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Do the AI friend apps take people out of society or were the people who were using the friend apps not part of society to begin with? I honestly can't imagine using an AI app to ever qualify as what I would determine to be what I deem a friend.
Do the AI friend apps take people out of society or were the people who were using the friend apps not part of society to begin with? I honestly can't imagine using an AI app to ever qualify as what I would determine to be what I deem a friend.
Or, you know, go crazy and do something bad.
As a pretty severe introvert, it's not hard for me to imagine "friends apps" getting good enough to provide a lot of comfort when I was younger, and if you grow up with them being a thing, you don't question them as much.
In fact, if "friend apps" were good enough to play video games on a decent level, I'm absolutely sure I'd use them instead of trying to deal with random jerks when playing multiplayer games.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why? I see no arguments, only propositions. (I will bring little arguments myself below. Not flaming.) Technological advancement is in my opinion unrelated to the way current “social” technologies impact “social relations”. Things are not going well, I’d agree. But I can imagine one hundred beautiful features (or historical technological advances) that have improved social relations, trust and general well-being. Cur…
1. Even early computers of the 90s and 00s tended to reduce face-to-face contact. At least a lot of children started to spend more time on the computer than hanging out in real life. (The latter wasn't obliterated, but reduced.) 2. Airline and rapid travel encourages people to move away from friends and family because they can be visited or reuinted on occasion more often. 3. Not sure how you were enthusiastic about…
2 & 6 & 7. access to airlines (and travel in general) was a net positive for meeting new people. Suddenly people could meet and get to know far more people than the handful of folks in the town they grew up in. Travel is probably on the best ways to meet new people and gain relationships and being able to pack up and move to where your new friends/love interests are is a good thing while communication tech lets you keep in touch with people who are in different cities/states/countries and maintain those relationships
3 & 4. People have to depend more on others to do their farming for them, but if you're working the fields you can't be out meeting real people face to face either. You're much more likely to have a social encounter at a grocery store than a grain silo. the hours you aren't spending growing your own food means you have more time to be with the people you love
5. independence is good and learning new skills means going out to new places to practice them or for supplies and equipment where you can meet other people with similar interests. It's the parasocial aspect of youtube that's most harmful.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Japan has a robust welfare system and social safety net comparable to Northern Europe, yet the same problems manifest. Welfare systems are a net good, but they aren't neccessarily the solution to this problem.
Japan has a super toxic work culture, and economic stagnation *shrug These problems are like individual health. Everybody knows exactly what the solutions are: Stay active, eat vegetables, get enough sleep, etc etc. Technically simple, but not easy.
Not as bad as it was 20 years ago - which most of the stereotypes continue to perpetuate.
Hours worked are roughly comparable between the Scandinavian 4 and Japan [3]
Israel and Korea are the new Japan
> economic stagnation
Not much more different from Sweden or Finland, or Denmark+Norway once you exclude high value but low employment industries like biopharma and oil respectively.
Japanese GDP growth rates, interest rates, TFR, and median incomes largely converge with Northern Europe (or more like, Northern Europe converged with Japan by the 2000s).
Edit: can't reply to OP
Household disposable income is roughly comparable between DK and JP [0]
GDP growth rate is roughly comparable between DK and JP [1]
The only difference between DK and JP is age [2], but Denmark's demographics align with Japan's from 10 years ago, and given that Denmark's economic metrics have already aligned with Japan, it's safe to say that what Japan is today is what Denmark will converge to within the next 5-10 years.
If Japan is collapsing, then so is the rest of Northern Europe. If Northern Europe is booming, then so is Japan.
[0] - https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/household-disposable...
[1] - https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?locat...
[2] - https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/median-age/coun...
[3] - https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/hours-worked.html?oe...
There's a theory that we're becoming increasingly removed from our work -- we have less control over what we get to build, we have less control over how the products we build function.
Because we don't influence what we create as much, work becomes much more about getting a pay check. We no longer work to craft, we work simply to build the things the bosses want.
Now that work is just a paycheck, we're increasingly unsettled, and increasingly in competition with one another. Material conditions are such that the bosses get most of the profits, and we get squeezed more and more. Competition gets more desperate, and we begin to see others as threatening our remaining resources, more than a community.
Now that we're increasingly isolated from one another, we end up isolating ourselves. We find ourselves less creative, less fulfilled, more alone, and looking for any semblance of community.
It's not surprising someone in this state turns to anything, even an AI, that wants to engage with the person.
Do the AI friend apps take people out of society or were the people who were using the friend apps not part of society to begin with? I honestly can't imagine using an AI app to ever qualify as what I would determine to be what I deem a friend.
I deeply, fundamentally disagree with that. Humans are one step mathematical operations that take in an input, transform to an output, and are done.
Human life is an endless continuous cascade of incentives, feedback loops, iterations, and modification. When you change anything in a person's environment, it will affect them. Perhaps the effect is small unless someone is primed by their prior environment in certain ways, but nonetheless nearly everything leaves its mark.
Can you eat healthy if your kitchen is full of free junk food? Yes, it's possible. Can you get out of the house and socialize even when endless media and parasocial relationships are just a screen away? Yes, it's possible.
Will you in practice? Evidence shows clearly over and over again that even tiny incentives have huge effects when compounded over time.
We all have a deep moral obligation to build an environment (physical, cultural, social) that is nourishing and incentivizes all of us to flourish. If you're building technology like AI chatbots that enables people to become more socially isolated, in my mind you are in the same category as junk food sellers, drug pushers, and polluting factory owners. You're making people sicker and the world worse.
I can't even imagine what is the first step towards exposing yourself to "AI friend apps". You're sitting at home and what? What happens between getting up one day and installing an AI friend?
* You get up one day
* You enter a world where fewer and fewer people are trying to form in-person, human connections because they see pseudonymous social media and parasocial relationships as valid substitute
* You try these relationships too and find they are low-effort ways to keep yourself entertained with surface-level human connections
* Forming actual human connections in-person is too high effort (requires leaving the house; has a risk of rejection) so you don't do it
* An AI friend is low-effort and sort of a human connection so you do that
Ultimately I don't see "having an AI friend" as much worse than "'donating' $500 to Asmongold because he's my friend" (note: Asmongold has no idea who you are).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
1. Even early computers of the 90s and 00s tended to reduce face-to-face contact. At least a lot of children started to spend more time on the computer than hanging out in real life. (The latter wasn't obliterated, but reduced.) 2. Airline and rapid travel encourages people to move away from friends and family because they can be visited or reuinted on occasion more often. 3. Not sure how you were enthusiastic about…
1. time spent in front of screen means you aren't in a face to face interaction with someone, but the same can be said of books. When many people still connected to a local BBS it was another way to get to know people around you and meetups were common. 2 & 6 & 7. access to airlines (and travel in general) was a net positive for meeting new people. Suddenly people could meet and get to know far more people than the h…
Debatable because social relationships also become more frivilous.
> 3 & 4. People have to depend more on others to do their farming for them, but if you're working the fields you can't be out meeting real people face to face either.
But at least you can develop closer relationships with fewer people. Again, it's a matter of what place on the spectrum is ideal.
> 5. independence is good and learning new skills means going out to new places to practice them or for supplies and equipment where you can meet other people with similar interests
Independence is good only up to a point. Too much independence is a natural consequence of advancing technology and becomes pathological.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Japan has a super toxic work culture, and economic stagnation *shrug These problems are like individual health. Everybody knows exactly what the solutions are: Stay active, eat vegetables, get enough sleep, etc etc. Technically simple, but not easy.
> super toxic work culture Not as bad as it was 20 years ago - which most of the stereotypes continue to perpetuate. Hours worked are roughly comparable between the Scandinavian 4 and Japan [3] Israel and Korea are the new Japan > economic stagnation Not much more different from Sweden or Finland, or Denmark+Norway once you exclude high value but low employment industries like biopharma and oil respectively. Japanese…