4 ms·

I think the pleasure trip is just porn. We have that already and it's possible to discuss the effects of widespread porn on people. I think the next step is, w

I think the pleasure trip is just porn. We have that already and it's possible to discuss the effects of widespread porn on people. I think the next step is, what does it mean to have an emotional relationship with someone in your pocket who is for all definitions perfect - can provide perfect advice and does so with judgement, ridicule, pity or anger? What will be my bar for human relationships, those imperfect messy human beings, when I have a partner I can be perfectly vulnerable with? What happens to interpersonal relationships when you are competing with a virtual perfect significant other?

louison11 3y ago
If your definition of perfect is an AI that is programmed not to upset you, then sure. But maybe there is perfection in the imperfection of humans and the pain that inevitably arises from human relationships? We learn how to love through our differences. Intimacy is deepened by meeting each other in the raw, vulnerable and wounded places. The kind of “perfect significant other” you’re describing sounds sterile and a massive bypass of what life can truly be.
- bronco21016 3y ago
  Lex Friedman podcast with Elon where they discuss that war is an inevitability of the human condition. The idea of world peace may not be a worthwhile goal as what it is to be human is to have suffering, to some degree. As I navigate dating, I've found the perfectly "compliant" or even "subservient" relationships are just as shallow as the ones fueled by lust. Sadly, when relationships are as replaceable as water, there's not much thirst for anything real, including the ups and downs. I guess what I'm musing is that I feel bad for the people stuck in the empty loops of "perfect" satisfaction and hope they find the human in themselves in the day to day. Amusing Ourselves to Death comes to mind.
  - louison11 3y ago
    I agree with some things and slightly disagree with others. Mainly, I do believe peace to be a worthwhile and ultimately accessible pursuit for each and everyone of us, both internally and collectively. But learning to exist in it surely comes through embracing wholeheartedly the reality of our human condition, not shying away from it in virtual realms. I guess what I’m saying is that pain and loss are inevitable. The impermanence of life is by itself a guarantee of it. But suffering is often unnecessarily caused by our resistance to the inevitability of life. This is what creates the internal neurosis, which ultimately manifests in the collective as outer aggression and wars. I believe all this can be pacified. That’s kind of the goal of most paths of self realization.
    - sfn42 3y ago
      I just want to say that what you wrote in the second paragraph resonated with me a lot and I think I needed to read that right now. It seems obvious but I spend so much time worrying about the past and future, and the way you put it just crystallizes that notion that we really don't have as much control as we'd like. We have to forgive our past selves and let our future selves handle whatever they have to handle - obviously not in a self destructive way but more like if I get cancer I'll have to deal with that, until then there's no point worrying about it. But now I'm just rambling. Anyway, thank you.
  - vikramkr 3y ago
    Given howany people are perfectly fine in relationships how many fewer people fight in wars than used to - forgive me if I write off the ideas from that discussion as more unsubstantiated ramblings from someone who has realized how useful and profitable his starlink technology is in wartime
Izkata 3y ago
You can find that out already by looking at Replika users.
JohnFen 3y ago
> what does it mean to have an emotional relationship with someone in your pocket who is for all definitions perfect - can provide perfect advice and does so with judgement, ridicule, pity or anger? I don't think I could have an emotional relationship with such an entity, to be honest. It wouldn't be perfect at all -- it would be deeply flawed. But maybe that's just me.
tsss 3y ago
AI can never replace human relationships exactly because it is too available. The AI can do nothing but please you. Like in Hegel's master-slave dialectic, the slave's acceptance immediately becomes worthless to the master because the slave is not an equal and it happens only at the threat of death. Porn and AI girlfriends are only a substitute to people who are already limited to enjoyment in the Imaginary order. It is a consequence of the breakdown of the social contract and not the other way around, as a result of feminist politics and capitalist commodification of dating. Development of better AI accelerates this breakdown of society only insofar as it allows to banish even larger swathes of undesirable men to living in the proverbial sewer without them taking up arms against you; it is just enough to keep the starving man alive but nothing more than that.

louison11 3y ago

If your definition of perfect is an AI that is programmed not to upset you, then sure. But maybe there is perfection in the imperfection of humans and the pain that inevitably arises from human relationships? We learn how to love through our differences. Intimacy is deepened by meeting each other in the raw, vulnerable and wounded places. The kind of “perfect significant other” you’re describing sounds sterile and a massive bypass of what life can truly be.

bronco21016 3y ago
Lex Friedman podcast with Elon where they discuss that war is an inevitability of the human condition. The idea of world peace may not be a worthwhile goal as what it is to be human is to have suffering, to some degree. As I navigate dating, I've found the perfectly "compliant" or even "subservient" relationships are just as shallow as the ones fueled by lust. Sadly, when relationships are as replaceable as water, there's not much thirst for anything real, including the ups and downs. I guess what I'm musing is that I feel bad for the people stuck in the empty loops of "perfect" satisfaction and hope they find the human in themselves in the day to day. Amusing Ourselves to Death comes to mind.
- louison11 3y ago
  I agree with some things and slightly disagree with others. Mainly, I do believe peace to be a worthwhile and ultimately accessible pursuit for each and everyone of us, both internally and collectively. But learning to exist in it surely comes through embracing wholeheartedly the reality of our human condition, not shying away from it in virtual realms. I guess what I’m saying is that pain and loss are inevitable. The impermanence of life is by itself a guarantee of it. But suffering is often unnecessarily caused by our resistance to the inevitability of life. This is what creates the internal neurosis, which ultimately manifests in the collective as outer aggression and wars. I believe all this can be pacified. That’s kind of the goal of most paths of self realization.
  - sfn42 3y ago
    I just want to say that what you wrote in the second paragraph resonated with me a lot and I think I needed to read that right now. It seems obvious but I spend so much time worrying about the past and future, and the way you put it just crystallizes that notion that we really don't have as much control as we'd like. We have to forgive our past selves and let our future selves handle whatever they have to handle - obviously not in a self destructive way but more like if I get cancer I'll have to deal with that, until then there's no point worrying about it. But now I'm just rambling. Anyway, thank you.
- vikramkr 3y ago
  Given howany people are perfectly fine in relationships how many fewer people fight in wars than used to - forgive me if I write off the ideas from that discussion as more unsubstantiated ramblings from someone who has realized how useful and profitable his starlink technology is in wartime

Izkata 3y ago

You can find that out already by looking at Replika users.

JohnFen 3y ago

> what does it mean to have an emotional relationship with someone in your pocket who is for all definitions perfect - can provide perfect advice and does so with judgement, ridicule, pity or anger? I don't think I could have an emotional relationship with such an entity, to be honest. It wouldn't be perfect at all -- it would be deeply flawed. But maybe that's just me.

tsss 3y ago

AI can never replace human relationships exactly because it is too available. The AI can do nothing but please you. Like in Hegel's master-slave dialectic, the slave's acceptance immediately becomes worthless to the master because the slave is not an equal and it happens only at the threat of death. Porn and AI girlfriends are only a substitute to people who are already limited to enjoyment in the Imaginary order. It is a consequence of the breakdown of the social contract and not the other way around, as a result of feminist politics and capitalist commodification of dating. Development of better AI accelerates this breakdown of society only insofar as it allows to banish even larger swathes of undesirable men to living in the proverbial sewer without them taking up arms against you; it is just enough to keep the starving man alive but nothing more than that.