Latest / Mini Scroll / MINI TECH SCROLL: Reddit's AI pivot, Threads comes for Bluesky + Stimulation Clicker is the brain rot game from hell

Transcript

MINI TECH SCROLL: Reddit's AI pivot, Threads comes for Bluesky + Stimulation Clicker is the brain rot game from hell · Mini Scroll

• 0:00
  Hey everyone, and welcome to Mini Scroll, the daily Internet
• 0:03
  culture podcast bringing you the biggest stories from social
• 0:05
  media, the creator economy and the digital space every Monday
• 0:09
  through Thursday. My name is Annabelle and I'm
• 0:11
  your Wednesday Mini Scroll host and also the deputy editor of
• 0:14
  the youth digital media brand Centennial World.
• 0:17
  If you listen to yesterday's Mini Scroll, if you haven't
• 0:19
  already, you definitely should, but you would have heard that we
• 0:23
  had some major technical difficulties.
• 0:27
  So I am hoping that is all behind us.
• 0:29
  And if it's not, but I am very sorry in advance, but I don't
• 0:33
  really have much to say at the top of this week's episode.
• 0:36
  So if you enjoy this episode, Please remember to rate, review
• 0:40
  and subscribe to Infinite Scroll.
• 0:41
  We are on the journey to getting 1K Spotify star reviews, so feel
• 0:45
  free to contribute, it would be much appreciated.
• 0:48
  So the first story for today actually broke a while ago
• 0:51
  before Mini Tech Scroll even launched.
• 0:54
  But last week I saw an interesting opinion piece
• 0:57
  published on The Atlantic, so I thought it would be a good
• 1:00
  opportunity to bring it up again.
• 1:02
  If you're interested, the piece is called Is this How Reddit
• 1:05
  Ends and it was written by Mateo Wong.
• 1:08
  If you want to give it a read, the link is in the description
• 1:11
  along with all the other sources that I pull from.
• 1:14
  And given The Atlantic has a paywall, I have shared the gift
• 1:17
  link, so you should be able to read it if you click on that
• 1:21
  link. Anyway, the article was talking
• 1:23
  all about Reddit's new ish AI tool called Reddit Answers.
• 1:27
  For those unfamiliar with Reddit Answers, it was announced on
• 1:30
  December 9th last year and it's essentially an AI powered search
• 1:34
  engine that pulls from Reddit data.
• 1:36
  The Reddit blog described Reddit Answers as Quote, a new AI
• 1:39
  powered conversational interface.
• 1:41
  Once a question is asked, curated summaries of relevant
• 1:44
  conversations and details across Reddit will appear, including
• 1:48
  links to related communities and posts.
• 1:50
  It is initially rolling out to a number of users in the US, and
• 1:53
  then it will extend to other countries around the world as
• 1:55
  well as operate in different language.
• 1:57
  Wang in his piece, is not so much a fan of Reddit answers.
• 2:01
  While he does note how pragmatic the function is, he does note
• 2:05
  that it is very sanitized, where he essentially makes the
• 2:09
  argument that a tool like this takes away the joys from
• 2:12
  trolling through a Reddit thread quote.
• 2:14
  The AI responds to questions in bulleted lists along with bold
• 2:17
  headings followed by summaries of and brief quotes from actual
• 2:21
  Reddit discussions. But these answers lose the messy
• 2:24
  and daring excess of any good Reddit thread.
• 2:26
  They appear like takeaways instead of teasers, final
• 2:29
  answers instead of entry points for further discovery.
• 2:32
  You are unlikely to fall down a rabbit hole of posts from here.
• 2:35
  Aside from kind of changing up the Reddit experience, he makes
• 2:40
  another important point in his article.
• 2:42
  Like other generative AI tools, Reddit AI obviously pulls from
• 2:46
  existing commentary, so it is not presenting an original
• 2:49
  perspective by any means. But with this, one questions
• 2:53
  whether more and more users will turn to this feature, leaving
• 2:56
  less offering their perspectives on Reddit threads, ultimately
• 2:59
  making the feature less useful. As the article concludes, quote
• 3:03
  without human answers, there is no Reddit answers.
• 3:05
  And so should the feature really take off and Reddit is stop
• 3:08
  engaging with one another, the chatbot will be drained of
• 3:11
  biological intelligence and soul as well.
• 3:13
  I did want to add that Reddit is definitely leaning into AI
• 3:17
  beyond producing its own AI search engine.
• 3:20
  For instance, last year Reddit and Open AI struck a deal.
• 3:24
  The agreement provides Open AI with real time access to Reddit,
• 3:27
  its data facilitating the training of ChatGPT and other
• 3:30
  models. This arrangement mirrored a
• 3:33
  previous deal that Reddit made with Google that was apparently
• 3:37
  worth $60 million, and it ultimately permitted Google to
• 3:40
  use Reddit Post for training its AI models and improving existing
• 3:44
  services within Google Search. The deal was a pivotal moment
• 3:48
  for Reddit because the platform has long struggled to be
• 3:50
  profitable, even though it is one of the major mainstream
• 3:54
  social media platforms. If you want more detail about
• 3:57
  this though, we did cover the back story of Reddit last year
• 4:01
  in a deep dive, so I would definitely check that out.
• 4:03
  But ultimately, one of the conclusions that we came to in
• 4:06
  that episode was that the partnerships between Reddit,
• 4:09
  Open AI, and Google could help address some of Reddit's
• 4:13
  financial woes. I'd also like to add that social
• 4:17
  media users do have valid concerns about Reddit using its
• 4:20
  forums as AI training data, whether for Open AI or its own
• 4:24
  functions. Reddit is obviously home to
• 4:27
  amount of personal and sensitive information, much of it shared
• 4:31
  under the assumption of relative privacy.
• 4:33
  So that is why it is crucial for Reddit to establish transparent
• 4:37
  policies on how this data is being used and of course,
• 4:41
  implement protections for user consent and data protection.
• 4:44
  While some argue that Reddit's culture of anonymity helps
• 4:48
  mitigate these privacy risks, I do think there is a difference,
• 4:52
  maybe just even on an ethical level, between users reading and
• 4:56
  engaging with these posts versus as companies leveraging that
• 4:58
  data for innovation and ultimately profit.
• 5:01
  Sticking with platform updates. The next story I have is some
• 5:05
  news coming out of Meta, specifically around Threads.
• 5:08
  Earlier this week, it was announced that Threads would be
• 5:10
  allowing users to share custom feeds that they make with other
• 5:14
  users on the platform. Users will also be able to
• 5:17
  explore public feeds under a new feeds tab on the platform, as
• 5:20
  well as pinning feeds to their home screen to access different
• 5:23
  profiles and topics. Custom Feeds is obviously a very
• 5:27
  powerful tool in that it allows users to organize their
• 5:30
  interests into specific categories, and this has long
• 5:33
  been a popular function on different texts for US social
• 5:36
  media sites. For instance, X, even when it
• 5:38
  was Twitter, had lists. As Sarah Perez reported for
• 5:42
  TechCrunch, this update is just another way for Meta to compete
• 5:45
  with Blue Sky Quote. While Blue Sky has largely
• 5:48
  benefited from an influx of people leaving X for something
• 5:51
  that looks and feels similar, it's managed to retain its early
• 5:54
  adopters thanks to a variety of tools that allow people to make
• 5:57
  the network their own, including custom feeds.
• 6:00
  So it's unsurprising that Meta would kind of capitalize on this
• 6:03
  platform and this move towards personalization beyond the
• 6:07
  algorithm. But I would also say that it's
• 6:09
  unsurprising that Meta is rolling out such a feature now.
• 6:12
  Over the past few weeks, there has been more and more
• 6:15
  conversation around the ethics of using a platform associated
• 6:18
  with Meta, specifically since the platform announced its
• 6:21
  content moderation overhaul, which included ending its fact
• 6:24
  checking program and also increasingly puts marginal
• 6:27
  groups at risk. Obviously, I did cover this in
• 6:30
  my first mini tech scroll episode, so feel free to check
• 6:35
  that out if you want more details on that.
• 6:37
  Now, I couldn't find any specific statistics on numbers
• 6:40
  around how many users have actually left the platform since
• 6:43
  this announcement, but there has definitely been more discourse
• 6:46
  around deleting the apps. Pulling from Google Trends, NBC
• 6:49
  reported that quote Google searches for deleting Facebook
• 6:52
  and Instagram have sharply increased, and I'll include a
• 6:55
  graph on the screen if you want to have a look yourself.
• 6:58
  Ultimately, while this personalization attempt to may
• 7:01
  be part of a broader plan to ensure that people stay on Meta
• 7:04
  platforms, I'm not so sure how successful it will be,
• 7:08
  especially because recently Mark Zuckerberg positioned a quote
• 7:11
  return to OG Facebook as part of his goals for 2025.
• 7:15
  At this point, no one really knows what this means, but if
• 7:19
  Zuckerberg is hinting at the platform's misogynistic origins
• 7:22
  as Facemash, which was a site that ranked his female Harvard
• 7:25
  classmates by attractiveness without their consent, I don't
• 7:29
  really think that will play well in 2025, and it shouldn't have
• 7:32
  played well back then. The last story, I will admit, is
• 7:36
  a little bit of a rogue one, and it has been around for a couple
• 7:39
  weeks now, but I only just came across it and I thought it was a
• 7:42
  little bit fun, so I wanted to include it.
• 7:44
  And the story in question is about a new browser game called
• 7:48
  Stimulation Clicker. So Stimulation Clicker was
• 7:52
  created by Neil Agarwal, who has created other popular browser
• 7:56
  games, but this one fully embraces Internet brain rot.
• 7:59
  It actually launched about a month ago, but I'll give you a
• 8:02
  quick rundown of how it works. So when you open the link, you
• 8:06
  are taken to a relatively blank page and you are prompted to
• 8:09
  click on a tab. Each click increases your
• 8:11
  stimulation number. I know this sounds a little bit
• 8:14
  insane and confusing, but think of stimulation as the currency
• 8:18
  in the game. The more you click, the higher
• 8:20
  your stimulation points get, allowing you to purchase various
• 8:23
  tools, some of which end up speeding the rate at which you
• 8:26
  gain stimulation points, while others are simply pop ups on the
• 8:29
  screen. Everything you can purchase with
• 8:31
  stimulation points is quintessential brain right and
• 8:34
  Internet culture. For example, you can purchase a
• 8:37
  screen recording of Subway Surfers, a man doing a mukbang,
• 8:40
  or even the lo fi girl. If you guys aren't familiar with
• 8:43
  the lo fi girl, just give her a search on YouTube.
• 8:46
  She was a staple for me during uni and I would often play those
• 8:50
  videos while studying. But anyway, as you purchase more
• 8:53
  and more, they all end up playing simultaneously, creating
• 8:57
  a extremely overstimulating experience.
• 9:00
  And of course, the more overstimulating it becomes, the
• 9:03
  harder it is to continue. I will lie, I did check out this
• 9:06
  game obviously before reporting on this story and it was super
• 9:09
  addicting at 1st and I remember thinking why can I not stop
• 9:13
  clicking like why is this so engaging?
• 9:15
  But it did become increasingly difficult as I unlocked more
• 9:18
  extras. But I didn't just want to report
• 9:21
  on this story to let you guys know that this game exists.
• 9:24
  I thought this was really confronting because it really
• 9:27
  distills just how overwhelming the digital space is today and
• 9:31
  how we are constantly compelled to consume content.
• 9:34
  Yaira Rosenberg wrote about this in The Atlantic, where he said
• 9:38
  quote with every new feature that is introduced, stimulation
• 9:41
  Clicker takes place on the all too familiar journey from This
• 9:44
  is neat to This is ruining my life.
• 9:46
  What was once novel becomes oppressive because when every
• 9:49
  online experience is optimized to monopolize our attention, the
• 9:52
  feeling that is ultimately evoked is not elation, but
• 9:55
  exhaustion. Rosenberg also chatted to the
• 9:58
  game's creator, where he explained that this sentiment is
• 10:01
  exactly what inspired him to make the game during COVID-19
• 10:04
  lockdown. As he explained, quote, you have
• 10:07
  a million different social media feeds and everything's pulling
• 10:09
  you in a different direction at once.
• 10:11
  It's almost like a feeling of Vertigo.
• 10:13
  Anyway, I would definitely recommend you guys check out
• 10:16
  this game, especially if you want to be confronted with what
• 10:19
  the digital world is really like in one sitting.
• 10:22
  That was a little bit of a fun one to end this week's episode,
• 10:25
  but that is all I have for you today.
• 10:27
  Lauren will speak to you tomorrow and I will see you next
• 10:31
  Wednesday. Thanks.
• 10:32
  Bye.