Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 548 posts

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#281

Post by blitzar »

chubot wrote: post #216
titanomachy wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people conduct very few real estate transactions in their life, so maybe they just don’t care enough to remember stuff like this.

People don't care if they're colluded against for tens of thousands of dollars? 6% of an American house is a lot of money Because it's often spread over many years of a mortgage, I can see why SOME people might not. It is not as concrete as someone stealing your car, but the amount is in the same ballpark But some people should care - these are the same people who track their stock portfolios closely, have college fu…

A mortgage is the biggest expense for many people, and generally speaking I've found that people have no idea what they are doing and don't want to fuck it up so will happily pay lots of "professionals" whatever they say are "totally normal fees that everyone pays"

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#282

Post by forgotoldacc »

joshtbradley wrote: post #240

It surprises me how hyper focused people are on AI risk when we’ve grown numb to the millions of preventable deaths that happen every year. 8 million people to smoking. 4 million to obesity. 2.6 million to alcohol. 2.5 million to healthcare. 1.2 million to cars. Hell even coconuts kill 150 people per year. It is tragic that people have lost their mind or their life to AI, and it should be prevented. But those using t…

People see that the danger will grow exponentially. Trying to fix the problems of obesity and cars now that they're deeply rooted global issues and have been for decades is hard. AI is still new. We can limit the damage before it's too late.

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#283

Post by komali2 »

ptsneves wrote: post #268
komali2 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly right, and that's fine. Our society is unwilling to take the steps necessary to end the root cause of drug abuse epidemics (privatization of healthcare industry, lack of social safety net, war on drugs), so localities have to do harm reduction in immediately actionable ways. So too is our society unable to do what's necessary to reduce the startling alienation happening (halt suburban hyperspread, redu…

Seeing society as responsible for drug abuse issues, of their many varieties, is very Rousseau.

Rousseau and Hobbes were just two dudes. I'd wager neither of them cracked the code entirely.

To claim that addicts have no responsibility for their addiction is as absurd as the idea that individual humans can be fully identified separate from the society that raised them or that they live in.

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#284

Post by pjc50 »

joshtbradley wrote: post #259
mrbungie wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It surprises me how hyper focused people are on AI risk when we’ve grown numb to the millions of preventable deaths that happen every year. Companies are bombarding us with AI in every piece of media they can, obviously with a bias on the positive. This focus is an expected counterresponse to said pressure, and it is actually good that we're not just focusing on what they want us to hear (i.e. just the pros and not…

Fair point. I actually wish Altman/Amodei/Hassabis would stop overhyping the technology and also focus on the broader humanitarian mission. Development coupled to DAUs… I’m not sure I agree that’s the problem. I would argue AI adoption is more due to utility than addictiveness. Unlike social media companies, they provide direct value to many consumers and professionals across many domains. Just today it helped me wri…

> focus on the broader humanitarian mission

There is no humanitarian mission, there is only stock prices.

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#285

Post by ACCount37 »

Me1000 wrote: post #56
leoh wrote: post #12

Anthropic was founded by exiles of OpenAI's safety team, who quit en masse about 5 years ago. Then a few years later, the board tried to fire Altman. When will folks stop trusting OpenAI?

Claude has a sycophancy problem too. I actually ended up canceling my subscription because I got sick of being "absolutely right" about everything.

Compared to GPT-5 on today's defaults? Claude is good.

No, it isn't "good", it's grating as fuck. But OpenAI's obnoxious personality tuning is so much worse. Makes Anthropic look good.

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#286

Post by blitzar »

bilekas wrote: post #227

> It did matter to Mr. Turley and the product team. The rate of people returning to the chatbot daily or weekly had become an important measuring stick by April 2025 And there it is. As soon as one person greedy enough is involved, then people and their information will always be monetized. What we could have learnt without tuning the AI to promote further user engagement. Now it's already polluted with an agenda to…

Now lets charge them per word they send and receive.

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#287

Post by ZpJuUuNaQ5 »

gonzobonzo wrote: post #153
quitit wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of reasons why having a chatbot partner is a bad idea (especially for young people), but here's just a few: - The sycophantic and unchallenging behaviours of chatbots leaves a person unconditioned for human interactions. Real relationships have friction, from this we develop important interpersonal skills such as setting boundaries, settling disagreements, building compromise, standing up for oneself…

That's the default chatbot behavior. Many of these people appear to be creating their own personalities for the chatbots, and it's not too difficult to make an opinionated and challenging chatbot, or one that mimics someone who has their own experiences. Though designing one's ideal partner certainly raises some questions, and I wouldn't be surprised if many are picking sycophantic over challenging. People opting for…

>People opting for unchallenging pseudo-relationships over messy human interaction is part of a larger trend, though.

I don't disagree that some people take AI way too far, but overall, I don't see this as a significant issue. Why must relationships and human interaction be shoved down everyone's throats? People tend to impose their views on what is "right" onto others, whether it concerns religion, politics, appearance, opinions, having children, etc. In the end, it just doesn't matter - choose AI, cats, dogs, family, solitude, life, death, fit in, isolate - it's just a temporary experience. Ultimately, you will die and turn to dust like around 100 billion nameless others.

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#288

Post by tonyedgecombe »

arresin wrote: post #160
j-pb wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After having spoken with one of the people there I'm a lot less concerned to be honest. They described it as something akin to an emotional vibrator, that they didn't attribute any sentience to, and that didn't trigger their PTSD that they normally experienced when dating men. If AI can provide emotional support and an outlet for survivors who would otherwise not be able to have that kind of emotional need fulfilled,…

Why do so many women have ptsd from dating?

Probably all the choking.

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#289

Post by saint_fiasco »

2WSSd-JzVM wrote: post #277
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #201

Alternative to archive.is busybox wget -U googlebot -O 1.htm https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/23/technology/openai-chatgpt-users-risks.html firefox ./1.htm

It pisses me off. Does anyone know when exactly Google stopped carrying about cloaking? It is the same with Linkedin, you will get a login screen when following a link from Google results. Which was punishable with penalizing position or even removing of site in "good old times".

How do you know it's not still punished? You didn't find that article through Google.

Maybe they are still being punished but linkedin and nyt figure that the punishment is worth it.

Post reply on HN