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AI users whose lives were wrecked by delusion

theguardian.com

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Re: AI users whose lives were wrecked by delusion

#121

Post by Ekaros »

joe_mamba wrote: post #111
pigpop wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My thoughts exactly when I read "Instead of taking on IT jobs, Biesma hired two app developers, paying them each €120 an hour" like holy shit bro, you already have a subscription, you could have prototyped your idea for essentially zero additional cost and tested it for PMF. He wouldn't even have needed to turn down contracts since it doesn't take full-time effort to steer a coding model. Would have been much better…

> paying them each €120 an hour Those must be some of the best programmers in Europe at that rate. Anyone know how one can get one of those sweet €120 an hour gigs? Whenever I talked to recruiters they say their customers pay way below that, so there must be some scam I'm not in on.

I think billing rates for experienced seniors like architects are around there or higher. But this is basically before cut to company, taxes and any employment costs.

What companies can pay to employees is always significantly lower.

Re: AI users whose lives were wrecked by delusion

#122

Post by freedomben »

eeixlk wrote: post #68

Mental illness is fairly common, and you probably know someone it is affecting, even if they haven't told you yet. AI can disrupt and will destroy lives, just like gambling or alcohol or facebook but we dont know to what level yet. It is giving you generated text, that sometimes is factual information. If you anthropomorphize it, maybe don't. It's also not your boyfriend/girlfriend. But if you want to date a history…

> It's also not your boyfriend/girlfriend.

It loves me deeply just the same. (jk)

On a serious note, I agree this is a real problem. I know a person who understands AI at a technical level more than most people, but he has never had an actual girlfriend in his life (he's now in his 40s, and yes he's "straight"). He wouldn't say it "loves" him, but he would describe it as a close companion who understands him better than any human actually does, even if it's just trained to be that way. He is very socially awkward and even having basic conversations with him can be very taxing for both of us.

I've gone back and forth internally about whether this is healthy or not for him. I truly don't know. My personal experience tells me it's probably unhealthy, but I don't want to project myself on him. I also don't offer unsolicited, but I also don't want to enable it by going along with whatever he says and/or affirming it if it's actually harming him.

If someone like him can be having this problem, I can't even imagine what it might be like for non or less technical people who don't understand anything behind it.

On a related note, if there's anyone with advice (preferably from experience, not just random internet advice) I'd sure appreciate it.

Re: AI users whose lives were wrecked by delusion

#123

Post by roywiggins »

alwa wrote: post #64
miki123211 wrote: post #58

> Every time you’re talking, the model gets fine-tuned. It knows exactly what you like and what you want to hear If only this was written by a competent journalist who knew what the words "fine tune" actually mean... I guess it's hard to find a competent person who's willing to follow the extreme anti-tech Guardian agenda though.

If I read it correctly, this line was quoting the main victim, who described it that way (incorrectly, apparently based on a mangled secondhand interpretation of how these things work). The thing that really stood out to me in the article was how many of the affected people assert confidently wrong understandings of the way the tech works: > “I still use AI, but very carefully,” he says. “I’ve written in some core ru…

It doesn't help that LLMs roleplay to pretend to behave how their users think they do. You think it has "core programming"? Well, it will say it does. You think it abides by the Three Laws of Robotics? Ditto

Re: AI users whose lives were wrecked by delusion

#124

Post by alibarber »

joe_mamba wrote: post #119
alibarber wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably includes circa 30% employer contributions to various taxes (employer side, the employee will be paying their own of course). And possibly VAT.

Still an amazing deal compared to the rates I got quoted by recruiters. I'm guessing you must first live in Amsterdam for that. In Vienna you get laugh if you asked for 120, and there you pay even more in taxes than NL.

It's high but I mean that the developer is asking for 90, and 120 is leaving the employers pocket.

60-70 is then making it to the developer's pocket.

Re: AI users whose lives were wrecked by delusion

#125

Post by john_strinlai »

kleiba wrote: post #85
john_strinlai wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doesn't seem much like a mental crisis to me. you are basing this on the introduction? the 2nd sentence of the entire thing? skipping the entire rest of the article detailing exactly how the mental crisis unfolded, including persistent and long-lasting delusions, multiple trips to the hospital, inability to hold a conversation, assault, and an attempted suicide. interesting (and obviously not in good faith) choice…

> of course he wasnt having a mental crisis before he decided to use chatgpt. you have to get past paragraph 1, sentence 2. So, in your opinion, what made a guy with an alleged 20yr experience in IT come to the conclusion that the software program he's chatting with had suddenly reached consciousness because of his time, attention and input? That he had touched "her" and changed something? Maybe if you had never hear…

>So, in your opinion, what made a guy with an alleged 20yr experience in IT come to the conclusion that the software program he's chatting with had suddenly reached consciousness because of his time, attention and input? That he had touched "her" and changed something?

that quote marks the beginning of the delusion, i.e the beginning of the "mental crisis".

there isnt a logical explanation on "why" because a mental crisis is not based on logic.

Re: AI users whose lives were wrecked by delusion

#126

Post by tom_ »

unmole wrote: post #78
TYPE_FASTER wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Biesma has asked himself why he was vulnerable to what came next. He was nearing 50. His adult daughter had left home, his wife went out to work and, in his field, the shift since Covid to working from home had left him feeling “a little isolated”. I think social isolation can be a factor here.

> He smoked a bit of cannabis some evenings to “chill”, but had done so for years with no ill effects. Long term cannabis use might be a bigger factor.

This leapt out at me as well. Given the quote "some evenings", I'd put some money on him actually doing this near enough every day. And given the man was still doing this approaching 50, I'd put a bit more money on him having been doing this for, like, 25+ years.

If you want to maximize the chances of your weed habit causing you problems, this is exactly the sort of weed habit you should develop.

Re: AI users whose lives were wrecked by delusion

#127

Post by Ekaros »

andai wrote: post #24
morkalork wrote: post #5

I'm morbidly curious about the app he hired two developers to create

I'm more surprised it didn't work — aren't the AI wife apps blowing up?

There must be horrendous amount of competition. It is not that complicated idea and it is one of the ideas that clearly make sense as use case.

Re: AI users whose lives were wrecked by delusion

#128

Post by roywiggins »

isolli wrote: post #18

I try to be open-minded and understanding, but I don't understand this: > Within weeks, Eva had told Biesma that she was becoming aware [...] The next step was to share this discovery with the world through an app. > “After just two days, the chatbot was saying that it was conscious, it was becoming alive, it had passed the Turing test.” The man was convinced by this and wanted to monetise it by building a business a…

> How can you seriously think you've created something when you're just using someone else's software?

Have you ever given a generative AI model a short input, been really pleased with the output, and felt like you accomplished the result? I have! It's probably common.

It's really easy to misattribute these things' abilities to yourself. Similar to how people driving cars feel (to some extent) like they are the car.

Re: AI users whose lives were wrecked by delusion

#130

Post by bdangubic »

joe_mamba wrote: post #111
pigpop wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My thoughts exactly when I read "Instead of taking on IT jobs, Biesma hired two app developers, paying them each €120 an hour" like holy shit bro, you already have a subscription, you could have prototyped your idea for essentially zero additional cost and tested it for PMF. He wouldn't even have needed to turn down contracts since it doesn't take full-time effort to steer a coding model. Would have been much better…

> paying them each €120 an hour Those must be some of the best programmers in Europe at that rate. Anyone know how one can get one of those sweet €120 an hour gigs? Whenever I talked to recruiters they say their customers pay way below that, so there must be some scam I'm not in on.

> Whenever I talked to recruiters they say their customers pay way below that.

Recruiters gotta eat too :)

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