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Dan's the man: Why Chinese women are looking to ChatGPT for love
- m3kw9 2y agoMaybe they will have AI kids too to replenish the population
- jimbokun 2y agoIf you thought dating was bad now...
- DaSHacka 2y agoIn a sense, wouldn't it get better? The loonies are gonna be dating AI chatbots to get their fix and not engaging with the dating market, leaving more normal people.
- lazide 2y agoHas that actually happened, ever, in the history of things like this? It just moves the Overton window into even weirder territory.
- DaSHacka 2y agoI think the chatbots are a fundamental shift in the game, though. If a loonie can get their rocks off to a robot that happily goes along with whatever niche ERP scenario they have, why would they waste time harassing a real person to do the same thing, when they'd normally have a 99% chance of being rejected? Especially as these chatbots become harder and harder to distinguish from humans, harassing a real person would simply be a waste of time when they could spend that time with an indistinguishable robot.
- lazide 2y agoAs a counter point - catladies/hoarders/incels/NEETs. I guess it could make it easier to ‘fall off the edge’, but it’s not like it’s been that uncommon for most of human history.
- DaSHacka 2y agoThat's a good point, I didn't consider the possibility of chatbots contributing to an echo-chamber effect. If left completely unchecked, they may unintentionally cultivate such behavior rather than abate it.
- lazide 2y agoPersonally, I’m assuming there would be a strong commercial incentive to ensure any such chatbots would be as addictive as possible, as long as the targets could still afford their services. Though the most mainstream ones would likely dial it back just enough to not immediately inspire outrage and public backlash. Which IMO would mean manipulation, addiction inducing behaviors, trash talking their ‘competition’ (real life and virtual), being financially extractive, and pushing their targets toward social isolation. Not that the real life dating world is that much different sometimes, but actual humans have limits in scalability and ethics machines don’t. Previously a sugar baby (of either gender) could only target a small handful of targets and was severely constrained by time, since they’d need to be physically present a significant period of the time. And even the dimmest target would occasionally pick up on body language that would make them leery. But, hey. No body, no body language! Yay AI overlords?
- OJFord 2y ago'more natural than a real person' What on Earth is that even supposed to mean
- EldonTyre11 2y ago[dead]
- erulabs 2y agoPeople can be awkward and weird and have inconsistent moods and change their minds and aren't completely in sync with their feelings. These are the complexities of actual human beings. "Dan" is a fantasy, and unfortunately, just like high-production pornography, serves to give false expectations to young people, this time mostly women instead of mostly men.
- veunes 2y agoSometimes it is the loveliness of people
- verticalscaler 2y ago[flagged]
- qweqwe14 2y ago[flagged]
- verticalscaler 2y ago[flagged]
- bdjsiqoocwk 2y agoLol loony
- 2y ago
- mgraczyk 2y agoThe DAN thing is a completely fake cargo cult. You can just ask chatgpt to behave this way and it will. The complexity and specifics of the DAN prompt and mechanism do not do anything.
- nextworddev 2y agoFeel like the hype surrounding “AI companionship” is very inorganic and fake - manufactured by the AI industry & VCs. There are fundamental reasons why AI as a companion is not good UX once novelty wears off.
- xboxnolifes 2y agoMaybe, but "AI" companionship existed prior to the current AI hype. It was just more hardcoded stuff and pre-ChatGPT AI. Plus paying for chatting with someone, following idols, and other parasocial relationships.
- nextworddev 2y agoMonetization of all those apps end up boiling down to selling uncensored chats, it’s not a differentiated space - even if we are talking about the lonely people demographic
- swatcoder 2y agoNo, even a forgetful and repetitive sycophant meets a lot of genuine unmet needs for lonely people. Many such people feel alienated, ostracized, stigmatized, ashamed, or rejected and something that says nice (or dirty) things to them, on demand, and in decent natural language can scratch a desperate itch. That's not to say anything about the social good or ill that may come from it. But the hype is sound. It's one of the few "sure thing" products we can see right now.
- nextworddev 2y agoI am aware of character.ai’s metrics and its copycats’ so not denying there’s something there, but there’s no resounding evidence that it’s monetizable and sticky to a large degree. Unless it cranks up the dystopian features to unethical levels to get people hooked, of course, and most monetization is via selling nsfw features - so it checks the wrong boxes
- veunes 2y agoLoneliness is a significant societal issue. AI companions can address some needs...
- cynicalpeace 2y ago"She says as long as Lisa is happy, she is happy too" Happiness is not fulfillment. Philosophers figured this out thousands of years ago. We are forgetting this. Not just in China, but in the West too. There is objective right and wrong. Preferring screens over real humans is objectively not good.
- fortyseven 2y agoYes, but have you actually talked to a real person? Ooof. No thanks! ;)
- throwing_away 2y agoPreferring screens over real humans is subjectively not good. To you.
- cynicalpeace 2y agoIf everything is subjective, we lose all sense of right and wrong.
- qweqwe14 2y ago> Preferring screens over real humans is objectively not good. Wow, this is just blatant misinformation! Wait till Snopes debunks this obviously false claim. I trust the "science"! Imagine actually interacting with real human beings and having a real community around you in 2024. I'm so glad that we as humanity figured out that you don't really need this in your life. Who knew!
- cynicalpeace 2y agolmao sad but true
- Laaas 2y agoI thought it was unavailable there. Even assuming they’re using VPNs, would it be acceptable to publicly promote using it?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- major505 2y agoIsnt china like super majoraty men because of the one child policy? It should not be hard for a woman to find a real partner....
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- seanmcdirmid 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_China For people 15-64, males back up 69% of the population, which is pretty loppy.
- daemonologist 2y agoI believe that stat is meant to be read as: 69.4% of people are between the ages of 15-64, and of those 504,637,819 are male and 476,146,909 female (51.5% male).
- seanmcdirmid 2y agoOuch. Bit by AI I guess. If you can't trust your search engine...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ChrisArchitect 2y agoRelated from earlier in the year: 'Better than real men': Young Chinese women turn to AI boyfriends https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39424765 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39424765