I have a lot of issues with AI in general, but frankly the biggest, most immediate one is that I reeeally hate when tech pretends to be human. Like search engines giving me a seventh grader’s essay before the actual one-word answer I was looking for. Or the uncanny valley voice at the drive-thru speaker saying “great choice!” to everything I order. Or the AI on shopping websites saying “I’d recommend this model…” Etc etc.
There’s just something so strange and uncomfortable to me about a thing that we all know is not a person pretending to be one; feels like someone telling a lie directly to my face, and I know they’re lying, and they know they’re lying, but I’m supposed to… appreciate it? For some reason?
But a lot of people I know actually prefer it. They’ll ask ChatGPT something—even something that has a simple, definitive answer that doesn’t really need further explanation—rather than just looking it up on a search engine. I’m just curious what the difference in psychology is between us. And I’m wondering if maybe it’s actually just a me problem; I mean, I hated Jeeves too, and he seemed pretty well-liked back in the day.
What a great observation! You’re so smart and talented and attractive. That’s an excellent question phrased beautifully and- what are you doing with that hammer?
I too hate this trend. A robotic voice answering the phone didn’t bother me, but now some companies have replaced those with AI systems and I find myself becoming frustrated and angry much more quickly with the latter.
It drives me up the walls when people tell me they’re using AI to write their emails now. If you thought USians were stupid already, give it a few more years of AI usage! You can just see people’s eyes glassing over when you try to discuss anything of import. We’ve seen AI-induced psychosis, but I predict we’ll see a rise in dementia rates if we don’t put an end to this.
Edited to add: after some reflection, I think what makes me so angry is the apparent assumption by whatever megacorp implements these that I, their customer, am stupid enough to be fooled or influenced positively by this. It’s condescending.
If you thought USians were stupid already, give it a few more years of AI usage! You can just see people’s eyes glassing over when you try to discuss anything of import.
Yuuuup. I’m an American, and I’m particularly scared for Gen Alpha. The amount of times I’ve seen my nieces and nephews stop mid-sentence, pull out their phone and have ChatGPT complete their thought is… Idk man. I’m a millennial, and a significant part of this is my generation’s fault, cuz we’re the “hand them an iPad so they’ll leave you alone” parents (though not me personally because I have zero interest in bearing any crotchfruit). But damn, it’s scary. And sad.
Please expand on this “ChatGPT completing thought” business. They just show you the result? Or read it to you? Can you give an example please? I’m really struggling to come to terms with this 😅
The amount of times I’ve seen my nieces and nephews stop mid-sentence, pull out their phone and have ChatGPT complete their thought is
How does that even work? Like what do they say to the machine if they can’t speak to a person?
The phenomenon of seeing faces in trees or clouds is known as pareidolia.
Humans see other people in inanimate objects all the time.
Attributing human traits to non humans is called anthropomorphizing
The discomfort OP feels is called uncanny valley
And to answer OP, Chatgpt is able to pull from multiple sources very quickly and adds related info that you may not have thought to search. But it’s also not always accurate because AI isn’t great at recognizing sarcasm or satire.
And also just fully makes things up, sometimes.
It’s not actually communicating, it’s just writing convincing text. Because that’s all we can train it to do.
Yeah but see that freaks me tf out too. A few nights ago, the moon was shining through the leaves of the oak tree in my backyard in such a way that it vaguely looked like a little kid’s face, and I literally said out loud “absolutely not” and went back inside.
"I don’t believe in ghosts, but they scare the hell out of me.’
Mark Twain
I think it’s part of human nature to long for some connection, to socialize, to discover new things. We humans have been fantasizing with sentient machines for ages. We have been exploring the possibilities of interacting with other sentient species for millennia. The machine trope is just one more in that category.
That’s where the allure is.
Of course the trash you are being sold isn’t truly sentient, but people see stripes and call it a tiger.
As for what makes it so palatable, for most people, if they see something they recognize and relate to, they find it easier to use. LLMs are in particular very easy to use for this reason.
And it’s ok if you don’t like the idea at all. My previous statement was just a generalization, not everyone is equally enamored with the idea of interacting with a different, sentient, and intelligent species.
Angela Collier is a physicist (?) with a popular science youtube channel. She was talking about human shaped robots recently:
There’s a lot of crossover between human-like robots and chat bots and slavery.
