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What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

nytimes.com

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Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#461

Post by bondolo »

Jordan-117 wrote: post #455
bondolo wrote: post #452

I had a conversation the other day at a birthday party with my friend's neighbour from the building. The fellow is a semi-retired (FIRE) single guy. We started with a basic conversation but then he started talking about what he interested in and it became almost unintelligible. I kept having to ask him to explain what he was talking about but was increasingly unsuccessful as he continued. Sure enough though, he descr…

What was the nature of his interests, if you don't mind sharing? I'm always curious about how these things develop -- makes it easier to recognize. Seems like a lot of them fall into either "I'm onto a breakthrough that will change the world" (sometimes shading into delusion/conspiracy territory), or else vague platitudes about oneness and the true nature of reality. The former feels like crankery, but I wonder if th…

It was a mix of mystical philosophy and transhumanism and he does think that "the world is on the edge of a breakthrough" but he sees it as emergent. It is not something he is personal creating just something he believes is imminent and he is one of the first people to recognise it.

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#462

Post by lifeformed »

DocTomoe wrote: post #195
Hard_Space wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. If you never train stick, you can never drive stick, just automatic. And if you never let a real person break your heart or otherwise disappoint you, you'll never be ready for real people.

Ah, 'suffering builds character'. I haven't had that one in a while. Maybe we should not want to get prepared for RealPeople™ if all they can do is break us and disappoint us. "But RealPeople™ can also elevate, surprise, and enchant you!" you may intervene. They sure than. An still, some may decide no longer to go for new rounds of Russian roulette. Someone like that is not a lesser person, they still have real™ enjo…

This is the exact kind of thinking that leads to this in the first place. The idea that a human relationship is, in the end, just about what YOU can get from it. That it's just simply a black box with an input and output, and if it can provide the right outputs for your needs, then it's sufficient. This materialistic thinking of other people is a fundamentally catastrophic worldview.

A meaningful relationship necessarily requires some element of giving, not just getting. The meaning comes from the exchange between two people, the feedback loop of give and take that leads to trust.

Not everyone needs a romantic relationship, but to think a chatbot could ever fulfill even 1% of the very fundamental human need of close relationships is dangerous thinking. At best, a chatbot can be a therapist or a sex toy. A one-way provider of some service, but never a relationship. If that's what is needed, then fine, but anything else is a slippery slope to self destruction.

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#463

Post by Jordan-117 »

bondolo wrote: post #461
Jordan-117 wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was the nature of his interests, if you don't mind sharing? I'm always curious about how these things develop -- makes it easier to recognize. Seems like a lot of them fall into either "I'm onto a breakthrough that will change the world" (sometimes shading into delusion/conspiracy territory), or else vague platitudes about oneness and the true nature of reality. The former feels like crankery, but I wonder if th…

It was a mix of mystical philosophy and transhumanism and he does think that "the world is on the edge of a breakthrough" but he sees it as emergent. It is not something he is personal creating just something he believes is imminent and he is one of the first people to recognise it.

Thanks -- so a little of column A, a little of column B? Kind of feels similar to how early societies built whole religious practices out of interpreting stochastic phenomena like knucklebones or entrails, only supercharged because this particular viscera seems to talk back!

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#464

Post by kldg »

ZpJuUuNaQ5 wrote: post #287
gonzobonzo wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the default chatbot behavior. Many of these people appear to be creating their own personalities for the chatbots, and it's not too difficult to make an opinionated and challenging chatbot, or one that mimics someone who has their own experiences. Though designing one's ideal partner certainly raises some questions, and I wouldn't be surprised if many are picking sycophantic over challenging. People opting for…

>People opting for unchallenging pseudo-relationships over messy human interaction is part of a larger trend, though. I don't disagree that some people take AI way too far, but overall, I don't see this as a significant issue. Why must relationships and human interaction be shoved down everyone's throats? People tend to impose their views on what is "right" onto others, whether it concerns religion, politics, appeara…

I lean toward the opinion there are certain things people (especially young people) should be steered away from because they tend to snowball in ways people may not anticipate, like drug abuse and suicide; situations where they wind up much more miserable than they realize, not understanding the various crutches they've adopted to hide from pain/anxiety have kept them from happiness (this is simplistic, though; many introverts are happy and fine).

I don't think I have a clear-enough vision on how AI will evolve to say we should do something about it, though, and few jurisdictions do anything about minors on social media, which we do have a big pile of data on, so I'm not sure it's worth thinking/talking about AI too much yet, at least as it relates to regulating for minors. Unlike social media, too, the general trajectory for AI is hazy. In the meantime, I won't be swayed much by anecdotes in the news.

Regardless, if I were hosting an LLM, I would certainly be cutting off service to any edgy/sexy/philosophy/religious services to minimize risk and culpability. I was reading a few weeks ago on Axios of actual churches offering chatbots. Some were actually neat; I hit up an Episcopalian one to figure out what their deal was and now know just enough to think of them as different-Lutherans. Then there are some where the chatbot is prompted to be Jesus or even Satan. Which, again, could actually be fine and healthy, but if I'm OpenAI or whoever, you could not pay me enough.

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#465

Post by DanielVZ »

infecto wrote: post #365
DanielVZ wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think we need to be hyper focused on this. We do not need more ways for people to be convinced of suicide. This is a huge misalignment of objectives and we do not know what other misalignment issues are already more silently happening or may appear in the future as AI capabilities evolve. Also we can’t deny the emotional element. Even though it is subjective, knowing that the reason your daughter didn’t seek gui…

Hard question to answer imo but at a high level I would argue that social media for folks under 18 is even more harmful than LLMs. It is quite fascinating and I hope more studies exist that look into why some folks are more susceptible to this type of manipulation.

Oh you are absolutely right. I’m not sure yet if it IS more harmful but it has had time to do so much more harm.

Starting with dumb challenges that risk children and their families life.

And don’t get me started with how algorithms don’t care about the wellbeing of users, so if it’s depressing content that drives engagement, users life is just a tiny sacrifice in favor the companies profits.

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#466

Post by ge96 »

krackers wrote: post #210
galacticaactual wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you’re a sack of meat and neurons producing learned chemical responses to external stimuli. Now tell me how useful that is.

https://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/think...

> Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat.

That's good

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#467

Post by mrguyorama »

bakugo wrote: post #386
BeFlatXIII wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What else do you expect them to do if none of the choices are worthwhile?

Maybe lower their standards to the point that they can be satisfied by a real person, not a text completion algorithm that literally worships the ground they walk on and outputs some of the cheesiest, cringiest text I've ever read.

>Maybe lower their standards to the point that they can be satisfied by a real person, not a text completion algorithm that literally worships the ground they walk on and outputs some of the cheesiest, cringiest text I've ever read.

The vast majority of women are not replacing dating with chatbots, not even close. If you want women to stop being picky, you would have to reduce the "demand" in the market, stop men from being so damn desperate for any pair of legs in a skirt.

They are suffering through the exact same dating apps, suffering through their own problems. Try talking to one some time about how much it sucks.

Remember, the apps are not your friend, and not optimized to get you a date or a relationship. They are optimized to make you spend money.

The apps want you to feel hopeless, like there is no other way than the apps, and like only the apps can help you, which is why you should pay for their "features" which are purposely designed to screw you over. The Match company purposely withholds matches from you that are high quality and promising. They own nearly the entire market.

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#468

Post by mugwumprk »

Spivak wrote: post #412
tene80i wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Nannying” as a pejorative is a thought-terminating cliché. Sometimes, at scale, interventions save lives. You can thumb your nose at that, but you have to accept the cost in lives and say you’re happy with that. You can’t just say everybody knows best and the best will occur if left to the level of individual decisions. You are making a trade-off. See also: seatbelts, speed limits, and the idea of law generally, as…

Yes. That is exactly the point. The opposite of nannying is the dignity of risk. Sometimes that risk is going to carry harm or even death. I don't think anyone who is arguing against nannying in this way would bat an eye at the potential cost of lives, that's a feature not a bug. Constraints on individual liberty as it harms or restricts the liberty of others makes sense. It becomes nannying is when it restricts your…

That’s a pretty limited take on “hurt”. A person without a seatbelt will get worse injuries, and require greater medical attention. In other words, it does hurt other people.

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#469

Post by lelandfe »

2WSSd-JzVM wrote: post #277
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #201

Alternative to archive.is busybox wget -U googlebot -O 1.htm https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/23/technology/openai-chatgpt-users-risks.html firefox ./1.htm

It pisses me off. Does anyone know when exactly Google stopped carrying about cloaking? It is the same with Linkedin, you will get a login screen when following a link from Google results. Which was punishable with penalizing position or even removing of site in "good old times".

It’s cloaking when it’s Bad. It’s Good when it’s Google that’s let through the gates:

https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/spam-po...

> If you operate a paywall or a content-gating mechanism, we don't consider this to be cloaking if Google can see the full content of what's behind the paywall just like any person who has access to the gated material

Re: What OpenAI did when ChatGPT users lost touch with reality

#470

Post by mrguyorama »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #111
AI_rumination wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Love your thoughts about needing input from others! In Autistic / ADHD circles, the lack of input from other people, and the feedback of thoughts being amplified by oneself is called rumination. It can happen for many multiple ways-- lack of social discussion, drugs, etc. AI psychosis is just rumination, but the bot expands and validates your own ideas, making them appear to be validated by others. For vulnerable peo…

> In Autistic / ADHD circles i.e. HN comments

Nah, most circles of neurodivergent people I've been around have humility and are aware of their own fallibility.
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