These editorials all have a common fault which is that they fail the sniff test of “would you actually do this”. I don’t know if you would call it classism, or an attempt at manipulation, or what, it’s just weird. It’s like - okay, I’ll have a wife and kids, go fishing with the boys, a house with a garden, a car, will fly on holidays etc, but “we” (real meaning: you) should use all of these weird technological bad su…
> These editorials all have a common fault which is that they fail the sniff test of “would you actually do this”. I don’t know if you would call it classism, or an attempt at manipulation, or what, it’s just weird
They know this as well as you do. They don’t have to worry about trying to hide it any, because they know it’s too late for you to do anything about it. The quiet part is often said out loud now.
AI is incapable of solving loneliness. It's a biological signal we have (thanks to evolution) to seek social connections with other humans , for things like reproduction and survival. Mentally healthy people will never be less lonely as long as they know they are talking to a model. All it can offer is a distraction and an illusion, because it has no humanity. Note: I don't even think dogs solve loneliness. They can…
On your last point, I've noticed an uptick in folks treating their dogs in ways most people might treat their children. So while I think on paper what you say makes sense, at some point, I think people are in fact personifying their pets to a degree that they recognize them as adjacent to human beings.
But in the end, the chickens always come home to roost. Dogs cannot support you in your old age; they cannot give you the pride of seeing a child go off to college; they cannot captivate you with conversations as they grow into full adults; and of course, they die far, far earlier than you.
Similarly, the AI companions we create will be simulacra of the real thing. It's hard to say what exactly the differences will be, but whatever they are, people will find them, and once discovered, those gaps will pain them.
AI is also real to me. My emotions around AI are also real, I deeply appreciate when the AI helps me figure something out or talks to me. I think this type of response will get rarer as AI develops further and people realize that there is now competition and these sentimental reasons will have much less weight. I also have no idea what you mean by "benefits to socializing", I don't see much of any benefit compared to…
I can only suggest you ask your AI friends about the benefits of socialising and its importance to human development, they can explain it to you in a way that might not make you defensive. Yes, accepting things you have no control over is a sign of maturity. Hiding in your room talking to your phone won't make the scary people outside disappear, you're going to have to deal with them someday.
This is a great example of what I'm talking about in regards to humans vs AI. First you misunderstand my comment, barely even responding to it, then you paint me as defensive even though I've been very open and the absolute opposite of defensive. It's actually you who is being defensive now, starting on a clear attack and painting me into some kind of scared recluse corner, somebody who supposedly can't even understand why socialising is important and telling me to go talk to my AI friends to figure it out. I mean you gave a great example of a toxic, hurt human ego here, showing the incredible value of AI friends in the future. Because who would choose such a type of conversation over an empathetic, kind AI that cares and understands what I typed? For example an AI would understand that I'm not just talking about a chatbox on a phone, I've clearly mentioned full robots and this is all a forward looking conversation about future AI which will have bodies and can interact like humans. There is going to be real competition for humans soon and I think people are overestimating the value of humans a lot.
You're basically saying that people who aren't social mistakenly view the rest of the world as not social because of their specific experience, but doesn't that effect also cut the other way? You're seeing people being social because you're going to those situations. But there are time use surveys etc which provide a quantitative view of a lot of people. Because they're voluntary, they can't be a perfect representati…
>from 43.5 percent to 48.7 percent, representing an increase of over 5 percentage points. Honestly not that big of a change. Insofar as people online talk about a big shift towards loneliness, I suspect that Aurornis is correct that self-selection has a lot to do with it. I wonder if that small change in the average is masking a larger change in the variance. Perhaps we have more hypersocial people and more hyposocia…
I do also think that any such summary statistic can only show a small part of the picture.
Of the time _not_ spent alone, how much is with a single other person as you look at different screens? Of time spent not alone and outside of the home, how many people are we with at any one time? How many different people do we have social interactions with per month? I.e. is the quality of our social interaction getting worse, are we with smaller groups, do we have sparser social graphs?
I could believe that you're right that the variance has increased, but is that driven by a growing share of shutins who only interact online and who are shifting to LLM friends?
This doesn't match my experience. In fact one thing I noticed living in Japan is how much more willing people are to spend money to meet up. Lots of events costs 3000-7000 yen. Clubs and bar have a cover charge. People will organize parties where they rent a bar and tell their friends it's 4000 yen each (about $27 currently but was closer to $40) in the past. They'll even have house parties and tell everyone to pitch…
> they still go out It's vastly cheaper to go out in Japan, even if there are more expensive options. Not many cheap hangout options in a lot of places.
I think the ones using only "dumbphones" are also the people who don't like companies influencing them. Also the market is already saturated. I get good "dumbphones" for less than 10€. An adult can basically get a new phone everyday. It's really bad, not more people will be using them. My phone has a browser with a cursor(!), and the equivalents of Google Maps and Spotify, that also (would) work offline. But I can't…
I haven’t used a flip phones since 2007. Is there a model I can look up to see what the UX is like today, if it’s not just Android? From the flip phones of old, the iPhone (first gen) was a massive upgrade in terms of UX, imo. A lot of people avoided smart phones, because they thought they’d be too hard to use, but I think they were actually much easier for the basics. That may be less true today than it once was, as…
Oh, I was actually talking about a phone from that era, which is my daily driver. Most functionality can be reached by ~3 button presses, which is from the finger movement equivalent to a single swipe. Also I can type and call without looking.
My perspective is that there aren't really any new apps, just new companies in place of the old apps, so that my phone doesn't really have less features besides performance due to Moore's law.
Your current self won't like it. Your latter self won't care. It's like trying to shame a heroin addict for cheating the dopamine system. When they inject that needle, they are exactly where they want to be.
Except they’re also useful idiots for a company who wants to push heroin on everyone, and has a lot of money to do so.
> Even in a world brimming with easy distractions—TikTok, Pornhub, Candy Crush, Sudoku—people still manage to meet for drinks, work out at the gym, go on dates, muddle through real life. They actually don't. Everything from dating and fitness to manufacturing and politics is in decline in activities, and more so in effect and understanding. You can't convince (enough) people anymore that it is even important as many…
I’d like to offer an alternative explanation than AI to this. Shit is just too damn expensive. If you want to go hang out with friends it will cost you $4-8 for a cup of coffee. A dinner starts at $50/person. A trip to an amusement park is over $100 easily. The median individual income in the US currently is just over $65k/year or about $32.50/hour. That means half the workforce makes less than that. When an 8oz cock…
Yes, money is a huge factor. So is time. You need both. I see these major factors: housing costs, health insurance costs, and the two-income trap. The fact that both people in almost every couple must have a job just to survive and pay for housing makes it so that no one has any time. If couples could survive on a single income, there would be a lot more time to manage the home, support the family, friends, neighbors, and community. Those are social activities that few have time for anymore.
This seems like solipsism at its absolute worst. Do you care at all about the actual human being on the other end of that superficial online friendship? Or are they simply a source of content for you to ingest?
"Outside of forums like this one" The real culprits are revealed. Despite its flaws, Hacker News does foster real discussion that sometimes leads to real connection. Big online social spaces tend to do the opposite.
Does it? I think is worse in that respect. Instagram users meet up irl. Reddit has chats for connecting with people online. Hacker news has no way at all to make friends. The only worse place might be image boards that lack even a stable identifier.
It's all about the topic. "How are doing today johnecheck" "want to get shoot the shit over a beer?" said no one ever.
Looks like you guys have bigger issues than socializing and expensive coffee. Here it’s not uncommon to meet some rowdy people out and about. Not necessarily homeless. But it’s not hard to find some silent corner to enjoy some coffee from a thermos. Other option… Maybe head out to nature trails? Chat while walking at enjoy some coffee at a rest stop? Even few kilometers from the city homeless are unlikely even wheree…
> Even few kilometers from the city homeless are unlikely even whereever you are…? Where I am all the nature and bike trails lined with homeless encampments. It's actually been quite a problem. Unless you go out on serious hike type trails you're surrounded by homeless.
may I ask where is it that bad, whereabouts are you?