Our exposure to smart-sounding chatbots is inducing a novel form of pareidolia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidoli

Our exposure to smart-sounding chatbots is inducing a novel form of pareidolia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia . Our brains are pattern-recognition engines and humans are social animals; together that means that our brains are predisposed to anthropomorphizing and interpreting patterns as human-like. For the whole of human history thus far, the only things that we have commonly encountered that conversed like humans have been other humans. This means that when we observe something like ChatGPT that appears to "speak", we are susceptible to interpreting intelligence where there is none, in the same way that an optical illusion can fool your brain into perceiving something that is not happening. That's not to say that humans are somehow special or that or human intelligence is impossible to replicate. But these things right here aren't intelligent, y'all. That said, can they be useful? Certainly. Tools don't need to be intelligent to be useful. A chainsaw isn't intelligent, and it can still be highly useful... and highly destructive, if used in the wrong way.