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You should not even try to create these sorts of technologies. Take a break from technology, spend time outdoors with plants and animals. These types of technol

You should not even try to create these sorts of technologies. Take a break from technology, spend time outdoors with plants and animals. These types of technologies will only lead to a worsening of this already sick society.

HPsquared 3y ago
Could say the same about antidepressants. "Fix the causes, not the symptoms!" And yet, here we are.
- vouaobrasil 3y ago
  I agree, 100%. Here we are indeed. But that doesn't mean we should not try and change things. One step at a time, right?
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    We are here because of free will. What steps would you take? Convince people who have opted out of the dating pool to opt back in? Convince women who would rather be single that their potential partner expectations are unrealistic (even if they genuinely are)? https://www.mintel.com/press-centre/all-the-single-ladies-61-of-women-in-the-uk-are-happy-to-be-single-compared-to-49-of-men/ https://www.mintel.com/press-centre/all-the-single-ladies-61... https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/why-bad-looks-good/202102/why-so-many-single-women-without-children-are-happy https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/why-bad-looks-good/2... https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/11/opinion/marriage-women-men-dating.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/11/opinion/marriage-women-me... https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/the-demographic-dating-market-doom https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/the-demographic-dating-... https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12110-022-09422-2 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12110-022-09422-2 You can patch over the outcomes but there is no going back to the before times. Dating app dates and relationships for some, AI companions for others, single life for the rest. It’s not great, it just is.
- mejutoco 3y ago
  Saying that something exists is not an argument about why something _should_ not exist. But I agree, "should" discussions are rarely the most productive. Shoulda, woulda, coulda, I guess :)
- throw18376 3y ago
  antidepressants can help people fix root causes. take them for 6 months to 2 years or so, break out of a bad cycle, get some space without depression symptoms to build up healthy habits and restore a social life. there are some bad profit motives to keep people on SSRIs indefinitely. however at least they don't compete with other aspects of your life. and now that they are dirt cheap (at cheapest, $4 for a month supply at Walmart) the profit motives are much less than before. hard to imagine an "AI girlfriend" that could be similarly short-term and bring positive changes. it's just dystopian. the most profitable way to run such a product is not to help, it's to eat up as much user time as possible and outcompete healthy activities and real human relationships.
  - HPsquared 3y ago
    Ok, maybe not the best analogy... Painkillers then? Other forms of entertainment in general? It's the relationship version of playing videogames instead of getting a job.
  - dspillett 3y ago
    > antidepressants can help people fix root causes Nit-picking rather than disagreeing, but feel it worth making more obvious in the wording: antidepressants can help people deal with the symptoms while they find/fix root causes. Being on them for an extended time can bring its own problems.
  - esclerofilo 3y ago
    > hard to imagine an "AI girlfriend" that could be similarly short-term and bring positive changes. Feeling lonely has negative consequences, there's a famous study comparing it to smoking cigarettes. Lonely people can get fixated on that feeling. Mitigating it may help people look for other hobbies, that they kept putting off because they were so focused on their need of a girlfriend. Hell, a realistic enough "woman AI" (not "girlfriend AI") could make you lose the fear of flirting, be useful as practice, to have more confidence when you have a real date. > the most profitable way to run such a product is not to help, it's to eat up as much user time as possible If you charge per-month (like OP), it's more profitable is to eat up less time.
  - deleted 3y ago
- phatskat 3y ago
  > “Fix the causes” How, exactly? Yes, some people experience depression as a symptom of something than can be addressed through various therapies, but what about people who just have it wired into their brains? How do we “fix” that?
  - vouaobrasil 3y ago
    Even if it is wired into certain brains, that wiring may only cause depression when it interacts with our modern technological society.
    - phatskat 3y ago
      I don’t think that’s how that works. If your depression “goes away” when you stop using Instagram, that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about that “wake up on a warm sunny day in a house with your loving family and feel like jumping off the roof” kind of depression. That “everything can be going great and you can’t get out of bed” depression. The kind of depression that isn’t “cured” by turning off your phone or going off the grid. And it certainly isn’t “cured” by antidepressants, however, they can make a huge impact on quality of life for many people.
    - piva00 3y ago
      Have you or a close loved one ever had clinical depression? Diagnosed by a professional which required help? It's a very strange take if you ever had any personal and direct contact with it, it's not only caused by "modern technological society" even though it's pretty aggravated by it.
- InfiniteRand 3y ago
  I think it's helpful to look at depression as a group of diseases like cancer. There are some cases of depression where we know the root cause: thyroid issues, sleep apnea-related depression, low testosterone related depression, brain tumors, etc. In those cases, addressing the root cause is probably the best treatment method. This is similar in some ways to cancer, where certain cancers have very definite causes and can be treated by dealing directly with those causes (like cervical cancer). Then there are all the other cases, some of which likely have simple causes that are just unknown, some of which have complex causes that are intermeshed deeply with the biology of human thinking. In that case, you have blunt tools, like anti-depressants, to address the pathway of the disease without knowing the exact cause, much like chemo-therapy can be used to attack cancer cells without knowing what prompted the cancer originally. So in short, yes treat the causes, but when you don't know the cause it's not irrational to treat the symptoms as best you can
krzat 3y ago
If the AI had a secondary goal of improving customer's mental health, it could work very well. Usually you can't fuck your therapist.
- vouaobrasil 3y ago
  I think in theory, you are right. However, because AI is so easily accessible and it is being developed in our current, highly commoditized society, there is really no change that it will ever only be used for good in this way.
- chpatrick 3y ago
  You can't really fuck your imaginary shoggoth girlfriend either.
  - dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
    You can if you have the appropriate peripheral(s) attached.
    - u32480932048 3y ago
      Dongles! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XSC_UG5_kU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XSC_UG5_kU
    - mensetmanusman 3y ago
      Yes, if you redefine the meaning of words.
      - dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
        All you need is a USB orifice. How is that not a peripheral?
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
  - ReactiveJelly 3y ago
bambax 3y ago
Who are we to judge the users of such a product? Some people suffer from a variety of disabilities which makes them unable to find friends and engage in meaningful relationships with others, etc.
- vouaobrasil 3y ago
  I am not judging the users of the product. I am saying that the overall product will worsens society.
optimalsolver 3y ago
>spend time outdoors with plants and animals Which animals? Blood ticks?
- pixl97 3y ago
  Bot flies. Or a bunch of those things we've driven extinct because they tried to eat us. Naturalistic fallacies are common here :/
icepat 3y ago
Had a similar moment with playing around using smart contracts. As a joke I wrote a crypto for the company I worked at, which then got added to employment contracts, and an internal DAO styled administration layout. After coding this out for a few hours I realized I had re-created the company scrip, except on a blockchain. I ended up turfing the project and spending some time thinking about how horrific a future technology like this could create.
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  I don't get it. Yes, you re-created scrip. That's the opposite of a new technology coming in and causing problems, isn't it? It's a known issue with a known solution.
  - icepat 3y ago
    Not really, I saw it as technology that was "new and trendy" rebranding a very old and exploitive employment paradigm. "You can work at a DAO and be paid on the blockchain" "You can work at a company and be paid in script" It's the same thing, but the modern technology masks what exactly is happening.
    - Dylan16807 3y ago
      Do the relevant laws about how people get paid care about the difference between company scrip and company token?
      - icepat 3y ago
        I think the major difference is a DAO is not a corporation, by design. So the legislation around them is still in catch-up mode. In other words, yes, because the entire framework is different.
        Dylan16807 3y ago
        Oh if you mean someone doing a full time job for a weird nebulous computer contract without any kind of company or human leadership behind it that would be liable... does that ever actually happen? A company that makes their own chains and contracts isn't really any different from a normal company situation.
kobalsky 3y ago
I don't know why studies are even being made on the effects of these novel technolgies. We should just point the scientists to your email for answers.
- vouaobrasil 3y ago
  Studies by scientists are typically within the framework of modern western society. And moreover, if you actually look at some studies done by psychologists, you will find a large body of literature showing that it is mostly detrimental.
  - ithkuil 3y ago
    It's usually ever more skewed: WEIRD: Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. Many studies even use students themselves as a sample but university students are not really a representative sample of the population
kridsdale3 3y ago
Not a lot of Hackernews posts are so depraved that they get a "Jesus Christ, touch grass" response.
Der_Einzige 3y ago
God forbid that ugly people get to have the same kinds of positive relationship experiences that attractive people get. I can’t believe how the moment that a technology comes out which gives incels real options it’s seen as being terrible for society. It’s awesome for society.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  This doesn't give an incel an "option" anymore than playing mario kart makes you a better race car driver. As a business, they will be optimized to fit an incel's wants, not to help them adapt to reality and healthy relationships. Incels need therapy and support, not a fake "girlfriend" program that charges them money to reinforce their existing horrific worldviews
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- krapp 3y ago
  Plenty of ugly people do have those relationship experiences, all the time. But I guess if something like this keeps incels from spree shootings then it's a net win for society.
mrshadowgoose 3y ago
Agreed! It would be a real shame if lonely unattractive people had a chance at something resembling a romantic relationship. /s Contrary to what one would assume, I don't have this problem. However I do work in the IT field, and am surrounded by perpetually sad and lonely people who have never experienced romance. It's really really sad. And no, none of these people are the "angry hateful incel" type that the internet loves to dismiss and villainize. If you aren't attractive, your chance of finding romance is low. This is just a cold and ugly fact of the human condition. There simply isn't "someone for everyone". Why should we disallow lonely people from having something, even if it's simulated?

HPsquared 3y ago

Could say the same about antidepressants. "Fix the causes, not the symptoms!" And yet, here we are.

vouaobrasil 3y ago
I agree, 100%. Here we are indeed. But that doesn't mean we should not try and change things. One step at a time, right?
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  We are here because of free will. What steps would you take? Convince people who have opted out of the dating pool to opt back in? Convince women who would rather be single that their potential partner expectations are unrealistic (even if they genuinely are)? https://www.mintel.com/press-centre/all-the-single-ladies-61-of-women-in-the-uk-are-happy-to-be-single-compared-to-49-of-men/ https://www.mintel.com/press-centre/all-the-single-ladies-61... https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/why-bad-looks-good/202102/why-so-many-single-women-without-children-are-happy https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/why-bad-looks-good/2... https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/11/opinion/marriage-women-men-dating.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/11/opinion/marriage-women-me... https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/the-demographic-dating-market-doom https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/the-demographic-dating-... https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12110-022-09422-2 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12110-022-09422-2 You can patch over the outcomes but there is no going back to the before times. Dating app dates and relationships for some, AI companions for others, single life for the rest. It’s not great, it just is.
mejutoco 3y ago
Saying that something exists is not an argument about why something _should_ not exist. But I agree, "should" discussions are rarely the most productive. Shoulda, woulda, coulda, I guess :)
throw18376 3y ago
antidepressants can help people fix root causes. take them for 6 months to 2 years or so, break out of a bad cycle, get some space without depression symptoms to build up healthy habits and restore a social life. there are some bad profit motives to keep people on SSRIs indefinitely. however at least they don't compete with other aspects of your life. and now that they are dirt cheap (at cheapest, $4 for a month supply at Walmart) the profit motives are much less than before. hard to imagine an "AI girlfriend" that could be similarly short-term and bring positive changes. it's just dystopian. the most profitable way to run such a product is not to help, it's to eat up as much user time as possible and outcompete healthy activities and real human relationships.
- HPsquared 3y ago
  Ok, maybe not the best analogy... Painkillers then? Other forms of entertainment in general? It's the relationship version of playing videogames instead of getting a job.
- dspillett 3y ago
  > antidepressants can help people fix root causes Nit-picking rather than disagreeing, but feel it worth making more obvious in the wording: antidepressants can help people deal with the symptoms while they find/fix root causes. Being on them for an extended time can bring its own problems.
- esclerofilo 3y ago
  > hard to imagine an "AI girlfriend" that could be similarly short-term and bring positive changes. Feeling lonely has negative consequences, there's a famous study comparing it to smoking cigarettes. Lonely people can get fixated on that feeling. Mitigating it may help people look for other hobbies, that they kept putting off because they were so focused on their need of a girlfriend. Hell, a realistic enough "woman AI" (not "girlfriend AI") could make you lose the fear of flirting, be useful as practice, to have more confidence when you have a real date. > the most profitable way to run such a product is not to help, it's to eat up as much user time as possible If you charge per-month (like OP), it's more profitable is to eat up less time.
- deleted 3y ago
phatskat 3y ago
> “Fix the causes” How, exactly? Yes, some people experience depression as a symptom of something than can be addressed through various therapies, but what about people who just have it wired into their brains? How do we “fix” that?
- vouaobrasil 3y ago
  Even if it is wired into certain brains, that wiring may only cause depression when it interacts with our modern technological society.
  - phatskat 3y ago
    I don’t think that’s how that works. If your depression “goes away” when you stop using Instagram, that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about that “wake up on a warm sunny day in a house with your loving family and feel like jumping off the roof” kind of depression. That “everything can be going great and you can’t get out of bed” depression. The kind of depression that isn’t “cured” by turning off your phone or going off the grid. And it certainly isn’t “cured” by antidepressants, however, they can make a huge impact on quality of life for many people.
  - piva00 3y ago
    Have you or a close loved one ever had clinical depression? Diagnosed by a professional which required help? It's a very strange take if you ever had any personal and direct contact with it, it's not only caused by "modern technological society" even though it's pretty aggravated by it.
InfiniteRand 3y ago
I think it's helpful to look at depression as a group of diseases like cancer. There are some cases of depression where we know the root cause: thyroid issues, sleep apnea-related depression, low testosterone related depression, brain tumors, etc. In those cases, addressing the root cause is probably the best treatment method. This is similar in some ways to cancer, where certain cancers have very definite causes and can be treated by dealing directly with those causes (like cervical cancer). Then there are all the other cases, some of which likely have simple causes that are just unknown, some of which have complex causes that are intermeshed deeply with the biology of human thinking. In that case, you have blunt tools, like anti-depressants, to address the pathway of the disease without knowing the exact cause, much like chemo-therapy can be used to attack cancer cells without knowing what prompted the cancer originally. So in short, yes treat the causes, but when you don't know the cause it's not irrational to treat the symptoms as best you can

krzat 3y ago

If the AI had a secondary goal of improving customer's mental health, it could work very well. Usually you can't fuck your therapist.

vouaobrasil 3y ago
I think in theory, you are right. However, because AI is so easily accessible and it is being developed in our current, highly commoditized society, there is really no change that it will ever only be used for good in this way.
chpatrick 3y ago
You can't really fuck your imaginary shoggoth girlfriend either.
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
  You can if you have the appropriate peripheral(s) attached.
  - u32480932048 3y ago
    Dongles! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XSC_UG5_kU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XSC_UG5_kU
  - mensetmanusman 3y ago
    Yes, if you redefine the meaning of words.
    - dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
      All you need is a USB orifice. How is that not a peripheral?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- ReactiveJelly 3y ago

bambax 3y ago

Who are we to judge the users of such a product? Some people suffer from a variety of disabilities which makes them unable to find friends and engage in meaningful relationships with others, etc.

vouaobrasil 3y ago
I am not judging the users of the product. I am saying that the overall product will worsens society.

optimalsolver 3y ago

>spend time outdoors with plants and animals Which animals? Blood ticks?

pixl97 3y ago
Bot flies. Or a bunch of those things we've driven extinct because they tried to eat us. Naturalistic fallacies are common here :/

icepat 3y ago

Had a similar moment with playing around using smart contracts. As a joke I wrote a crypto for the company I worked at, which then got added to employment contracts, and an internal DAO styled administration layout. After coding this out for a few hours I realized I had re-created the company scrip, except on a blockchain. I ended up turfing the project and spending some time thinking about how horrific a future technology like this could create.

Dylan16807 3y ago
I don't get it. Yes, you re-created scrip. That's the opposite of a new technology coming in and causing problems, isn't it? It's a known issue with a known solution.
- icepat 3y ago
  Not really, I saw it as technology that was "new and trendy" rebranding a very old and exploitive employment paradigm. "You can work at a DAO and be paid on the blockchain" "You can work at a company and be paid in script" It's the same thing, but the modern technology masks what exactly is happening.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    Do the relevant laws about how people get paid care about the difference between company scrip and company token?
    - icepat 3y ago
      I think the major difference is a DAO is not a corporation, by design. So the legislation around them is still in catch-up mode. In other words, yes, because the entire framework is different.
      - Dylan16807 3y ago
        Oh if you mean someone doing a full time job for a weird nebulous computer contract without any kind of company or human leadership behind it that would be liable... does that ever actually happen? A company that makes their own chains and contracts isn't really any different from a normal company situation.

kobalsky 3y ago

I don't know why studies are even being made on the effects of these novel technolgies. We should just point the scientists to your email for answers.

vouaobrasil 3y ago
Studies by scientists are typically within the framework of modern western society. And moreover, if you actually look at some studies done by psychologists, you will find a large body of literature showing that it is mostly detrimental.
- ithkuil 3y ago
  It's usually ever more skewed: WEIRD: Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. Many studies even use students themselves as a sample but university students are not really a representative sample of the population

kridsdale3 3y ago

Not a lot of Hackernews posts are so depraved that they get a "Jesus Christ, touch grass" response.

Der_Einzige 3y ago

God forbid that ugly people get to have the same kinds of positive relationship experiences that attractive people get. I can’t believe how the moment that a technology comes out which gives incels real options it’s seen as being terrible for society. It’s awesome for society.

mrguyorama 3y ago
This doesn't give an incel an "option" anymore than playing mario kart makes you a better race car driver. As a business, they will be optimized to fit an incel's wants, not to help them adapt to reality and healthy relationships. Incels need therapy and support, not a fake "girlfriend" program that charges them money to reinforce their existing horrific worldviews
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
krapp 3y ago
Plenty of ugly people do have those relationship experiences, all the time. But I guess if something like this keeps incels from spree shootings then it's a net win for society.

mrshadowgoose 3y ago

Agreed! It would be a real shame if lonely unattractive people had a chance at something resembling a romantic relationship. /s Contrary to what one would assume, I don't have this problem. However I do work in the IT field, and am surrounded by perpetually sad and lonely people who have never experienced romance. It's really really sad. And no, none of these people are the "angry hateful incel" type that the internet loves to dismiss and villainize. If you aren't attractive, your chance of finding romance is low. This is just a cold and ugly fact of the human condition. There simply isn't "someone for everyone". Why should we disallow lonely people from having something, even if it's simulated?