps best known as the co-founder and former executive chairman of Reddit. “Being online all the time was part of the job,” he told TIME executive editor Nikhil Kumar. TIME is a media partner of the BRIDGE Summit, which brought together a global community of creators, policymakers, investors, technologists, media institutions and cultural leaders to discuss the landscape and future of media.
But the advent of artificial intelligence has made platforms like Reddit, which once served as communication hubs, less human, Ohanian said. “From a conservative point of view, I would say that 20% of all the content that we see on social media is fake in some form,” he said, echoing some of the concerns that others have called fake news. dead internet theory. “No one is really immune,” he added, explaining how AI models trained on social media data are driving mass content creation, often using AI, simply to manipulate those models.
Ohanian said he's not sure how the problem will be solved—”Someone will have to figure out what the next wave of social media will look like that will validate humanity or somehow allow us to figure out who is real without scanning every person's retina”—but he also talked about why he still considers himself an optimist in the face of this technological evolution.
“When our screens become 100 times more immersive and better, I think some of humanity will suffer,” he said, but it will also increase the desire for real-life experiences that will focus humanity's attention. “I think live events are going to be one of the best parts of this wave of artificial intelligence that people may not intuitively consider.”
Ohanyan, who also lead investor Los Angeles professional women's soccer team Angel City FC said in 2020 that the “humanity of sports is undeniable” and that he is also “optimistic” about the “comeback” of theater in the next decade. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown, he said, how important it is for people to communicate in person. “In this post-AI world, it is clear to me that in-person meetings and live events are the last place left in entertainment.”
