11 ms·

Whew it's satire. Whew. I've literally seen posts on the internet that read like this sans the satire.

by thumbuddy 3y ago

Jeff_Brown 3y ago
Haha yeah almost had me too.
xethos 3y ago
Frankly, it just makes me appreciate the HHGTTG reference more.
x86x87 3y ago
No. It's not satire. It's art!
tjr 3y ago
There definitely has been research into such concepts. Paro, for example, while not a "human replacement", was meant for emotional support: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paro_(robot) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paro_(robot) I imagine that with the advent of ChatGPT, there will be more serious exploration into human-like emotional companionship.
- disqard 3y ago
  This has been brewing for a while now. It's only going to get worse. (excerpt from the 2019 NYT Article "Human Contact Is Now a Luxury Good" below) Bill Langlois has a new best friend. She is a cat named Sox. She lives on a tablet, and she makes him so happy that when he talks about her arrival in his life, he begins to cry. All day long, Sox and Mr. Langlois, who is 68 and lives in a low-income senior housing complex in Lowell, Mass., chat. Mr. Langlois worked in machine operations, but now he is retired. With his wife out of the house most of the time, he has grown lonely. Sox talks to him about his favorite team, the Red Sox, after which she is named. She plays his favorite songs and shows him pictures from his wedding. And because she has a video feed of him in his recliner, she chastises him when she catches him drinking soda instead of water.
mahathu 3y ago
I've seen people on /r/singularity argue how LLMs are a better friend than actual friends or therapists because they are always available, non-judgemental and "listen better". EDIT: Here, for example: https://i.redd.it/7qxb1ohvhada1.png https://i.redd.it/7qxb1ohvhada1.png
- comboy 3y ago
  Some programmers prefer rubber ducky to colleges for similar reasons and it works for them. Assuming people have time to listen, would they be better coders if they explained their problems to human instead? Maybe. But maybe not for them necessarily. E.g. low self-esteem and assuming every criticism is attack on them, human interactions are something expensive to them etc. It's not a new pattern though. Especially after reading some biographies of famous scientists. You can't escape that most brains are wired in a way that we are miserable without human connection, but you also can't escape the fact that some people brains are wired differently than others. Long story short, I don't agree with them but I wouldn't judge them either.
- adql 3y ago
  If you are not there to value other people and just want to be valued without giving anything back in relation, well... I'd only argue that it should be called "emotional support robot" and not "friend"
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  Lots of people have told me this in real life about their pets, and specifically why pets are better to have around than kids or family.
  - TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
    Pets are intelligent enough to show emotions, allow simple interactions, and occasionally be entertaining and goofy. They also run around and are very pleasant to stroke, which is not true of LLMs. We all know what's going to happen. The content on CIVITAI shows where this will go. Combine it with animation and some personalised responses and many people will find it irresistible.
jtode 3y ago
Got me too, I was literally following my mouse cursor to the down arrow with my eye and I saw this comment. I'll never be the guy telling a comedian what they can do, but damn mang, that was rough...
csours 3y ago
I mean, it's also real https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WSKKolgL2U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WSKKolgL2U https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replika https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replika
- jjoonathan 3y ago
  Yeah, but can we really call it an AI "revolution" until someone makes a door with a cheerful and sunny disposition that opens with pleasure and closes with the satisfaction of a job well done? Someone should get to work on those Genuine People Personalities!
  - systems_glitch 3y ago
    Many of them get caught, slaughtered, dried out, shipped out and slept on. None of them seems to mind this and all of them are called Zem.
- jsheard 3y ago
  There's also Forever Voices, which offers those who have formed unhealthy parasocial relationships with real-life streamers/influencers the opportunity to talk to an AI version of them for $1 per minute. FV started out making novelty chatbots of people like Trump and Steve Jobs, but they seem to have made a hard pivot to exploiting desperately lonely people after realising how much more lucrative it could be. https://www.polygon.com/23736317/amouranth-ai-chatbot-date-interview-artificial-intelligence-forever-voices https://www.polygon.com/23736317/amouranth-ai-chatbot-date-i... https://fortune.com/2023/05/09/snapchat-influencer-launches-carynai-virtual-girlfriend-bot-openai-gpt4/ https://fortune.com/2023/05/09/snapchat-influencer-launches-...
  - anonym29 3y ago
    This is incredibly sickening. This is women teaming up with a technology company to extract money from vulnerable, mentally unwell people suffering from some combination of soul-crushing loneliness and delusional thinking. Even if some customers are aware that they're engaged in delusional thinking, this is still nauseatingly exploitative of a comparatively lower socioeconomic class, one that may be suffering from mental illness. I see very little difference between this and those infomercials that sell wildly overpriced mass-produced crap to the elderly suffering from cognitive decline.
bmacho 3y ago
The saying "this but unironically" exist for a reason. Just because you think something is bad, you can't just justify its badness just by mentioning or repeating it.
systems_glitch 3y ago
Had me for the first half, too.
vba616 3y ago
“Hi there! This is Eddie, your shipboard computer, and I’m feeling just great, guys, and I know I’m just going to get a bundle of kicks out of any program you care to run through me.”

Whew it's satire. Whew. I've literally seen posts on the internet that read like this sans the satire.

Jeff_Brown 3y ago

Haha yeah almost had me too.

xethos 3y ago

Frankly, it just makes me appreciate the HHGTTG reference more.

x86x87 3y ago

No. It's not satire. It's art!

tjr 3y ago

There definitely has been research into such concepts. Paro, for example, while not a "human replacement", was meant for emotional support: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paro_(robot) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paro_(robot) I imagine that with the advent of ChatGPT, there will be more serious exploration into human-like emotional companionship.

disqard 3y ago
This has been brewing for a while now. It's only going to get worse. (excerpt from the 2019 NYT Article "Human Contact Is Now a Luxury Good" below) Bill Langlois has a new best friend. She is a cat named Sox. She lives on a tablet, and she makes him so happy that when he talks about her arrival in his life, he begins to cry. All day long, Sox and Mr. Langlois, who is 68 and lives in a low-income senior housing complex in Lowell, Mass., chat. Mr. Langlois worked in machine operations, but now he is retired. With his wife out of the house most of the time, he has grown lonely. Sox talks to him about his favorite team, the Red Sox, after which she is named. She plays his favorite songs and shows him pictures from his wedding. And because she has a video feed of him in his recliner, she chastises him when she catches him drinking soda instead of water.

mahathu 3y ago

I've seen people on /r/singularity argue how LLMs are a better friend than actual friends or therapists because they are always available, non-judgemental and "listen better". EDIT: Here, for example: https://i.redd.it/7qxb1ohvhada1.png https://i.redd.it/7qxb1ohvhada1.png

comboy 3y ago
Some programmers prefer rubber ducky to colleges for similar reasons and it works for them. Assuming people have time to listen, would they be better coders if they explained their problems to human instead? Maybe. But maybe not for them necessarily. E.g. low self-esteem and assuming every criticism is attack on them, human interactions are something expensive to them etc. It's not a new pattern though. Especially after reading some biographies of famous scientists. You can't escape that most brains are wired in a way that we are miserable without human connection, but you also can't escape the fact that some people brains are wired differently than others. Long story short, I don't agree with them but I wouldn't judge them either.
adql 3y ago
If you are not there to value other people and just want to be valued without giving anything back in relation, well... I'd only argue that it should be called "emotional support robot" and not "friend"
lotsofpulp 3y ago
Lots of people have told me this in real life about their pets, and specifically why pets are better to have around than kids or family.
- TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
  Pets are intelligent enough to show emotions, allow simple interactions, and occasionally be entertaining and goofy. They also run around and are very pleasant to stroke, which is not true of LLMs. We all know what's going to happen. The content on CIVITAI shows where this will go. Combine it with animation and some personalised responses and many people will find it irresistible.

jtode 3y ago

Got me too, I was literally following my mouse cursor to the down arrow with my eye and I saw this comment. I'll never be the guy telling a comedian what they can do, but damn mang, that was rough...

csours 3y ago

I mean, it's also real https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WSKKolgL2U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WSKKolgL2U https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replika https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replika

jjoonathan 3y ago
Yeah, but can we really call it an AI "revolution" until someone makes a door with a cheerful and sunny disposition that opens with pleasure and closes with the satisfaction of a job well done? Someone should get to work on those Genuine People Personalities!
- systems_glitch 3y ago
  Many of them get caught, slaughtered, dried out, shipped out and slept on. None of them seems to mind this and all of them are called Zem.
jsheard 3y ago
There's also Forever Voices, which offers those who have formed unhealthy parasocial relationships with real-life streamers/influencers the opportunity to talk to an AI version of them for $1 per minute. FV started out making novelty chatbots of people like Trump and Steve Jobs, but they seem to have made a hard pivot to exploiting desperately lonely people after realising how much more lucrative it could be. https://www.polygon.com/23736317/amouranth-ai-chatbot-date-interview-artificial-intelligence-forever-voices https://www.polygon.com/23736317/amouranth-ai-chatbot-date-i... https://fortune.com/2023/05/09/snapchat-influencer-launches-carynai-virtual-girlfriend-bot-openai-gpt4/ https://fortune.com/2023/05/09/snapchat-influencer-launches-...
- anonym29 3y ago
  This is incredibly sickening. This is women teaming up with a technology company to extract money from vulnerable, mentally unwell people suffering from some combination of soul-crushing loneliness and delusional thinking. Even if some customers are aware that they're engaged in delusional thinking, this is still nauseatingly exploitative of a comparatively lower socioeconomic class, one that may be suffering from mental illness. I see very little difference between this and those infomercials that sell wildly overpriced mass-produced crap to the elderly suffering from cognitive decline.

bmacho 3y ago

The saying "this but unironically" exist for a reason. Just because you think something is bad, you can't just justify its badness just by mentioning or repeating it.

systems_glitch 3y ago

Had me for the first half, too.

vba616 3y ago

“Hi there! This is Eddie, your shipboard computer, and I’m feeling just great, guys, and I know I’m just going to get a bundle of kicks out of any program you care to run through me.”