Live data from Hacker News

We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

newyorker.com

831–840 of 1001 posts

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#831

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be surprised to learn that many people in public parks are not, in fact, drinking water out of their water bottles or La Croix out of their La Croix cans. Also, drinking in public is not allowed in much of Europe. Don’t go there and assume it is. There are also many US locations and parks where alcohol is allowed.

That's only a few people. The culture where there's literally a throng of hundreds of people sitting and drinking in the park on any random Satuday afternoon is very much a European thing.

Also in Montreal.

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#832

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Yes, because immigrants ... Raise the rent? The US was built by immigrants. Before our slow slide toward christofascism it was on our money. Out of many, one. The reason we work as a society is that we take strength from the many varied cultures and experiences throughout the world. The most bold, the most focused, the most daring have always come to America with a dream of making it big. We destroy that at our own p…

You sound like a reasonable and good faith person. I want to ask you in particular to consider engaging with the people you disagree with (in this case the Right). Try to understand what exactly it is they’re trying to do when they oppose unlimited open borders immigration. It’s true that 100+ years ago they were trying to bring in warm bodies, there was plenty of opportunity then and it was a great thing to bring in 1,000,000 people to start new farms and work in factories. The immigrants learned the language and customs and followed the rules, and everybody benefited. That isn’t the way it’s working now though. The “asylum” process that was created to help a small number of political dissidents who would be killed or persecuted for unjust reasons, is being abused by shoving a million people into it whose main reason for coming here is “my country’s economy sucks due to gross incompetence of our government.”

We can’t accept every single person who would rather live in the US or UK than El Salvador or Lesotho, unless we want our country to be like those countries, and according to the people who constantly try to come here, those countries are much worse than ours. That’s what the people who disagree with you are trying to say.

None of this has anything to do with disliking immigrants themselves. I know people of many different races and national origins and I like and respect them all. But just as I don’t think France deserves to have 10,000,000 Americans show up, not learn any French, and just import American culture and customs, I also think immigrants here should be expected to assimilate. That basically worked well for hundreds of years.

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#833

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This idea of pretending that your only option is $15 cocktails really makes this argument look lame. Not to mention that the federal minimum wage is basically irrelevant in most places - where I live starting entry level pay at McDonald's is $17/hr. Cocktails were expensive when I was young, too. We just hardly ever drank them. We went to the liquor store and bought the cheapest shit we could that probably had a 50/5…

The beers here are $5-12 per beer if you go out. All I did was describe factual information: my local minimum wage, how things to do that don't cost money and are accessible to the average youth here are becoming increasingly rare, how much it costs to drink vs. minimum wage. None of this is an argument, it's a fact. And yes I know, people could and should be more frugal: I only even drink more than single cocktail a…

They're irrelevant facts.

Who cares what the federal minimum wage is if anyone who walks in to get a job at McDonald's can make twice as much? Who cares if beers are $5-12 at some places if they're much cheaper elsewhere?

The entire point I was making, and the which you are trying to deny by your argument (you may have quoted some factual info, but you're putting it together to make a specific argument to back up your opinion), is that it's actually not that hard to go out and entertain yourself, in person, with friends, for cheap or free.

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#834
post #812

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These "ill-advised beliefs" are extremely valid beliefs. Most humans are just ignorant and human history has shown that plenty of times. I admire people blind enough to see the good in humanity

Your attitude is sadly widespread in tech. I don't know if it's because of rejection, or fear, or something else, but we really are nothing more than the social world we live in. Substituting that for a theoretically perfect AI 'companion' is hollow and destructive. It's like watching the movie 'Her' and thinking - wow, that looks great.

I dont use AI for social interaction, I'd feel like a loser if I did that. But I also have a lot of trust issues with regular humans as I got disappointed over and over again. Didn't try to connect with people for over 10 years now.

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#835
post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't buy this explanation. There are plenty of things you can do together that don't cost very much - or anything at all. You can go take a hike. You can go to the park and hang out, or play a board game. You can go to a court and play pickleball. Heck, go to the library! All these things are free and many people do them.

I totally agree, though I'd like to frame OP's argument a little differently in a way that makes more sense I think. I agree the "shit is just too expensive" is a pretty lame excuse. I think to back when I was a poor ballet dancer around college age, and we always found lots of cheap things to do - a lot of it was like you said, usually just going over to people's houses to hang out, or doing stuff in the city that w…

You also can't separate the social media part of this. An expensive cocktail is a cool social media post, Natty light is not.

It is just a much more postmodern world than when I was young. There is a whole level of digital simulation on top of the activity that I never had to think about. The post about the expensive cocktail is the real social activity now.

We may as well be comparing dating on tinder to a rural barn dance in the 1950s. Technology has moved faster than our language as these aren't even the same activities but the words are the same. "Dating", "socializing".

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#836

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coal miners in 1890s appalachia had healthier and more active social lives than american white collar workers. This does not have anything to do with economics.

I am not saying you are wrong but from what I understood that alcoholism and depression were quite prevalent in those times. Do you have sources for what you are saying?

People are seriously fucking delusional.

The wonderful life of a coal miner in 1890 lol. It is just a completely insane idea.

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#837
I have a friend who is treating depression for feeling lonely all the time. We used to call him every week to have a coffee, a beer, a pizza or whatever and he never did because he had no time and he was always busy or tired (as we also were). He kept doom scrolling until the day was over

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#838
post #97

> 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…

> Everything from dating and fitness to manufacturing and politics is in decline in activities

And here I am regularly having to wait for a free squat rack ;)

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#839
post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

>Not many cheap hangout options in a lot of places. When I stayed in the US for a while, I'm from Germany, what I noticed was is that there's an extreme "upward striverism" when it comes to going out. In most places I stayed you could find dirt cheap bars and clubs (although maybe clubbing overall in the US is worse), but people in their 20s and 30s just seemed to be reluctant to go in a way they're not in Europe or…

I’m painting with a broad brush here, and there are certainly exceptions, but in my experience what you described has resulted in the only people left patronizing those dirt cheap bars being people who don’t make for good company and not always very pleasant to be around. Which then feeds back into the original issue.

On the other hand those kinds of bars tend to be pretty enjoyable in neighborhoods that are above poverty-stricken but not yet gentrified. Basically a working class neighborhood of old, which rarely exist anymore - or not for long.

Re: We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

#840

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Xerox PARC. Bell Labs. Academia. Wikipedia. You must have a rather narrow and useless definition of "progress". No i have a realistic definition of progress in capitalism. You must have a rather narrow brain and are unable to comprehend the difference between a realistic and practical application of "progress" versus an ideal that is unrealistic. Bell labs, Xerox PARC are done. These labs existed because capitalist…

> Now take a look at academia. Where does all that money come from? Taxes. Where do Taxes come from? Business and profit. Academic progress comes from business. Where does the common education system and legal system system underpins the business world come from? Government. Who puts dollar bills into the hands of people and tells them "come next tax season, we're going to ask you for a bunch of dollars at gunpoint,…

Money itself also comes from government: like all institutions, it requires maintenance.
Post reply on HN