Epistemic evolution

This past couple of weeks' spectacular bellyflop of a product launch, Google's Gemini, rivals notorious earlier fiascos such as New Coke.  Indeed, there is a reasonable probability that the Gemini launch will become something of a case study staple in Brand Management and New Product Launch in the future.  Or, at least, how not to . . . 

It has been an interesting epistemic couple of weeks.

On the one hand, when the explicit anti-white bias of Gemini became apparent, there was the frisson of middle school when the towering bully is brought low through some social faux pas.  The tang of schadenfreude mixed with stench of rumor.  

The tech corners of X were alive with delighted and gleeful horror.  

These are usually the signals you want to ignore.  The storm turns out to be in a tea cup and a mere distraction.  As it turns out, not this time.  

From a brand perspective, this was a major self-inflicted wound, particularly as it becomes increasingly clear that the Gemini racism was not an accidental outcome but was explicitly designed as a core part of the program.

What I found interesting was the cadence and cycling of information and news flows over the course of the week.  

This was sufficiently fast and technical that I don't think I have yet seen any sort of robust coverage in the legacy mainstream media.  There have to have been a few pieces, I am sure, but almost certainly a day late and steeped in incomprehension.  

The first tingling came two weeks ago on the modern jungle vine, X.  Rumors and jokes too close to Poe's Law to be worth taking the time to investigate and discern whether a real thing or mere opportunistic humor.

Then the flood of images on X and increasingly sharp and technical questions and inferences.  OK.  Seems a real thing.

Then Substack sources kicked in, perhaps 3-5 days after the first alarms.  More consequential, more informed.  Plenty of speculation but much of it informed speculation.

Then three or four days of cycling between and among X and Substacks.  A weirdly ethereal conversation of unincorporated and undirected monologues and quips synthesizing into emergent awareness, information and incipient knowledge.  

All that was required was a little bit of focus and attention.  

And within two weeks we have a reasonable view of what happened.  Knowledge about complex, technical, proprietary, and embarrassing knowledge.  Or, a reasonable guess as to what happened.

Google has been seeking to execute regulatory capture over the past decade.  In order to do so, they have been parroting the Woke catechisms popular in government and academic circles.  In some corners of the Google C-suite or senior management, there are a handful of dyed-in-the-wool True Believers.  As it happens a small number of them were integrally involved in the development and launch of Gemini.  Because the Gemini team itself was small and nimble, the True Believers were in a position to exercise a toxic and determining influence which likely would not have occurred with larger, slower moving teams.

The technical workaround seems to have been the introduction of Gemini-inserted prompts enveloping the users' actual questions, the prompts being designed to force Gemini to ensure a representation of non-whites and women and a disappearing of whites and males.  

The result was analogous to Bull Halsey's infamous reaction to the cryptographic insertion of "the world wonders" in a message from Nimitz during the Battle of Leyte Gulf in World War II.  Another text/prompt insertion with major real-world consequences.

"The world wonders" is a phrase which rose to notoriety following its use during World War II when it appeared as part of a decoded message sent by Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet, to Admiral William Halsey Jr. at the height of the Battle of Leyte Gulf on October 25, 1944. The words, intended to be without meaning, were added as security padding in an encrypted message to hinder Japanese attempts at cryptanalysis, but were mistakenly included in the decoded text given to Halsey. Halsey interpreted the phrase as a harsh and sarcastic rebuke, and as a consequence dropped his futile pursuit of a decoy Japanese carrier task force, and, belatedly, reversed some of his ships in a fruitless effort to aid United States forces in the Battle off Samar.

In Gemini's case though, no ships were sunk from the hidden embedded prompts.  No lives lost, no blood spilled.  Merely capital value lost and brand damage incurred.  

It is unlikely to be fatal but it might mark an inflection point.  The invincible natural monopoly suddenly seems much more vincible.  Further, both risible and dangerous.  

The point is that there seems to be an epistemic pattern.  Legacy mainstream media seems to be on its last financial, cultural influence and epistemic legs.  It is shrinking, losing trust, and losing credibility.  Justifiably so.  And it has had little presence over this emerging story.

In its place seems to be forming an effective distributed mechanism of information generation, assembly and synthesis via the inter and intra-play between and among many independent and unaffiliated X and Substack accounts.  

This is not necessarily a new or stable normal.  Collectively, I think everyone wants some sort of trusted collective synthesis and I think few people want to manage down their time and effort to monitor the interplay of X and Substack.  

But it does sure feel like we are watching an epistemic evolution in real-time.