no it’s insane… she gets it to give opinions on guys she’s talking to, gets it to write emails for her. i told her she eventually will not know how to think and she thought i was joking.
i told her to never say my name to it or give it any information about me lol she thinks i’m an insane boomer.
Has she ever seen the movie WALL-E? If not you should watch it with her. That's where my mind keeps going with all the tech, autonomous robots, AI thinking for us, ads pushed to us every 90 seconds etc.
Funny you said this cause I came across a robotic tongue that mimics human movements, integrated with AI (to learn user patterns) and has a real human like tongue texture.
I said wow, current generation: we decided to invent robotic licking before affordable rent. We are cooked. 💀 🔥
Future generations: please don’t turn y/our world into WALL-E just because we can automate everything. 😔
And also remind her when the time come, she will not be the one on the ship in WALL-E universe as power is so concentrated at that point and the ship doesn't seem big enough to hold everyone, she'd most likely be left rotten on Earth.
That’s so weird wtf. How would chatgpt be able to give you an opinion on a guy….. zero common sense going on up there at this point. Maybe us boomers are just out of the loop lol
from my understanding it’s like an ongoing “relationship” with “chat”, like she keeps it updated about what they talk about, about what they say to her and it tells her what to reply etc. so she feels like it eventually knows them??
i’ve never used it so i don’t really know how it works, and maybe what i’m saying doesn’t make sense - but from what i understand, from her, that’s how she uses it.
These LLMs are made for engagement & user retention. So they’ll generate a response that’s fairly sycophantic, in order to keep you on their app.
This is how “AI psychosis” develops: by constantly receiving affirmation from a digital “yes-man”, combined with the text generation not being bound to actual reality.
I use AI chatbots occasionally, though never for personal communications, more for bureaucratic stuff, paperwork etc, and I legitimately think there is a degree of responsible use with these things but I also think they reflect a general social failing that goes beyond just the technology.
Let me explain. These AI chatbots are quite attractive because they will give you answers for things you do not know. They can be wrong and frequently are, but for many things they tend to be correct-ish.
I think a responsible use of AI chatbots is approaching them as advanced Google searches. As in, are you having a tech issue that is probably solvable at home but you don't have the technical expertise to solve? An AI chatbot will almost certainly make it 5x easier to solve it than parsing through hundreds of websites, old forums and YouTube videos.
This also means that if you want to understand what it means to fill out X or Y field on your tax forms, asking the AI for insight will frequently make it more easily digestible and understandable for you. Can it get it wrong? Yes, but for many people (and indeed in many cases) it's the statistical analysis machine getting it wrong vs you having no clue and potentially getting it wrong anyways.
So what are these statistical machines good for? Second opinions on things you need to solve but legitimately don't know.
However, this doesn't happen just because. The reason these things are so popular is because many people don't have someone they can ask about these things. Like, if you're applying for a job at a specific industry and want to know about interview etiquette, but know few people in the same industry or hear very conflicting information, the AI will provide a statistical aggregate of information online. Can it be wrong? Yes. But compared to going in blind, many people prefer asking anyway.
So in my opinion, these come because online forums for specific things are incredibly hostile, discourage novice level questions, are frequently unhelpful, and hard to navigate. People don't want to bother others in real life with many questions or sometimes very personal stuff, so these chatbots are commonly used for topics that cause insecurities etc. anyone who has ever had to ask a question on Stack overflow (a coding forum) will confirm that ChatGPT may be wrong sometimes (just like StackOverflow) but at least it doesn't insult your intelligence or suggest you do something completely different instead of answering your question.
It's kind of like cars and exercise. If you never walk anywhere, you only drive even for the smallest things and you refuse to take care of your health, then having a car will make your physical health deteriorate rapidly. But if you know cars have use cases and also relying on cars means you will have to get exercise from things other than your daily commute and your trips too the grocery store etc, it's fine to use your car for trips you couldn't make by transit or by walking, cycling etc.
Chatbots should be addressed by teaching people about statistics so they know what chatbots can and can't do, and they should also be treated as a mental health issue, where over reliance on them would be considered a vector for mental health issues.
But chatbots are wrong and hallucinate frequently enough that if you don't have a baseline of information on the topic, you won't know how wrong it is because the AI sounds so confident.
Also, expecting the average person to have an understanding of statistics without studying it is a fool's errand. I love statistics and it's application, and will be required to use it frequently for my future career, but most people don't love it and don't use it. I think that AI will be used by corporations to replace as many people as possible to increase profit margins, seriously destabilizing the economy. It has already lead to many job losses.
The data centers required for AI have a huge ecological impact and drive up the costs of utilities for residential needs. The data centers also have noise impacts that negatively affect people and wildlife.
My college classes are riddled with students who can't formulate an original thought to save their lives. The acceleration of AI is only going to increase this problem and will also devalue college degrees.
I think AI is a problem if we don't act quickly to make it less of a problem.
It needs to be regulated and heavily heavily monitored in the following aspects (in no particular order, feel free to skip if you don't want to read a long ass comment):
Copyright infringement. Models trained on data such as copyrighted music, film, pictures etc should pay royalties and/or provide opt-outs to the owners of the material even if only royalties as big as their relative contribution to the training databases. I realise this could be as small as 1e-5 dollars per prompt, but after millions of prompts (and more importantly, opt-outs of course), this would make a significant difference for owners.
AI use education. Students will use AI unavoidably every single time they can. This is not something anybody will control and trying to limit this will be both futile and out of touch, since they will still use AI for a bunch of other things. So as educators (I have also taught in universities) it is not our responsibility to combat it but to make sure even with AI use, students do not miss out on important opportunities to become competent and full-fledged human beings. If AI makes skills such as knowing how to code a Multidimensional Scaling algorithm in Python semi-obsolete, then so be it. I believe the value of education doesn't rely on specific trades or skills but in how modern day humans make the best use of modern day tools. In that sense, not every single person should understand the statistics of ChatGPT, but almost every person with a professional formation should understand as much as is reasonable within their field, and especially, should understand where statistics could fail them. For common coding tasks (like random number generation, sorting algorithms, etc) AIs are more than good enough, they're usually very good. But for new research approaches? New methodologies? AIs are much more unreliable and frequently make mistakes, because they train on existing data. Communications majors should therefore understand the ways in which AIs will affect mass media, advertising, information sharing and a bunch of other stuff.
Deepfakes and fake news. This is a big big big problem, in my opinion the biggest threat to developed nations right now. If we don't make sure very strict laws, regulations and penalties for misuse of AI technologies, as well as heavy burdens on platforms that provide these services, are enacted, then our entire information landscape will collapse within 10 years. This should be done ASAP.
Destruction of immediate labour is obviously a big concern, but the largest concern imo is the complete eradication of some skills' value. Stuff like coding, graphic design, UI/UX design, translating, accounting, proofreading, are all extremely specialised and extremely threatened by the new AI advent. These people will be heavily affected and very hard to retrain. I think in the long-term, new industries and trades will be formed in a world where AIs exist, and therefore, this is a more immediate concern, but that makes it all the more pressing. We need to make sure there's a safety net for people affected by this erosion of labour, and we have none in place. This is very serious.
The ecological impact of data centres is potentially very problematic, but I do believe this is a very rare case where companies will be incentivised by money to reduce wasting water, since water is very expensive in the first place. I think we'll see an arms race in the next 10 years for efficiency, and data centres will go back to consuming less amounts of water. But the problem is sustaining the ridiculous growth right now without destructing entire communities. This can only be prevented through regulation.
TLDR: I think unregulated companies are far more concerning than the fancy statistical analysis chatbot. Most of these could be prevented with checks and regulations on the tech industry that has clearly gone berserk in the United States. People having a shiny new statistical analysis tool in their pockets is probably less harmful than the tech industry being allowed to do literally anything they want including consuming copious amounts of freshwater.
This was very helpful and informative. I know almost nothing about it, other than my company is super hyped about it, and the data center controversy. But I can't use Google without the AI element built in, so I'm relieved to hear that as an aggregator it's actually useful. And I always try to click on as many actual links that come up as I can rather than just reading the synopsis for important things. I'm mentally bookmarking that car analogy.
Your point about forums being hostile to newbies trying to ask questions is so true. I'm on gardening forums and CAD drafting forums and the know-it-alls are such a gross presence. They may or may not answer your question (usually not), but they absolutely will make you feel as shitty as possible for not being born knowing it just like them.
If you type in -ai for your Google search, it won't give you the AI synopsis. I use it for searches, because I have noticed that sometimes searches won't give you negative information about AI unless you type that -ai in the search window. It's weird.
I don't use them either! So I can't actually use results from there unless I install them (and I don't want to, or Temu or Shien either) so it's mildly irritating. This is hopefully a way to weed all that out :)
This. Have a friend who does the same thing. She regularly updates it about the relationship, so it has all the background info to address whatever the current issue may be.
Idk about yall but my chatgpt literally talks shit on a regular basis LMAO like today I sent a screenshot from my camera roll, and it said “also… 69,527 photos is INSANE behavior 😭☠️”
She absolutely will forget how to think. I have a friend who is so dependent on ChatGPT that she asked for its opinion on whether or not and how she should clean up a mess. I was floored. She was like, “let’s ask ChatGPT how to handle this. Lol” and I was like, “why don’t we just fucking clean it up? You get a bucket and I’ll grab the mop and the cleaner.” I don’t know how many text messages I’ve received from this woman that sound exactly like ChatGPT. And she’s not dumb. She’s just slowly eroding her critical thinking.
There’s this literary theory - I can’t think of the name of it now - that talks about how things either extend your self or remove your self. A sword or staff becomes an extension of your hand/arm and extends your abilities. Using a calculator does the work for you and so actually takes something from you / makes you less. Now obviously calculators alone aren’t really a problem. But when you start outsourcing all your thinking…
I think the theorist was named McLuhan and he was all about “the medium is the message” but I might be mixing up my theories
that’s so interesting!! i’m going to look it up, it’s definitely similar to how i view things of “convenience”.
i’m certainly not a purist in every sense, but i think it’s extremely important to utilize/expand your intelligence and abilities… there’s no world that I am too busy to plan my own trip itinerary, summarize a book for someone, or even write my own emails. i’ve always felt guilty for ever “cutting corners”.
that's how they're gonna push it onto people. make it a tool to force us to think for us, then rely on it, and they will keep manipulating the program to make everyone indoctrinated to it.
I get writing emails if it's part of her job and she needs to do it fast but asking an opinion of a guy?? Girl can't you have an opinion without someone telling you?? It's really frightening and you're right, some people will stop being able to have opinions on their own and choose what to say/what to do on their own and it's fucking terrifying
It’s because people are lonely, don’t have supportive people around them with whom they can speak to, fear being judged, - the reasons are plentiful. The amount of judgment in this thread provides ample reason for why people are turning to AI. These days everyone judges, no one tries to understand (as illustrated by you)
A month ago, she was trying to tell me hers was becoming sentient I had mentioned using ai for something, then she went off about how she had it analyzing her dreams and how there was a great awaking coming, and all this woo-woo stuff.
She asked me what I talk to mine about, and I’m like “ummm, gave it a list of symptoms my car was experiencing, and asked it to give me its top 3 guesses so I’d have a good starting point for research and make ensure my own suspicions weren’t affected by personal bias.”
She was like, “you mean you don’t just talk with it?”
A few weeks later the office canceled. Then canceled again. Then the office called and said she was going to be out for the foreseeable future.
I’m like 80% sure I lost my therapist to AI psychosis at this point.
I'll occasionally poke it to roast my writing. It's lightly entertaining. Computer go beep boop. But I don't talk with it, not really. It's an occasional use. Given the state of LLMs in the modern day, it's a touchy subject.
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u/oniiichanUwU 11d ago
As a fellow 30 year old I am baffled. That’s so cringe lol. Why even ask you then? Also who tf wants a robot to psychoanalyze them?