5 ms·

> Also on the panel, Father Michael Baggot worried that "artificial intimacy is going to distract us from, and deter us from, the deep interpersonal bonds that

> Also on the panel, Father Michael Baggot worried that "artificial intimacy is going to distract us from, and deter us from, the deep interpersonal bonds that are central to our happiness and our flourishing." > He called for guardrails on AI to stop it capturing individuals' "minds but … also our affections." > Fr Baggot cited the example of Magisterium AI, a Catholic chatbot. He sits on the scholarly advisory board for the service, and said its creators had worked to prevent it being "anthropomorphic" adding, "We do not want people having an intimate relationship with it." I appreciate that coinage, "artificial intimacy," and want to explore the implications of it more.

ferguess_k 1y ago
Some people probably don't want that "deep interpersonal bonds" though. I know I don't want. I know some people who don't say they don't want but act in every way that they don't want. Although I don't like the future proposed by the AI companies, this is the least of my concerns. The only big concern is employment. Like, if AI creates more jobs than it destroys, sure, go ahead, do it now.
- toomuchtodo 1y ago
  If the cure for the loneliness epidemic is community, through which interpersonal bonds are required, I suppose it is fine if we allow folks to opt out of community and human connection and use chatbots as they would heroin or meth; maxing out dopamine within their tolerances until death. Free will, self determination, and all that. But, we should also be mindful of the second order effects of such policy (the future ending up some combination of internet gaming cafes where people occasionally play so long they die, and "Ready Player One").
  - ferguess_k 1y ago
    Yeah I agree with that, basically genuine choice for all. BTW I just don't want "deep" bonds, but some sort of bonds is always good. Not sure how "deep" he meant though.
    - wara23arish 1y ago
      may I ask why?
    - busterarm 1y ago
      As I get older and see these things play out, I agree less and less. There's a physical toll on your health that gets paid for living a lifestyle like this. Society pays part of the cost of this (at the very least anyone on the same health insurance plan). I feel icky saying this but we should make a strong effort as a society to stamp out anti-social behaviors. Addictions are very high on that list. You might think that you can engage this way without being a burden to others, but you can't.
      - toomuchtodo 1y ago
        > I feel icky saying this but we should make a strong effort as a society to stamp out anti-social behaviors. Addictions are very high on that list. GLP-1s can help stamp out addiction, but people are going to be people. You can provide them support, but you cannot prevent chronic, determined self harm and destruction. I speak from personal experience. https://recursiveadaptation.com/p/the-growing-scientific-case-for-using https://recursiveadaptation.com/p/the-growing-scientific-cas...
  - ToucanLoucan 1y ago
    I mean experiencing LLM "intimacy" of any sort is just getting to roleplay as a billionare tech CEO isn't it? It's why they're so proud of it, as far as they're concerned, they've perfectly reproduced the real people they encounter: breathless sycophants utterly tripping over themselves to tell them how fucking smart they are for whatever banal shit they've farted out most recently and tell them every idea they have is god working through them to bestow his gifts to mankind. And for the same reason: they want their fucking money.
- basisword 1y ago
  I'm not trying to judge you but it doesn't seem normal to not want to have deep bonds with any other humans. The only people I can think of who don't have deep bonds and even largely avoid forced bonds like family are very unwell (for various reasons). I think AI relationships would only send these people deeper down a dark path that they will struggle to ever get out of.
- carefulfungi 1y ago
  A commenter saying they don't want deep interpersonal bonds being downvoted is a sad rejection. ferguess_k - I hope you're well and living the life you want to live.
  - mattgreenrocks 1y ago
    Agree. I may not agree with the post but I will support their ability to post such things.
  - ferguess_k 1y ago
    Thanks! I'm fine. Still a big far from the life I want to live, but getting there, eventually.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- mattgreenrocks 1y ago
  > Some people probably don't want that "deep interpersonal bonds" though. I know I don't want. I know some people who don't say they don't want but act in every way that they don't want. It's not my position to tell someone what to want. But the evolutionary firmware your body runs on is tuned for interpersonal bonds. If you want to go against that, nobody will stop you, but it strikes me as needless suffering in a world that already has a considerable amount.
elric 1y ago
I imagine this goes beyond what most people think of when they think of "intimacy" (sex, relationships) and includes all kinds of emotional closeness and friendships. Maybe it's just my imagination, but I've noticed a decline in people's willingness to engage with other people since the covid pandemic. If we start replacing interpersonal relationships with chatbots, we're headed for dark times.
- CGMthrowaway 1y ago
  Intimacy in that sense is a euphemism. It's not primary meaning of the word: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intimacy https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intimacy
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
  One of the by-products of the sycophancy issues, is that LLMs are infinitely patient. They’ll listen to your bullshit forever, and won’t call it out, or walk away. I can certainly see folks getting so used to it, that they then measure all their IRL relationships by that. They could decide that “you’re not my friend,” because you don’t want to listen to them whine endlessly about their ex.
  - lelanthran 1y ago
    > One of the by-products of the sycophancy issues, is that LLMs are infinitely patient. They’ll listen to your bullshit forever, and won’t call it out, or walk away. So, just like professional therapists then?
    - ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
      No. Therapists are supposed to call it out, and interrupt rabbitholes. From what I’ve seen of LLMs, it’s the opposite.
      - lelanthran 1y ago
        In theory, sure. In practice therapists don't, because that patient won't be back. All therapists give some some variation of "your problem is $SOMETHING_POSITIVE". Never "your problem is you're too selfish" because those patients don't go back. It's always "your problem is you're too willing to help" or "you give too much of yourself" or other similar such BS.
basisword 1y ago
Removing anthropomorphism from LLM's seems like a really great idea with zero downside. Not just because people starting "relationships" with AI is going to harm society but I imagine people are also more willing to trust misinformation from an anthropomorphic AI.
- OJFord 1y ago
  Is that even possible while still training on 'things written by humans' (and not expressly for training purposes) though?
  - wredcoll 1y ago
    It doesn't have to be perfect. A hypothetical law could be phrased something like "not allowed to intentionally influence the user into thinking the llm is a human", which sure, is up to judges at the end, but it also gives a clear indication of things to avoid doing intentionally.
  - basisword 1y ago
    I feel like you could do it via the system prompt quite easily (but maybe that's my lack of knowledge showing).
- reaperducer 1y ago
  Removing anthropomorphism from LLM's seems like a really great idea with zero downside. Step 1: Stop giving them human or human-like names. Claude, Siri, Gemini, etc.
  - kitd 1y ago
    I swear I'm about to get dumped by my wife for Claude. He gives her all the answers she wants, whereas I only give her the ones she needs.
  - lelanthran 1y ago
    Yeah. Maybe HAL9000 would be better :-)
satvikpendem 1y ago
I already see dystopian ads for friend.com, "someone who listens, responds, and supports you" but it's actually an AI necklace device, and you'll see people marking them up too given how unnerving it is to call an AI a "friend." https://old.reddit.com/r/Greenpoint/comments/1nmk49r/dystopian_ai_companion_friendcom_ads_in_all_the/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Greenpoint/comments/1nmk49r/dystopi...
- joules77 1y ago
  Well before it was the pedo priest with the same dialogue. So maybe an improvement. Good friend of the Church, Nietzsche predicted dystopia long ago but it never plays out the way people think. The chimp troupe is highly unpredictable. One day it props up Hitlers. Next day it kills him.
  - bluefirebrand 1y ago
    > So maybe an improvement Definitely not an improvement to be friends with corporate-owned machines versus being friends with God
bsoles 1y ago
The Catholic Church should probably not talk about "intimacy" at all, given their track record. As much as I am not a big fan of AI/LLMs, I would love it if AI took the Church's job away.
mattgreenrocks 1y ago
> I appreciate that coinage, "artificial intimacy," and want to explore the implications of it more. I've been looking for this phrase for years. It describes the phenomenon perfectly, even accounting for the diminishing of emotional/mental/physical closeness that occurs.
raincole 1y ago
Religions, especially but not limited to Catholic, are what screams "artificial intimacy" to me. From the language the Church uses ("Jesus loves you.") to the practices the Church does (confession to a priest). The most charitable take I can make from this is that religious leaders genuinely believe what they claim to believe so they don't think it's "artificial." There are a lot of less charitable takes I could make, but I'd stop here.
- tempodox 1y ago
  Don’t worry, some “AI” adepts have already managed to make a religion out of it, so classical religions aren’t required any more. In the end it doesn’t matter that much what you’re using to outsource your thinking and your judgement.
- leflambeur 1y ago
  They scream artificial intimacy to you because you have only the most superficial notion of what these things are and never sought to understand them. If you did try to understand basic Christian theology, you'd likely still disagree but would be less confused. This too is a charitable take; no snark meant.
  - alsetmusic 1y ago
    I’ll bite. I’ve been reading about the first two hundred years of christianity for the past couple of years. Here’s my canned take that I got tired of retyping: Jesus is an ahistorical figure who was originally crucified in the firmament above the earth. Notice no mention of an earthly ministry in the Pailine epistles; Paul is arguing for salvation from a heavenly figure. In his letters, Jesus is still to be revealed, rather than returning. Only decades later did the stories about a human man get written. The Didache was most likely part of the letter written by the "pillars in Jerusalem" (James the Just, Peter, and John) after their meeting with Paul. This was the meeting to discuss the matter of preaching to gentiles and whether circumcision ought to be required for christian converts. It contains many of the tenets later ascribed to Jesus, but doesn't associate him with teaching them. The reason the earthly story was embraced by the church was to stop people like Paul from having visions of Christ that the church couldn’t control. By pointing to a real guy on earth, they could control the message. Otherwise, any yokel on the street could teach that Jesus revealed new teachings and the church risked being undermined. Marcion was probably the first to create a collection of writings associated with christianity: he collected some of Paul's letters and had his own gospel. It was thought that he had a shortened version of Luke (as testified by Eusebius and Tertullian). Marcion, however, claimed that his gospel had been "judaized"; this suggests that his shorter version was the original gospel before others modified it. Acts was written as a direct response to Marcion’s scripture. It was written to harmonize Paul’s high-jacking of the religion by making he and Peter appear to be in alignment when actually he was at odds with the leaders in Jerusalem. The Jerusalem pillars (James, Peter, John), were strict adherents of Judaism, whereas Paul taught that Jesus made the Law / Torah unnecessary. They were almost certainly Essenes, one of the three flavors of Judaism at the time (the other two were the Pharisees and Sadducees mentioned in the new testament). John the Baptist was clearly also an Essene. He's said to wear camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and honey. His practice of baptism also aligns with daily ritual water immersion believed to be a core practice of the Essenes. This is a very long way of saying that Jesus first appeared in visions and spoke to the early leaders without walking on earth. It's a fringe belief about which I was quite skeptical, but damn if the evidence doesn't line up. See Robert Price, Earl Doherty, and Elbe Spurling for more info. Elbe's online book is free and contains a huge amount of historical information about the region at the. —— So, I’ll ask you this: which of us has spent more time earnestly trying to understand the faith? I know I read more actual research (as opposed to dogma) than most USA christians, especially evangelicals.
ryandvm 1y ago
The irony of priests being concerned with people developing emotional attachments to beings that don't consciously exist...

ferguess_k 1y ago

Some people probably don't want that "deep interpersonal bonds" though. I know I don't want. I know some people who don't say they don't want but act in every way that they don't want. Although I don't like the future proposed by the AI companies, this is the least of my concerns. The only big concern is employment. Like, if AI creates more jobs than it destroys, sure, go ahead, do it now.

toomuchtodo 1y ago
If the cure for the loneliness epidemic is community, through which interpersonal bonds are required, I suppose it is fine if we allow folks to opt out of community and human connection and use chatbots as they would heroin or meth; maxing out dopamine within their tolerances until death. Free will, self determination, and all that. But, we should also be mindful of the second order effects of such policy (the future ending up some combination of internet gaming cafes where people occasionally play so long they die, and "Ready Player One").
- ferguess_k 1y ago
  Yeah I agree with that, basically genuine choice for all. BTW I just don't want "deep" bonds, but some sort of bonds is always good. Not sure how "deep" he meant though.
  - wara23arish 1y ago
    may I ask why?
  - busterarm 1y ago
    As I get older and see these things play out, I agree less and less. There's a physical toll on your health that gets paid for living a lifestyle like this. Society pays part of the cost of this (at the very least anyone on the same health insurance plan). I feel icky saying this but we should make a strong effort as a society to stamp out anti-social behaviors. Addictions are very high on that list. You might think that you can engage this way without being a burden to others, but you can't.
    - toomuchtodo 1y ago
      > I feel icky saying this but we should make a strong effort as a society to stamp out anti-social behaviors. Addictions are very high on that list. GLP-1s can help stamp out addiction, but people are going to be people. You can provide them support, but you cannot prevent chronic, determined self harm and destruction. I speak from personal experience. https://recursiveadaptation.com/p/the-growing-scientific-case-for-using https://recursiveadaptation.com/p/the-growing-scientific-cas...
- ToucanLoucan 1y ago
  I mean experiencing LLM "intimacy" of any sort is just getting to roleplay as a billionare tech CEO isn't it? It's why they're so proud of it, as far as they're concerned, they've perfectly reproduced the real people they encounter: breathless sycophants utterly tripping over themselves to tell them how fucking smart they are for whatever banal shit they've farted out most recently and tell them every idea they have is god working through them to bestow his gifts to mankind. And for the same reason: they want their fucking money.
basisword 1y ago
I'm not trying to judge you but it doesn't seem normal to not want to have deep bonds with any other humans. The only people I can think of who don't have deep bonds and even largely avoid forced bonds like family are very unwell (for various reasons). I think AI relationships would only send these people deeper down a dark path that they will struggle to ever get out of.
carefulfungi 1y ago
A commenter saying they don't want deep interpersonal bonds being downvoted is a sad rejection. ferguess_k - I hope you're well and living the life you want to live.
- mattgreenrocks 1y ago
  Agree. I may not agree with the post but I will support their ability to post such things.
- ferguess_k 1y ago
  Thanks! I'm fine. Still a big far from the life I want to live, but getting there, eventually.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
mattgreenrocks 1y ago
> Some people probably don't want that "deep interpersonal bonds" though. I know I don't want. I know some people who don't say they don't want but act in every way that they don't want. It's not my position to tell someone what to want. But the evolutionary firmware your body runs on is tuned for interpersonal bonds. If you want to go against that, nobody will stop you, but it strikes me as needless suffering in a world that already has a considerable amount.

elric 1y ago

I imagine this goes beyond what most people think of when they think of "intimacy" (sex, relationships) and includes all kinds of emotional closeness and friendships. Maybe it's just my imagination, but I've noticed a decline in people's willingness to engage with other people since the covid pandemic. If we start replacing interpersonal relationships with chatbots, we're headed for dark times.

CGMthrowaway 1y ago
Intimacy in that sense is a euphemism. It's not primary meaning of the word: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intimacy https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intimacy
ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
One of the by-products of the sycophancy issues, is that LLMs are infinitely patient. They’ll listen to your bullshit forever, and won’t call it out, or walk away. I can certainly see folks getting so used to it, that they then measure all their IRL relationships by that. They could decide that “you’re not my friend,” because you don’t want to listen to them whine endlessly about their ex.
- lelanthran 1y ago
  > One of the by-products of the sycophancy issues, is that LLMs are infinitely patient. They’ll listen to your bullshit forever, and won’t call it out, or walk away. So, just like professional therapists then?
  - ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
    No. Therapists are supposed to call it out, and interrupt rabbitholes. From what I’ve seen of LLMs, it’s the opposite.
    - lelanthran 1y ago
      In theory, sure. In practice therapists don't, because that patient won't be back. All therapists give some some variation of "your problem is $SOMETHING_POSITIVE". Never "your problem is you're too selfish" because those patients don't go back. It's always "your problem is you're too willing to help" or "you give too much of yourself" or other similar such BS.

basisword 1y ago

Removing anthropomorphism from LLM's seems like a really great idea with zero downside. Not just because people starting "relationships" with AI is going to harm society but I imagine people are also more willing to trust misinformation from an anthropomorphic AI.

OJFord 1y ago
Is that even possible while still training on 'things written by humans' (and not expressly for training purposes) though?
- wredcoll 1y ago
  It doesn't have to be perfect. A hypothetical law could be phrased something like "not allowed to intentionally influence the user into thinking the llm is a human", which sure, is up to judges at the end, but it also gives a clear indication of things to avoid doing intentionally.
- basisword 1y ago
  I feel like you could do it via the system prompt quite easily (but maybe that's my lack of knowledge showing).
reaperducer 1y ago
Removing anthropomorphism from LLM's seems like a really great idea with zero downside. Step 1: Stop giving them human or human-like names. Claude, Siri, Gemini, etc.
- kitd 1y ago
  I swear I'm about to get dumped by my wife for Claude. He gives her all the answers she wants, whereas I only give her the ones she needs.
- lelanthran 1y ago
  Yeah. Maybe HAL9000 would be better :-)

satvikpendem 1y ago

I already see dystopian ads for friend.com, "someone who listens, responds, and supports you" but it's actually an AI necklace device, and you'll see people marking them up too given how unnerving it is to call an AI a "friend." https://old.reddit.com/r/Greenpoint/comments/1nmk49r/dystopian_ai_companion_friendcom_ads_in_all_the/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Greenpoint/comments/1nmk49r/dystopi...

joules77 1y ago
Well before it was the pedo priest with the same dialogue. So maybe an improvement. Good friend of the Church, Nietzsche predicted dystopia long ago but it never plays out the way people think. The chimp troupe is highly unpredictable. One day it props up Hitlers. Next day it kills him.
- bluefirebrand 1y ago
  > So maybe an improvement Definitely not an improvement to be friends with corporate-owned machines versus being friends with God

bsoles 1y ago

The Catholic Church should probably not talk about "intimacy" at all, given their track record. As much as I am not a big fan of AI/LLMs, I would love it if AI took the Church's job away.

mattgreenrocks 1y ago

> I appreciate that coinage, "artificial intimacy," and want to explore the implications of it more. I've been looking for this phrase for years. It describes the phenomenon perfectly, even accounting for the diminishing of emotional/mental/physical closeness that occurs.

raincole 1y ago

Religions, especially but not limited to Catholic, are what screams "artificial intimacy" to me. From the language the Church uses ("Jesus loves you.") to the practices the Church does (confession to a priest). The most charitable take I can make from this is that religious leaders genuinely believe what they claim to believe so they don't think it's "artificial." There are a lot of less charitable takes I could make, but I'd stop here.

tempodox 1y ago
Don’t worry, some “AI” adepts have already managed to make a religion out of it, so classical religions aren’t required any more. In the end it doesn’t matter that much what you’re using to outsource your thinking and your judgement.
leflambeur 1y ago
They scream artificial intimacy to you because you have only the most superficial notion of what these things are and never sought to understand them. If you did try to understand basic Christian theology, you'd likely still disagree but would be less confused. This too is a charitable take; no snark meant.
- alsetmusic 1y ago
  I’ll bite. I’ve been reading about the first two hundred years of christianity for the past couple of years. Here’s my canned take that I got tired of retyping: Jesus is an ahistorical figure who was originally crucified in the firmament above the earth. Notice no mention of an earthly ministry in the Pailine epistles; Paul is arguing for salvation from a heavenly figure. In his letters, Jesus is still to be revealed, rather than returning. Only decades later did the stories about a human man get written. The Didache was most likely part of the letter written by the "pillars in Jerusalem" (James the Just, Peter, and John) after their meeting with Paul. This was the meeting to discuss the matter of preaching to gentiles and whether circumcision ought to be required for christian converts. It contains many of the tenets later ascribed to Jesus, but doesn't associate him with teaching them. The reason the earthly story was embraced by the church was to stop people like Paul from having visions of Christ that the church couldn’t control. By pointing to a real guy on earth, they could control the message. Otherwise, any yokel on the street could teach that Jesus revealed new teachings and the church risked being undermined. Marcion was probably the first to create a collection of writings associated with christianity: he collected some of Paul's letters and had his own gospel. It was thought that he had a shortened version of Luke (as testified by Eusebius and Tertullian). Marcion, however, claimed that his gospel had been "judaized"; this suggests that his shorter version was the original gospel before others modified it. Acts was written as a direct response to Marcion’s scripture. It was written to harmonize Paul’s high-jacking of the religion by making he and Peter appear to be in alignment when actually he was at odds with the leaders in Jerusalem. The Jerusalem pillars (James, Peter, John), were strict adherents of Judaism, whereas Paul taught that Jesus made the Law / Torah unnecessary. They were almost certainly Essenes, one of the three flavors of Judaism at the time (the other two were the Pharisees and Sadducees mentioned in the new testament). John the Baptist was clearly also an Essene. He's said to wear camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and honey. His practice of baptism also aligns with daily ritual water immersion believed to be a core practice of the Essenes. This is a very long way of saying that Jesus first appeared in visions and spoke to the early leaders without walking on earth. It's a fringe belief about which I was quite skeptical, but damn if the evidence doesn't line up. See Robert Price, Earl Doherty, and Elbe Spurling for more info. Elbe's online book is free and contains a huge amount of historical information about the region at the. —— So, I’ll ask you this: which of us has spent more time earnestly trying to understand the faith? I know I read more actual research (as opposed to dogma) than most USA christians, especially evangelicals.

ryandvm 1y ago

The irony of priests being concerned with people developing emotional attachments to beings that don't consciously exist...