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We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

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Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#291

Post by djeastm »

yunwal wrote: post #205
monktastic1 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be so quick to divide the world so neatly into victims and perpetrators. Every FAANG engineer I know, for example, could easily retire by mid-40s by keeping consumption in check. Instead, nearly every single one chose instead to "improve their lifestyles." Not blaming them, either, because it's cultural programming -- but until we all learn to slow down a bit and reflect, the madness isn't going to stop.

What are you going to do when you retire by 40 and all your friends (and s/o) are still working? I don’t really understand the appeal.

You can't think of anything you'd want to do with your daytime hours other than work?

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#292

Post by svachalek »

anton-c wrote: post #47
cedws wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s also doomscrolling. I genuinely think a large portion of Gen Z would rather stay in bed watching Instagram reels than go out to a bar or club. I’ve been wondering recently what impact banning social media would have on birth rates. I’m confident it would be positive but I’m not sure on what magnitude.

Not gen z but I just don't drink(i worked in clubs and didnt like that scene either). I think there's a growing portion of gen z that is like that if I recall what I've read correctly. They drink less. I genuinely don't know what to do in my smaller suburb where the verbs aren't "look" "eat" or "drink". I wanna do. Museums are mostly boring to me, there's little interaction. I don't meet people at the library or gym.…

Sports and games. Really depends on what you're into but there's lots of different levels of interaction, physical activity, mental work, competition, etc. Just need to find your people.

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#293

Post by IgorPartola »

johnfn wrote: post #194
IgorPartola wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d like to offer an alternative explanation than AI to this. Shit is just too damn expensive. If you want to go hang out with friends it will cost you $4-8 for a cup of coffee. A dinner starts at $50/person. A trip to an amusement park is over $100 easily. The median individual income in the US currently is just over $65k/year or about $32.50/hour. That means half the workforce makes less than that. When an 8oz cock…

I don't buy this explanation. There are plenty of things you can do together that don't cost very much - or anything at all. You can go take a hike. You can go to the park and hang out, or play a board game. You can go to a court and play pickleball. Heck, go to the library! All these things are free and many people do them.

See my second point: financial stress leaves people depressed.

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#294

Post by jjulius »

IgorPartola wrote: post #288
jjulius wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A dinner starts at $50/person. I went to dinner with a friend last night and my meal was $22. I go to lunch with coworkers and often only spend ~$15-ish. One also doesn't need to do activities that cost money in order to hang out with people one knows. Get together and play board games or cards. I hung out with my friends last weekend - we brought our records over and DJ'd, someone brought some frozen burgers, I su…

And that’s my second point. Even if you do things that don’t cost money, the stress of living paycheck to paycheck is going to sap any will to live from most people experiencing it.

As it happens, I live paycheck to paycheck. Prioritizing those moments is how I steer clear from being too stressed. :)

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#295

Post by egypturnash »

It's not going to solve loneliness.

It's just going to provide a weak substitute for actual socialization.

Talking with actual humans but only over the internet is not enough, I have been there and it was a terrible trap, it provided just enough to make it possible for me to avoid physical socialization, while not giving me enough to actually thrive; we need to get out and be in the same place with other people, doing things, making emotional connections, even if we are awkward in person because too much of our socialization has been online and we barely know how to carry on a conversation.

Talking with a fake person over the internet is not going to be any better, especially if this fake person is built with the same meticulous attention to maximizing engagement at the expense of everything else that has thus far characterized all our social media, it doesn't matter if these interactions make you happier or sadder, it doesn't matter if these interactions are good for you or society as a whole, as long as you keep coming back so the company can point at an ever-growing MAU number when they make their next pitch for funding.

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#296

Post by tekno45 »

anal_reactor wrote: post #276
dv_dt wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though it's popularized to blame social media and phones, economics should not be overlooked. Pay for young generations is lagging and restaurants and bar prices are super high. Public spaces for informal gatherings has shrunk - eg fewer malls

Bullshit. Most people can afford grabbing a beer in a supermarket and going to the park. They just choose not to. I think the real change is that nowadays it's just easier and more practical NOT to maintain friendships. Yes, it's lonely, but it's more efficient.

ignoring data for your feelings is how we got here.

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#297

Post by kristofferR »

handwarmers wrote: post #33

Paul Bloom (the author if this article) is pretty legendary in the psychology realm. This is not your average run of the mill writer looking to tap into the doomer vibe. He makes a pretty detailed argument about why loneliness can be a much bigger and more complex problem than its tame name suggests, and the subtle ways in which AI has the potential to exacerbate it.

I don't think I've ever heard of the guy, but I came here to comment that I really loved his style of writing in this article - it seemed really empathetic to all viewpoints of the issue of using AI to cure/prevent loneliness, instead of trying to argue for his viewpoint.

Gonna read his book Psych for sure.

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#298

Post by SoftTalker »

1718627440 wrote: post #174
al_borland wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is already happening. I keep seeing articles and videos about Gen Z opting for dumb phones and getting into 90s or early 00s era tech. It just needs to reach enough of a tipping point for companies to get behind it, and hopefully not be a fad that just burns out. This part is all very unlikely. The mainstream will have to get really bad. To buy new "90s" stuff, it's not as good as what we had in the actual 90s.…

I think the ones using only "dumbphones" are also the people who don't like companies influencing them. Also the market is already saturated. I get good "dumbphones" for less than 10€. An adult can basically get a new phone everyday. It's really bad, not more people will be using them. My phone has a browser with a cursor(!), and the equivalents of Google Maps and Spotify, that also (would) work offline. But I can't…

Is there really a true dumbphone made today? The "flip phones" I see are still running Android and have Facebook and web browsers.

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#299

Post by nottorp »

benreesman wrote: post #202
dclowd9901 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same gen (42). I feel like we have a really unique lens on all of this, too: old enough to remember being in a smoky bar, socializing (not healthy, but fun as hell), but also young enough to have had some technological exposure at a crucial time of our youth. We _leveraged_ technology for socializing in person. Our online pursuits were around organizing lighthearted social goofiness like "getting iced", LARPing, and…

I'm about to be 41 and likewise very distinctly remember a time when cell phones were a vehicle for organizing the evening or weekend's plans, quickly making a connection with someone you met ("let me get your number"), whatever, buying weed or something. The point was to make friends, get laid, network without calling it that. The idea was that some of those random people would become your crew of friends, one of th…

> when cell phones were a vehicle for organizing the evening or weekend's plans

Still are! As I post this we're establishing where we meet for beers and at what time on my whatsapp friends group. Ofc, we're old geezers too.

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#300

Post by HPsquared »

roncesvalles wrote: post #279
anal_reactor wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bullshit. Most people can afford grabbing a beer in a supermarket and going to the park. They just choose not to. I think the real change is that nowadays it's just easier and more practical NOT to maintain friendships. Yes, it's lonely, but it's more efficient.

Drinking outdoors (let alone at a public park) is just not a thing outside Europe.

Literally illegal in many places. Edit: including much of Europe.
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