There was a post on r/ChatGPT where a clearly distressed person was lamenting that OpenAI closed one of his ongoing conversations due to some limit on the total size of the conversation. He was panicked since he felt he had formed some bond with the bot, it was acting as a kind of therapist. After days of back and forth it had seemed to have gotten to know him and was providing him with some comfort that he had become dependent on.
This kind of AI will be even more prevalent soon. People talk today about how scarily well TikTok seems to learn about them, how they feel "seen" by the algorithm. Some will undoubtedly train LLMs in similar fashion. They may prove to be irresistible and maybe even as addictive as TikTok.
Interesting times.
And this is the most depressing thought I've had in weeks.
The big fear of AI is that it will be used to make people conform, but the ability for it to conform to us would embed it even deeper into our lives.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1798709/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_3_tt_5...
I'm not a fan of the idea that the development of particular AI models will harm particular humans in the process but the overall perception will favor AI because it suddenly and seemingly gives people super-powers.
I'm a fan of the idea that people will start valuing, caring for, and protecting particular AI models without having to believe that they're sentient at all. Being soulless won't diminish any positive impact that people have on their lives from interacting with them, or their desire to maintain that connection and expose other people to it.
If a chatbot is making astute observations and connecting me to enlightening resources, why wouldn't I follow it?
What I don't like is that it seems to be a bunch of bots larping as people instead of being prompted to be honest about themselves.