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AI Friend Apps Are Destroying What's Left of Society

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Re: AI Friend Apps Are Destroying What's Left of Society

#81

Post by arevno »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #59

All the comments like "the problem is not the tech, it's the humans", "those people were self-isolating already", "it's a symptom", etc. are missing the point. AI didn't create the problem, but it makes the problem much worse by making it accessible at all times, making it seem believable, and disconnecting humans from reality (in a fantasy universe where the bot only praises them and succumbs to their every wish) to…

> by making it accessible at all times

This already happened, with Instagram and Tinder, though. No AI required. I agree with your analysis, that the accessibility is the issue, but we have been atomizing ourselves through screens for decades now already.

I'd argue that this was a significantly larger step than merely replacing the real human at the end of the fake interface with a fake human, because the interface is already artificial, already having removed voice intonation, body language, warmth, etc.

Re: AI Friend Apps Are Destroying What's Left of Society

#82

Post by para_parolu »

euroderf wrote: post #52

Get rid of cars in town and city centers. Then you're halfway to the solution.

Is it? I have my personal anecdote. Most outrageous, fearful and dangerous (for my life and health) interactions with other people I had in public transport.

Re: AI Friend Apps Are Destroying What's Left of Society

#83

Post by mikrl »

boringg wrote: post #37

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 honestly can't imagine using an AI app to ever qualify as what I would determine to be what I deem a friend

Agree, but AI has one massive benefit I’ve seen.

Conversations that I can’t have IRL because the response would be “huh? What are you talking about? I don’t know what that is.”

LLM apps are a fountain of knowledge and can reason well enough to bounce ideas and speculation off of. I can dump all my esoteric conversational topics into it and be engaged without needing to do 5 degrees and work in 3 industries at once, and the massive amount of socialization that would entail.

Maybe there will be a division in my social life, where my IRL human connections are more grounded and homely, and the LLM bears the brunt of my neurodivergent interests.

Re: AI Friend Apps Are Destroying What's Left of Society

#84

Post by conception »

abnercoimbre wrote: post #63
munificent wrote: post #47

The top two comments here both suggest that the people using chatbots in place of social interaction were already a priori socially isolated and AI has no effect on it. It's merely a "symptom" or after the fact consequence. 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…

Some practical advice I gave a good friend yesterday, who is frustrated by the constant bailing from people to go touch grass with him: 1. Increase frequency of informal communication. For example if your hangout is a monthly coding club, you might casually message participants once or twice a week. “Holy smokes Jenny, this HN thread reminded me of you.” 2. Create convenient little group DMs (call it “Bob’s Coding Cl…

Also, if organizing a group thing, get one or two people privately to say that they will go and then announce to the group that the three of you are going and if anybody else wants to come rather than just you are going and to see if anybody wants to come. If there’s already buy in, you’re much more likely to get people to show up.

Re: AI Friend Apps Are Destroying What's Left of Society

#86

Post by AlecSchueler »

para_parolu wrote: post #82
euroderf wrote: post #52

Get rid of cars in town and city centers. Then you're halfway to the solution.

Is it? I have my personal anecdote. Most outrageous, fearful and dangerous (for my life and health) interactions with other people I had in public transport.

It sounds like you recognise that they encourage human interaction, though. Learning how to navigate human interaction is very rewarding and it's at the core of what we're losing.

Re: AI Friend Apps Are Destroying What's Left of Society

#87

Post by boringg »

mikrl wrote: post #83
boringg wrote: post #37

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 honestly can't imagine using an AI app to ever qualify as what I would determine to be what I deem a friend Agree, but AI has one massive benefit I’ve seen. Conversations that I can’t have IRL because the response would be “huh? What are you talking about? I don’t know what that is.” LLM apps are a fountain of knowledge and can reason well enough to bounce ideas and speculation off of. I can dump all my esoteric c…

I can see this as I do use it in this fashion. That said I wouldn't ever qualify that kind of call and response as a friendship. It certainly would allow for me to explore topics in depth without trying to filter through networks of people to see who may or may not have an interest there. That said if anything it can scratch interests that I couldn't before.

I'd frame that as a people who want to deep dive can now do that without a huge overhead.

Re: AI Friend Apps Are Destroying What's Left of Society

#88

Post by altruios »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #76
altruios wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

*recent years... hm... what happens if we map history to now (rhymes likes chimes)... what should we expect to see then? And to be frank. Only fascists fraternize with fascists. It probably also contributes to the loneliness epidemic when no one will be their friend because of their racist/nationalist/sexist beliefs except other such degenerates (who aren't really their friends at all). You aren't friends with fascis…

But maybe loneliness causes fascism. (Or at least it creates fertile ground for it.) Lonely men, in particular, looking for somewhere to belong, that nobody else accepts, seem to me to be ripe for fascists to recruit.

I'd rather be lonely than a fascist. It's not a pipeline. Fascism may try to exploit it. But you are responsible for you: not someone else. Loneliness doesn't turn someone fascist. Fascist tendencies cause loneliness, if anything, not the other way around. No sane person likes those tendencies.

Re: AI Friend Apps Are Destroying What's Left of Society

#89

Post by para_parolu »

AlecSchueler wrote: post #86
para_parolu wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? I have my personal anecdote. Most outrageous, fearful and dangerous (for my life and health) interactions with other people I had in public transport.

It sounds like you recognise that they encourage human interaction, though. Learning how to navigate human interaction is very rewarding and it's at the core of what we're losing.

Not sure I want dangerous human interactions and ability to navigate them to learn. Pretty much how I don’t want to learn navigating jungle on practice.

Re: AI Friend Apps Are Destroying What's Left of Society

#90

Post by [deleted] »

mjr00 wrote: post #48
jeffbee wrote: post #13

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?

> 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 * For…

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