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Replacing my best friends with an LLM trained on 500k group chat messages

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Re: Replacing my best friends with an LLM trained on 500k group chat messages

#61
post #49

While I love all these stories of turning your friends and loved ones into chat bots so you can talk to them forever, my brain immediately took a much darker turn because of course it did. How many emails, text messages, hangouts/gchat messages, etc, does Google have of you right now? And as part of their agreement, they can do pretty much whatever they like with those, can't they? Could Google, or any other company…

> And as part of their agreement, they can do pretty much whatever they like with those, can't they?

No, they definitely can't. Parts of HN love to hate on GDPR, but laws like that prevent companies from doing the things you proposed.

Re: Replacing my best friends with an LLM trained on 500k group chat messages

#62
post #53
post #49

While I love all these stories of turning your friends and loved ones into chat bots so you can talk to them forever, my brain immediately took a much darker turn because of course it did. How many emails, text messages, hangouts/gchat messages, etc, does Google have of you right now? And as part of their agreement, they can do pretty much whatever they like with those, can't they? Could Google, or any other company…

Reminds me a little of (fiction, for now) Google People: https://qntm.org/person

qntm is a wonderfully weird and terrifying author and I highly recommend all of their writing.

Re: Replacing my best friends with an LLM trained on 500k group chat messages

#64

Very reminiscent of the Be Right Back episode of Black Mirror [1]. A family member recently died unexpectedly, and I have a small collection of texts, emails, and blog posts by them saved on my machine in the small (perhaps delusional) hope that they'll be a useful training set for a them-flavored chatbot. Perhaps even one that's trained to help me with the grief of their loss. Not a huge amount of training data, tho…

On a lighter note this reminds me of the Bobiverse comedy sci-fi series on Audible.

Premise of __ We Are Legion (We Are Bob): Bobiverse, Book 1 __

>> Bob Johansson has just sold his software company for a small fortune and is looking forward to a life of leisure. The first item on his to-do list: Spending his newfound windfall. On an urge to splurge, he signs up to have his head cryogenically preserved in case of death. Then he gets himself killed crossing the street. Waking up 117 years later, Bob discovers his mind has been uploaded into a sentient space probe with the ability to replicate itself. Bob and his clones are on a mission to find new homes for humanity and boldly go where no Bob has gone before.

Re: Replacing my best friends with an LLM trained on 500k group chat messages

#65
post #49

While I love all these stories of turning your friends and loved ones into chat bots so you can talk to them forever, my brain immediately took a much darker turn because of course it did. How many emails, text messages, hangouts/gchat messages, etc, does Google have of you right now? And as part of their agreement, they can do pretty much whatever they like with those, can't they? Could Google, or any other company…

There is an episode of Black Mirror about this called "Be Right Back". Well worth a watch.

Re: Replacing my best friends with an LLM trained on 500k group chat messages

#66
post #19

This is awesome, clear and concise explanation. I was talking to my wife and debating whether I should build a model of each of us and store it somewhere in case something tragic happens to either of us. But we decided not to because something about it felt wrong but maybe I’ll make it just in case I regret not doing later on.

You certainly won’t regret it. If you need to get information out of your wife and she won’t cooperate you can coerce the LLM of your wife into having it divulge private information that your wife won’t reveal. This can be very useful for something like a divorce case. Best to find a way to keep the LLM regularly training on new data as well. Edit : stop downvoting ideas you don’t like, that’s not what it’s for.

Poe’s Law strikes again

Re: Replacing my best friends with an LLM trained on 500k group chat messages

#67
post #44

This was great, I'd love to do something like this but all my group chats are on WhatsApp or Signal!

Both Whatsapp and Signal store their messages in a sqlite-db as well! If your device is rooted/jailbroken, extracting the data is relatively simple (see e.g. here: https://towardsdatascience.com/analyzing-my-whatsapp-databas... )

You don't need to have it rooted, you can request the information: https://faq.whatsapp.com/526463418847093/

Re: Replacing my best friends with an LLM trained on 500k group chat messages

#68
post #10

Great write up, thanks for posting. I’ve been thinking of doing this for myself. One thought that’s haunting: how long before AI friends are more interesting and stimulating than any real person would be, leading people to prefer AI over humans to befriend… Super stimulus to end all super stimuluses?

> One thought that’s haunting: how long before AI friends are more interesting and stimulating than any real person would be It can simultaneously pass the bar exam and port Java applications by name to POSIX compliant C. It can get into deep philosophical conversations, guide you through doing market analysis, etc. It can take you on a text based adventure set in your favorite nostalgic video game, take on the perso…

Sounds like the commercial for a robot friend I was sold as a child:

http://www.theoldrobots.com/MyPal.html

"My brain lights up when I talk. My baseball cap is removable. Watch my eyes, ears nose and mouth move as I talk. I'll play catch with you using my removable funnel. Store your favorite things in my futuristic backpack. Play three interactive games on my chest. I'll pitch to you. Pull out my hideaway electronic hoop so we can play basketball. Adjust my legs to make me sit or stand. Roll me backwards or forwards and I'll speak. 3 foam balls and durable bat included. Shake my hand and show me we're pals. Use my removable flashlight to see in the dark. Tickle me to make me laugh. Store my flashlight in my backpack."

What a great friend! More interesting and stimulating than any human.

> But it can’t drop acid with you at a deadhead concert

And yet it's constantly hallucinating. So maybe it's not that it can't drop acid, but that it's always on acid. Food for thought.

Re: Replacing my best friends with an LLM trained on 500k group chat messages

#69
post #5

One wonders if eventually - historians will plug all the content from a person's personal notes, their diary, their chat logs, into an LLM, and perform research by talking to the AI about the person's life? If you trained an LLM against all the recorded discussions of Einstein - is it that different from talking to Einstein himself?

"If you trained an LLM against all the recorded discussions of Einstein - is it that different from talking to Einstein himself?" Yes, his daily visual, touch, hearing, smelling, readings... perceptions will be missing from the model.

Meh, Just Mock thoes in later.
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