We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness • Hacker News Board

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

#381

Post by Aurornis » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 5:23 PM UTC

godot wrote: post #341

Aurornis wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I go out and do different activities that involve socialization. There are more people than ever going to the climbing gyms, meeting at the hiking trailhead, hanging out in the ski lift lines, and so on. All of the social places I’ve been going and activities I’ve been doing since a teenager are more crowded than ever, at a rate far faster than the local population growth. Many of the people doing these activities di…

One thing that not enough people realize is that the gap between haves and have-nots widen in almost everything when technology advances, and I don't mean just wealth (that is one too), but also knowledge (LLM/AI widens knowledge gap between the curious and not-curious by a lot), and in this case socialization -- the availability of technology (in both organizing activities like your example and in AI loneliness like…

> In the old days, not-socialize people tend to be forced to socialize anyway; but techonology enables them to not-socialize 99% of time now. Likewise, socialize people needed to put in more effort to socialize in the old days, but now it's easier than ever.

This is my favorite point from the whole thread.

It has never been easier for someone to stay home, get a remote job, and even order grocery delivery to their door if they want.

A couple of my friends started going down that path unintentionally. Once you have a well paying remote job and your city makes it easy to get groceries and food delivered, combined with the infinite availability of entertainment on Netflix or from games, social skills and relationships can start to atrophy rapidly.

It’s even worse for people who never had much of a social life. When there are so many paths forward to continue avoiding a social life, it takes a lot of effort to break free and change your routines.

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

#382

Post by shkkmo » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 5:24 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #269

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…

> 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 cocktail costs you an hour of your life because you work for minimum wage, you’d rather stay home…

> You don’t need to pay anything more than what it takes to get you to someone else or a common meeting spot like a walk through the park.

You also need somone to go take that walk with you and the social skills to organize it

Yes, it is possible to hangout without spending money. That said, the kind of activities it tends to be easier to get people to agree to go do also tend to cost money. As those activities cost more and more, that decreases the amount of socialization that happens. Sure, some of that shifts to lower cost activities and perhaps that shift increases over time as culture changes. That doesn't mean that rising prices don't explain some of the measured decrease in social activity.

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

#383

Post by Aurornis » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 5:24 PM UTC

zhivota wrote: post #366

Aurornis wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're seeing people being social because you're going to those situations. No, I’m saying the same social activities are more popular now than they were 10-20 years ago. I’ve been doing some of the same activities and going on some of the same hikes, bikes, runs, trails, and parks on and off for two decades. The popularity of these activities has exploded. Even previously hidden trails and hikes are now very busy…

What you're missing is that the activities you're doing were not the activities people were largely doing 10-20 years ago to be social. Going to bars was probably at least 100x more popular than hiking, so even if you see a 10x growth in hiking, if going to bars goes down even 10%, it dwarfs hiking's contribution to overall social activity of the population.

We have more bars than ever before. Existing bars have expanded a lot. Bars are crowded and some even have lines now.

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

#384

Post by Martin_Silenus » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 5:24 PM UTC

mindwok wrote: post #340

We, humanity, are on the verge of a question we’ve never had to answer before: what does it mean to be human, and do we even want to be? Because for the first time in history, we might be able to answer “no”. In many major facets life we’re about to transcend the boundaries that have limited us since we started talking to each other. Health with ozempic and CRISPR, relationships with AI companions, entertainment with…

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

#385

Post by firefoxd » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 5:26 PM UTC

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

#386

Post by RugnirViking » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 5:27 PM UTC

HPsquared wrote: post #300

roncesvalles wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

where is it illegal in Europe? I've not encountered this yet and I've lived here my whole life. It's always struck me as a weird puritanical American thing

Looked online and found maps suggesting eastern Europe has more laws relating to it, although many of them in practice don't apply

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

#387

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 5:27 PM UTC

parineum wrote: post #355

DrillShopper wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is highly regional. I live in the Midwest US. The city government sponsors floating (as in they move around, not that they're in water) beer gardens across public parks in the summer, and our local Lutheran and Catholic churches will run outdoor beer gardens and barbecues as a way to enjoy the nice weather and bring in a little money. The various state fairs also sell beer, and a local outdoor, public music fest…

> This is highly regional. Maybe openly but I don't know of a place where a cop will stop you and ask what's in your red cup. Parent commenter is a narc.

I imagine there are 3 different types of locale:

* Drinking in public is legal

* Drinking in public is illegal (strictly enforced)

* Drinking in public is illegal (give cops discretion to arrest intoxicated troublemakers who are hollering, pestering people, or otherwise engaging in mild antisocial behavior)

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

#388

Post by gchamonlive » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 5:28 PM UTC

HPsquared wrote: post #361

gchamonlive wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried doing anything other than work that isn't consuming something? I have, from drawing to music, from writing novels to doing programming projects on my free time. It's not very fun, you aren't good at most of it and it's very frustrating. It's also very rewarding being able to overcome limitations and building up skills. But it's first and foremost very demanding. You can't expect someone that just got r…

That's still work, it's just self-directed and not for selling to the general market. Same as how exercising is work.

What isn't work then?

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

#389

Post by spencerflem » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 5:29 PM UTC

socalgal2 wrote: post #380

spencerflem wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment makes me so sad- I mean this genuinely, looking at your comment history its clear you've fallen into the far right rabbit hole, and this is what "catch you when you say something they don't like" means. No shade to you, there are hundred billion dollar campaigns waged to trap people in ideas like those that are designed to be isolating. But their goal is to push you away from friends and family and towar…

Your comment makes me sad, its clear you've fallen into the "blind left" rabbit hole. You take a comment like "catch you when you say something they don't like" means and assume they are "far right". On a spectrum of 1 to 10 where 1 is right and 10 is left. You can be at 6-7 and the people are 8-9-10 will shout your head off. This is a well documented issue in this day and age. Plenty of left thought leaders complain…

No offense, but if they're having so much trouble maintaining connections with the people around them that they believe that they have no more need for other humans altogether, something has gone wrong.

The far right was from looking at their comment history and a little bit of reading between the lines. Maybe my read is wrong, but if you don't at least see the parent comment as a cry for help I don't know what to tell you.

Its well documented that online people will scream their heads off because there's no relationship worth maintaining, everything is temporary, but IRL a much wider range is tolerated.

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

#390

Post by AlecSchueler » Sat, Aug 02, 2025, 5:29 PM UTC

Nathanba wrote: post #364

AlecSchueler wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real humans are real. Their flaws are real. Your emotions around them are real and so are the benefits to socialising. Accepting people as the flawed actors they are is a part of becoming a mature adult.

AI is also real to me. My emotions around AI are also real, I deeply appreciate when the AI helps me figure something out or talks to me. I think this type of response will get rarer as AI develops further and people realize that there is now competition and these sentimental reasons will have much less weight. I also have no idea what you mean by "benefits to socializing", I don't see much of any benefit compared to…

I can only suggest you ask your AI friends about the benefits of socialising and its importance to human development, they can explain it to you in a way that might not make you defensive. Yes, accepting things you have no control over is a sign of maturity. Hiding in your room talking to your phone won't make the scary people outside disappear, you're going to have to deal with them someday.