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2023-02-27 Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

AI Can Tell Us How Russians Feel About the War. Putin Won't Like the Results.

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Posted by Ebbains Threrenter5475 2023-02-27 00:00|| E-Mail|| Front Page|| [7 views ] Top

#1 But Politico wouldn't do propaganda. No, no, certainly not!

Posted by Abu Uluque 2023-02-27 13:09|| 2023-02-27 13:09|| Front Page Top

#2 That buzzing sound you hear is the Acme(tm) Bullshite Detector going off. Any AI based on machine learning is only going to be as good as its training data. A chatbot (or human) trained on CNN is going to have different opinions than one trained on Fox News.

In a country of 147 million people spread across 12 time zones, you are going to have a range of opinions. Certainly there is an anti-war anti-Putin faction, but near as I can tell, the negative sentiment about the war comes from its slow pace and not from the fact that it is happening. Putin is seen as standing for Russia.

tl;dr: Despite what western media tells you, the Russian people are not going to rise up and over-throw Putin.

Posted by SteveS 2023-02-27 13:55|| 2023-02-27 13:55|| Front Page Top

#3 The news you get from Russia comes from Moscow and to a much smaller extent, St Petersburg. Almost nothing from the other 99% of Russian territory is heard from. But the fighting in Ukraine is done primarily by non-Russians and the returning casualties (nearly 100:1 Asian minority regions vs Moscow) are bringing the reality of the war back home with them. This AI tries to scrape some of those reactions and changing attitudes.

Per capital casualties in Russian regions

Posted by Ebbains Threrenter5475 2023-02-27 21:39|| 2023-02-27 21:39|| Front Page Top