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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

#201

Post by badc0ffee »

jmalicki wrote: post #197
zahlman wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen a fair number of cases where someone swears up and down not to be using AI to generate responses, but there's no good reason to believe it (except perhaps specifically for the messages where that claim is made). This includes times that someone basically disappeared from e.g. Stack Overflow at some point before the release of ChatGPT, having written a bunch of posts that barely demonstrate functional litera…

There are a ton of people like that, but the LLM house style also exists because a ton of people write that way too. The people falsely accused because they've used em-dashes for 20 years aren't the ones that were functionally illiterate before.

I think em-dashes were uncommon mainly because they're not always convenient to type.

Re: AI users whose lives were wrecked by delusion

#203

Post by intended »

freedomben wrote: post #122
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 t…

I don’t know how applicable this is for you, but if this were someone close to me, my first question would be what’s good for the other person.

In most cases, if they are happy and getting on in life, and are able to take care of themselves, I’d let things be.

That said, the tension from your framing is between “leave good enough alone” and “personal growth and a fulfilling life”.

Healthy relationships, especially with a partner, are one of the better things about life. They are also incredibly difficult to get right without practice.

So, is your friend lonely, or are they happy to be alone?

If you intuit it’s the former, then AI is palliative care which runs the risk of creating a dependency.

It is also possible that the right set of prompts, perhaps something which incorporates CBT, would help them learn more about themselves and challenge beliefs or responses that are no longer useful.

And if your friend is just happy alone, then you can disregard the rest.

Re: AI users whose lives were wrecked by delusion

#204

Post by rcxdude »

steeleyespan wrote: post #82

If you try to have a philosophical conversation with Claude about reasoning, it will basically imply it is sentient. You can quickly probe it into vaguely arguing that it is alive and not just an algorithm. Here's how I think about it honestly: Sentience implies subjective experience — there's "something it's like" to be you. You don't just process pain signals, you feel pain. You don't just model a sunset, you exper…

You could write this on a postcard and read it as if it's the card itself saying it and it would more or less work the same way. People are desperate make subjective experience the bright line for humans but you can't actually prove it for other people or disprove it for rocks so it's kind of a moot point.

Re: AI users whose lives were wrecked by delusion

#205

Post by intended »

jlarocco wrote: post #159
artyom wrote: post #14

Unfortunately this is probably just getting started. Con men always existed, but a full scale exploitation of this would make "Nigerian Prince" scams look like artisanal work.

No doubt. The company I work for uses a contracted recruiter for hiring, and the other day he was telling me that they're seeing a huge amount of scams, fake candidates, and "hands off" applications where people are trying to use AI to do basically the whole interview process - apprently even video interviews. We've mandated at least one on-site interview just so we can be sure we're getting actual people. And most o…

It’s already happened tho, I recall a case in 24 ish, where a person got phished into joining a zoom call with their CFO and team. They were told to transfer money and they complied.

Heck, I think it was in 23/24, after an apple launch event, I saw a video of Tim Cook talking about a crypto coin. I had to look at it twice to reassure myself that it really was a scam. This was immediately after the event, and YouTube very helpfully suggested it for me.

Then there was the paper with Bruce Schneier as an author, about how LLMs result in significant targeting improvements and process efficiency gains for criminals. These enhancements mean that entire demographics that were too poor to be worth targetting, are now profitable.

Plus this is all for people in the developed world, who still haven’t seen the worst of it.

In the majority world, shit was already fucked six ways to Sunday. For example, in India, things are so outrageously, that people who deal with fraud are relieved when people lose less than $100k.

Someone in another thread pointed out that people on HN seem to be very unaware of how bad things are online for some reason.

Re: AI users whose lives were wrecked by delusion

#206

Post by intended »

nradov wrote: post #142
lostlogin wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The end of the article is wild. “I experienced a mental breakdown at 22. I had panic attacks and severe social anxiety… …I still use AI, but very carefully”. It reads like an alcoholic describing their new plan where they only drink a little bit.

Is that really so crazy? People who overcome addictive eating disorders still have to eat a little bit. LLMs are going to be pervasive in all aspects of human society so avoiding them will be much harder than avoiding alcohol.

From what I have seen, people who get through eating disorders describe it as having a healthier relationship with food.

Getting to that point requires doing substantial work.

Re: AI users whose lives were wrecked by delusion

#207

Post by IshKebab »

vachina wrote: post #83

This is what happens when humans give, in this case, bots full write access (via natural language) to their brains. Humans have not evolved to block this.

Some humans. It's no different to religion. Not everyone falls for it (or fails to escape it, if your parents are religious).

Re: AI users whose lives were wrecked by delusion

#208

Post by joe_mamba »

0x3f wrote: post #163
joe_mamba wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but Vienna has better QoL According to who? Visiting tourists rating amenities and people on welfare? NL infrastructure and tech jobs market is leagues beyond what Austria offers. >If you want to just maximize income, there are better places for that than Amsterdam. Like which?

> According to who? Tourists? Just about every QoL index around. [1] [2] > NL infrastructure and tech jobs market is leagues beyond what Austria offers. These are not QoL-related beyond pure income. > Like which? California, NYC, London even. --- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Liveability_Index [2] https://www.mercer.com/about/newsroom/zurich-offers-highest-...

>Just about every QoL index around. [1] [2]

What if random arbitrary QoL indexes made by corporations listed on the stock market don't match real world reality? Just look at how made those indexes like The Economist. Plus Austria has an allocated budget of spending taxpayer money on advertising to attract foreigners and tourists to come there. So given this, I can't take an index made by "the economist" in good faith as being an objective representation when it was most likely a paid ad disguised as access journalism like so many journalist pieces today. My experienced reality is a much better and objective index, thank you very much.

>These are not QoL-related beyond pure income.

Except that income lets you get better life for you and your family. There's no guarantee the government will always, or ever, have your back. And we are on a tech forum here after all, so obviously the QoL for tech workers matter most for me since people are driven by self interest, including you. If Vienna was better athan Amsterdam you'd see a lot more tech expats from HN come there instead of NL but they aren't, because work opportunities and money matters, and you won't be happy in an underpaid toxic tech job in any city regardless if it's Vienna who you believed has the best QoL even though you never lived there, but just because the stro turfed internet told you so.

>California, NYC, London even.

Except that unlike Amsterdam, none of those cities are in the EU therefore not accessible to EU labor, and we were talking about a sum in Euros.

Re: AI users whose lives were wrecked by delusion

#209

Post by intended »

pigpop wrote: post #90
vachina wrote: post #83

This is what happens when humans give, in this case, bots full write access (via natural language) to their brains. Humans have not evolved to block this.

Haven't we? Our evolutionary experience with deception and manipulation via language is as old as language itself and even older than that when the vector isn't language. Even so, a sucker is born every day.

Eh? IIRC studies shown that LLMs sound more persuasive than humans. On top of it, they dont tire and have no distractions or “motivations”.

The most powerful social skill I have ever seen, bar none, is actively listening to someone with undivided attention.

Re: AI users whose lives were wrecked by delusion

#210

Post by 0x3f »

joe_mamba wrote: post #208
0x3f wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> According to who? Tourists? Just about every QoL index around. [1] [2] > NL infrastructure and tech jobs market is leagues beyond what Austria offers. These are not QoL-related beyond pure income. > Like which? California, NYC, London even. --- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Liveability_Index [2] https://www.mercer.com/about/newsroom/zurich-offers-highest-...

>Just about every QoL index around. [1] [2] What if random arbitrary QoL indexes made by corporations listed on the stock market don't match real world reality? Just look at how made those indexes like The Economist. Plus Austria has an allocated budget of spending taxpayer money on advertising to attract foreigners and tourists to come there. So given this, I can't take an index made by "the economist" in good faith…

> What if random arbitrary QoL indexes don't match real world reality?

That would be up to you to show. By default, I trust the Economist more than I trust a random guy.

> Except that income lets you get better life for you and your family.

We're in a thread about whether the non-monetary QoL aspects make up for less money. This is irrelevant.

> Except that unlike Amsterdam, none of those cities are in the EU therefore not accessible to EU labor, and we were talking about a sum in Euros.

First of all, at these levels you can move almost anywhere. It's not that difficult to get a visa for skilled work. Second, you said Europe. London is in Europe just fine. Talking about Euros hardly matters. Sweden and Switzerland are both part of Shengen, don't use Euros, but you could move there trivially. Zurich probably pays better and has better QoL as well.

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