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Zuckerberg's Grand Vision: Most of Your Friends Will Be AI

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Re: Zuckerberg's Grand Vision: Most of Your Friends Will Be AI

#111
post #38
post #6

> “I think people are going to want a system that knows them well and that kind of understands them in the way that their feed algorithms do,” My god, he thinks people like their feed algorithm.

> My god, he thinks people like their feed algorithm. So, besides this being hilariously out of touch, how come he (seemingly) believes this? Is this perhaps what he says to the public, while believing something else? Or surrounded himself with yes-people who won't actually tell him what they think? Or is he maybe just extrapolating this from usage data and assume because X hours of their day was spent on the feed, t…

The quote does not suggest that he thinks people like the feed algorithm, just that it knows a lot about them. Extending that to thinking an AI that knows a lot about you will be a likeable companion isn’t quite so crazy in that context. (Though it is seeming to disregard that many people think society would be healthier if people went outside with their friends more and instead goes all-in on AI dystopia.)

Re: Zuckerberg's Grand Vision: Most of Your Friends Will Be AI

#112
post #84

> “The average American I think has, it’s fewer than three friends, three people they’d consider friends, and the average person has demand for meaningfully more, I think it’s like 15 friends,” he said in the interview with podcaster Dwarkesh Patel. Is this true? I don't believe this AT ALL. No way that the average American would say they only have 3 friends, that's beyond low.

Nah that seems about right. If you remove family and online interactions, I'd wager most white men under the age of 40 who aren't married have less than 3 friends. I'd also wager that most single women under the age of 40 have less than 5 friends.

Huh, interesting, do you have any links I could read for more info? This is really surprising to me. And out of curiosity, what does being white have to do with it?

Re: Zuckerberg's Grand Vision: Most of Your Friends Will Be AI

#113
post #6

> “I think people are going to want a system that knows them well and that kind of understands them in the way that their feed algorithms do,” My god, he thinks people like their feed algorithm.

Zuck gets presentations with slides that say things like “XYZ feed ranking tweaks added 50 million net-new hours of time spent per day”

Numbers like that can warp a person’s perspective

Re: Zuckerberg's Grand Vision: Most of Your Friends Will Be AI

#114
post #39

Someone having a lot of artificial "friends" algorithmically based on their behavior sounds more like a disorder than a desirable state. Something in-between schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder, but outside your brain. But all is fine, as long someone can make money out of it.

[flagged]

Like when Facebook detected when teen girls deleted selfies so it could serve them beauty ads. https://futurism.com/facebook-beauty-targeted-ads

Re: Zuckerberg's Grand Vision: Most of Your Friends Will Be AI

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the virtual world, I do not believe these meme accounts will ever vanish, nor will platforms give you the magic button to not see them.

I don't disagree with either of those predictions, which is one of the main reasons why I just don't engage with those platforms anymore.

We have to do what's best for our benefit.

Re: Zuckerberg's Grand Vision: Most of Your Friends Will Be AI

#116
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does he? These are prime midlife crisis years for someone his age, I believe, and he has been lately trying on identities like a tween too shy and boring to manage a really florid case of chuuni.

> chuuni TIL a new word, which totally explains my teenage interest in the occult, Wicca, shapeshifting magic, etc. — although I did also have a syncretic New Age/Hindu/Catholic mother, which was the more obvious proximal cause.

Oh, I was the same. It's a species of healthy and developmentally sound 'rebellion,' I think.

Nothing really out of the ordinary - though of course I would as soon kick a puppy, as say so to someone in the throes of it! People deserve to enjoy themselves and kids deserve to be kids. But I do take "chuunibyou" (chūnibyō) as just part of what we do around that age, to begin the process of cleaving unto ourselves and defining who we are. It only happens English doesn't have a word for this aspect specifically; luckily for us, what it does have is a habit of mugging other languages for loose vocabulary.

Re: Zuckerberg's Grand Vision: Most of Your Friends Will Be AI

#118
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah that seems about right. If you remove family and online interactions, I'd wager most white men under the age of 40 who aren't married have less than 3 friends. I'd also wager that most single women under the age of 40 have less than 5 friends.

Huh, interesting, do you have any links I could read for more info? This is really surprising to me. And out of curiosity, what does being white have to do with it?

I believe the latest episode of the "Modern Love" podcast is kind of about this.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/14/podcasts/why-boys-and-men...

I don't have any more links off hand, but I don't think this is a "new" thing as I've seen it discussed quite a lot over the years. Things such as "Why do white men kill themselves so much more than other groups?"

I don't want to get into the whole "white men's problems are more important than other groups problems" because it's very sensitive and that isn't the point I was making.

There are a ton of reasons why this seems to afflict white men a bit more and I don't know which of them are more valid than others. Whether the idea that it affects white men more is probably contentious in itself. That's not the point.

I'm not claiming I'm right or that it's a serious issue. It's just an interesting topic that probably has a billion factors contributing. It's interesting to think about and can be eye opening to what other people are going through.

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