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Social Skill Training with Large Language Models

arxiv.org

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Re: Social Skill Training with Large Language Models

#41

Post by ToucanLoucan »

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #35
vouaobrasil wrote: post #22

> However, practice environments for social skills are typically out of reach for most people. This is exactly what I predicted...AI and technology isolates us from each other by destroying communities, and is slowly replacing real human interaction with computer interaction. The end result is that in the future, people will have fewer and fewer opportunities to interact with others and will have to be drip-fed satia…

I’m not sure I agree with this take that technology is taking away community in general. I think communities are simply changing. I mean HN is a community and it’s all technology. IRC is a ton of fond memories for me in a time where my irl community was failing me as an awkward nerd, and gave me friends that I can irl meet and chat with now. You seem to have this idealized notion of what community was like outside of…

> You seem to have this idealized notion of what community was like outside of technology.

By "idealized notion" you mean "the vast, vast majority of human history"?

"Community" is not typically defined as "the people you talk bullshit with for fun" and that's all. Your community is the people you live with and among. It's the people you're most likely to experience Big Things with, things like natural disasters, weird stuff like power outages, or your building catching fire if you live in an apartment or condo. If you regularly interact with them, you probably also see them during fun things: street cookouts or yard sales (we do both at the same time, you get a lot more customers by when they have 14 sales to peruse and brats for sale!) or just see them grilling out when you go to get your mail, and end up having a few beers with them and talking about goings on. Hell, depending on your locale or culture, maybe your community feeds itself too from bulk kitchens, or does laundry, etc. etc.

I say this as an introvert who opted out of every social thing I could in favor of forums and games when I was growing up: I was wrong. I was deeply, deeply wrong. People are pretty great. They're not perfect, and they can be a lot of work, but ultimately I was not hiding from people because they were bad or annoying or stupid: I was hiding from them because I was emotionally stunted and didn't want to deal with it. That was it. And once I did I found human connection that was so much more sustaining, in a way where I can't believe I once thought ^this^, chatting online, was an adequate replacement.

It makes me sad to think how many people out there are just sitting in their little rooms or cubicles because for whatever reason or set of reasons, they don't feel comfortable engaging their fellow man, nursing a hollowness that will follow them around until they do because fundamentally humans are just not meant to exist alone. We just aren't, it's in our DNA to make groups and be among friends.

Re: Social Skill Training with Large Language Models

#42

Post by ben_w »

vouaobrasil wrote: post #22

> However, practice environments for social skills are typically out of reach for most people. This is exactly what I predicted...AI and technology isolates us from each other by destroying communities, and is slowly replacing real human interaction with computer interaction. The end result is that in the future, people will have fewer and fewer opportunities to interact with others and will have to be drip-fed satia…

> Think of self-checkouts, chat-bots, AI partners and therapists, technology making us more self-reliant (which is a bad thing).

When was the last time you used a bank teller rather than an ATM? For me, at least 5 years ago. On the other hand, despite ATMs, I'm told more people than ever work as bank tellers.

> If we keep letting technology take away our communities this way in this two step process (first, take away the community then supply an inferior, superficial substitute), then we will compelely lose our humanity.

I think the process is backwards: the substitutes (superficially better but not really) are usually what cause people to leave local communities. It's video games which take people out of clubs and cause the clubs to close, not a lack of clubs which drive them to video games.

And the disjoint of remote people, of parasocial relationships, isn't new. Let's say you're in St. Paul's Cathedral as a worshiper: it seats 3,500, far more than the Dunbar’s number our brains can cope with. The Bishop of London doesn't know all the people present, for the same fundamental reason that someone with 3500 "friends" on Facebook doesn't really know all of them. All well before radio stars and TV, let alone the internet and AI.

So, whatever of our humanity can be killed off by the mere existence of this change (as opposed to deeper things like malicious propaganda), it was already dead long before any of us were born.

Re: Social Skill Training with Large Language Models

#43

Post by [deleted] »

vouaobrasil wrote: post #40
SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure I agree with this take that technology is taking away community in general. I think communities are simply changing. I mean HN is a community and it’s all technology. IRC is a ton of fond memories for me in a time where my irl community was failing me as an awkward nerd, and gave me friends that I can irl meet and chat with now. You seem to have this idealized notion of what community was like outside of…

> I mean HN is a community and it’s all technology. IRC is a ton of fond memories for me in a time where my irl community was failing me as an awkward nerd, and gave me friends that I can irl meet and chat with now. Well, personally, I would love to know what percentage of people here actually cared about the other people here in terms of actually caring, like having a real friend. I'm assuming it's rather close to z…

[deleted]

Re: Social Skill Training with Large Language Models

#44

Post by ben_w »

exe34 wrote: post #17
rrr_oh_man wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A method I use with ChatGPT is to purposefully add typos to make it reply with more specificity. Imho it seems to work.

A trick I've used with asking for help online is to give the wrong answer to my own question - e.g. "I really want to lay out this page with Css but this doesn't work. Here's how I ended up doing it with a table." - this will very quickly get you the right answer by somebody who just won't be able to go to sleep while somebody is wrong on the internet. I wonder if LLMs can be taught outrage and spite.

> I wonder if LLMs can be taught outrage and spite.

They can be taught to role-play it, which is just as good (and just as bad).

Re: Social Skill Training with Large Language Models

#45

Post by vouaobrasil »

ben_w wrote: post #42
vouaobrasil wrote: post #22

> However, practice environments for social skills are typically out of reach for most people. This is exactly what I predicted...AI and technology isolates us from each other by destroying communities, and is slowly replacing real human interaction with computer interaction. The end result is that in the future, people will have fewer and fewer opportunities to interact with others and will have to be drip-fed satia…

> Think of self-checkouts, chat-bots, AI partners and therapists, technology making us more self-reliant (which is a bad thing). When was the last time you used a bank teller rather than an ATM? For me, at least 5 years ago. On the other hand, despite ATMs, I'm told more people than ever work as bank tellers. > If we keep letting technology take away our communities this way in this two step process (first, take away…

> I think the process is backwards: the substitutes (superficially better but not really) are usually what cause people to leave local communities. It's video games which take people out of clubs and cause the clubs to close, not a lack of clubs which drive them to video games.

Yes, that's what I meant. Sorry, I was not clear. I do mean that we have a process of substitute > leaving community > more substitute. I just isolated two steps from this, but I see how that was confusing.

Re: Social Skill Training with Large Language Models

#46

Post by the_snooze »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #41
SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure I agree with this take that technology is taking away community in general. I think communities are simply changing. I mean HN is a community and it’s all technology. IRC is a ton of fond memories for me in a time where my irl community was failing me as an awkward nerd, and gave me friends that I can irl meet and chat with now. You seem to have this idealized notion of what community was like outside of…

> You seem to have this idealized notion of what community was like outside of technology. By "idealized notion" you mean "the vast, vast majority of human history"? "Community" is not typically defined as "the people you talk bullshit with for fun" and that's all. Your community is the people you live with and among. It's the people you're most likely to experience Big Things with, things like natural disasters, wei…

A good test for what a community is is: "Who will vouch for you?" You can have a machine pretend to talk the talk and parrot it back to you for "training," but you're still an unknown outsider at the end of the day.

I don't think HN is a community in that sense. There's no "knowing" one another. There's no real accountability or shame of getting kicked out. We're all just text-generators.

Re: Social Skill Training with Large Language Models

#47

Post by vouaobrasil »

ben_w wrote: post #42
vouaobrasil wrote: post #22

> However, practice environments for social skills are typically out of reach for most people. This is exactly what I predicted...AI and technology isolates us from each other by destroying communities, and is slowly replacing real human interaction with computer interaction. The end result is that in the future, people will have fewer and fewer opportunities to interact with others and will have to be drip-fed satia…

> Think of self-checkouts, chat-bots, AI partners and therapists, technology making us more self-reliant (which is a bad thing). When was the last time you used a bank teller rather than an ATM? For me, at least 5 years ago. On the other hand, despite ATMs, I'm told more people than ever work as bank tellers. > If we keep letting technology take away our communities this way in this two step process (first, take away…

> All well before radio stars and TV, let alone the internet and AI.

All true, which is why I think we should be cautious of ALL technology, and try and vigorously decide which ones we should use in a process similar to that of the Amish (but without the religion, perhaps). Any discussion would be better than the ZERO discussion that we have today.

Re: Social Skill Training with Large Language Models

#48

Post by ziddoap »

vouaobrasil wrote: post #22

> However, practice environments for social skills are typically out of reach for most people. This is exactly what I predicted...AI and technology isolates us from each other by destroying communities, and is slowly replacing real human interaction with computer interaction. The end result is that in the future, people will have fewer and fewer opportunities to interact with others and will have to be drip-fed satia…

This is a pretty exaggerated take.

Technology is a tool, it can be used to increase your social interactions (e.g. finding like-minded groups online to meet up with in-person) or to decrease your social interactions.

You say technology is "destroying communities", but don't acknowledge all of the communities technology has helped build.

Re: Social Skill Training with Large Language Models

#50

Post by vouaobrasil »

ziddoap wrote: post #48
vouaobrasil wrote: post #22

> However, practice environments for social skills are typically out of reach for most people. This is exactly what I predicted...AI and technology isolates us from each other by destroying communities, and is slowly replacing real human interaction with computer interaction. The end result is that in the future, people will have fewer and fewer opportunities to interact with others and will have to be drip-fed satia…

This is a pretty exaggerated take. Technology is a tool, it can be used to increase your social interactions (e.g. finding like-minded groups online to meet up with in-person) or to decrease your social interactions. You say technology is "destroying communities", but don't acknowledge all of the communities technology has helped build.

> Technology is a tool, it can be used to increase your social interactions (e.g. finding like-minded groups online to meet up with in-person) or to decrease your social interactions.

The number one myth about technology is that it is just a tool. It is a society-shaping force. For example, WhatsApp in Brazil: even if you HATE whatsapp and Meta and don't want to use it, you might be forced to use it if you want to get a job, book a hotel, etc, because it's so entrenched.

Sorry to say, but technology works through first being optional, then being adopted because it gives a person marginal advantages in the short-term, and then being mandatory because the majority adopts it.

Many people are forced to use technology even if they would rather not because if this process. That technology is a tool is the greatest misprepresentation of any concept in the history of humanity.

Edit: let me ask you one question, how did you get the idea that technology is just a tool? How many times to people repeat this mantra? Try thinking about it more deeply and over many decades of time and understand the root cause of this thinking.

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