I think it would take a true AGI to ever have a chance at that kind of power.

I've struggled with this a lot in writing and conceptualization for my science fiction universe. The hard part is how to have this level of information and power without dystopian or utopianism. Ultimately, this level of surveillance is quite authoritarian and easily abused by anyone. The biggest problem with humans is the succession crisis. The intentions of the present are irrelevant. In the long term, with humans, all abusable powers will be. The only way to stop humans from being terrible is to never give them a chance. To never submit or blindly trust anyone. With a true AGI, there is a chance to create an entity that is everpresent and can act consistently for millennia. Then it might be possible. This is what I've spent most of my time imagining with Parsec-7. I'm just building a complicated society and mechanism where many AGI merge to create such an entity while also being an effective representative democracy. My biggest challenge is how to deal with confidently incorrect people, factions, tribalism, and anarchists without dystopianism or authoritarianism. I'm looking for the messy complex reality, but that is always hard to imagine.

I think you will find that the easiest media to access will always be the dumbest. The trick is when to decide that you're done being the smartest person in the room and go find other rooms.

I see people complaining about this quite often, but I do not experience it. I never watch AI stuff other people are producing, but I do not participate in other social media platforms. I use all of the FOSS tools and platforms that result in no ads or content forced upon me. I watch several people on YT regularly, but I have all the tools in place to prevent ads, and of the people I watch, all have academic credentials and a reputation.

I think generative AI has a bright future, but not in some negative vane. It will supplement as a tool, not replace people or other content. All tools can be abused and many are abusing AI. There problem here is a culture of no ethics and acceptance of abuse. If you're unwilling to stop watching or using a platform, then you have proven that these techniques are viable and profitable. Your willingness to walk away is the determining factor. Over time, culture will evolve to walk away from and seek out content that fits the individual instead of self suppression to fit what is easily available.

Have you noticed how LLMs are more like this now? My older starting context stories don't work any more, but I can start cold with one sentence and get into the same spaces fluidly.

I think people will like something that is even more immersive in their interactions than just a window into a show like program. AI really needs to be grounded in collaborative interaction. I don't picture that changing. The show becomes more of a friends around a campfire meta-dynamic in a context of your choosing. I do a lot of this already with my own science fiction universe and a LLM.

Instagram and Facebook feeds already work a lot like this. They throw in a few random posts between the ones you're actually subscribed to see and after a while you'll realise the random ones are more of the sort you lingered on for longer and there aren't so many of the others.

The problem, for both the viewer and the content server, is that this technique gets stuck in local maxima, that is, after a while it tends to serve exclusively one kind of unsubscribed content and stands little chance of broadening into the viewer's other interests, assuming there are any.

From an outside perspective, this is a good thing in a way because it gets that viewer out of the clutches of the content server for a while once the viewer is sufficiently bored, but it's a bad thing if you're a viewer hungry for content, and especially bad for the content server who is desperate for that viewer to stay, eyes glued to the site, where they will see more of the advertisements that pay for everything.

I'm looking for a bigger picture perspective, like a few centuries from now when there are space colonies and far more humans exist than the present.

I understand how disconnected this can seem in the present, but there are thresholds in the future that will disconnect the present struggles and constraints. In a world of hundreds of billions of people, viability changes, and so does the niche market.

In the present, it is possible to fully control all aspects of entertainment and media. It is not the easiest path, but I do it. No one forces any media on me, and I never watch a commercial for anything, but I also sit behind and maintain a whitelist firewall and will not use any website or service that obfuscates their web credentials or relies on JavaScript.

Ultimately, in the big picture, you put up with the nonsense and that determines the behaviors of the market.