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This is the opposite direction AI should be going. Human relationships are the most valuable thing we have, and so, naturally, technology seeks to intermediate

This is the opposite direction AI should be going. Human relationships are the most valuable thing we have, and so, naturally, technology seeks to intermediate and now replace them. I'm not Catholic, but this podcast presents a very interesting argument against talking to AI as if they were human: https://newpolity.com/podcasts-hub/debate-chatbots https://newpolity.com/podcasts-hub/debate-chatbots

zkmon 2mo ago
Most of what AI does is already in wrong direction. Not just human-to-human interaction, it took away thinking, creative work, sensory perception (glasses) and responses. People call it as helping humans, but I call it as sucking away the "human-ness" from humans. After the damage is done, the mega corps would simply shrug and will say "Well, we were just responding to our business competition" The business knows no human-ness, because it is not a human. Businesses and machines are creatures that see humans as their fodder. And humans created these, assuming it is progress, to have businesses and machines. We call it progress because it required our mind power and it helped us to dominate other species. Dolphins are laughing at us.
- amarant 2mo ago
  I don't understand this line of reasoning. How are you hindered from doing any of those things? What part of "AI can now do X" makes it so you can't also do X?
  - zkmon 2mo ago
    I'm no longer writing code from scratch, as I used to do before. So, very soon, it will be "AI can now do X" makes it so I can't also do X? Same with many creative works. Radio music already sounds so plastic. I lost interest in crafting my text drafts because I can just dump some ugly text and get it refined by AI.
    - small_model 2mo ago
      You no longer have to grow your own food, can go to supermarket, but doesnt stop you from still doing it.
      - esafak 2mo ago
        I hope that's not the future of work before UBI gets settled, because almost nobody grows their own food.
    - motoxpro 2mo ago
      I'm confused. It feels like you are saying you did those things as a means to an end. Like saying I no longer walk because I can drive. I no longer cook because Doordash exists. I no longer play piano because midi exists. I mean i guess, but it seems like you didn't LIKE crafting the text or coding from scratch, you just wanted the outcome. If we are talking purely about work, I understand that its about being productive and it sucks to have a job shift to something you enjoy less. But for daily life? I dont see how it changes, maybe its a tech thing where people think about making their daily lives more productive, but most people dont.
      - zkmon 2mo ago
        The human-ness is not about outcomes only. It is about doing things, thinking, achieving, socializing, sharing, bonding, feeling happy about what you did, using senses for what they evolved fir, recognizing and responding to body signals and being a biological creature. A lot of these is affected by AI.
        motoxpro 2mo ago
        None of those are affected by AI. You can CHOOSE to let AI think for you or achieve for you, but you dont have to. You only HAVE to in a work context (for some people), which I admit sucks (or is great depending on who you are). This feels like a touch grass moment.
  - perching_aix 2mo ago
    Playing the devil's advocate a little, you say "can't also do", but that implies prohibition, not hindering. Hindering is not total like that. It's like trying to have meaningful conversations on Twitter. You don't go to Twitter to do things like that. Can you? Sure. It's just not what the format and the conventions (and the people) lend themselves to. I don't think there's much merit in pretending that human activities are only shaped by hard limits.
  - monkaiju 2mo ago
    Hasnt this already been thoroughly discussed? Your ability to do X degrades as you offload it more frequently, eventually to the point that you can no longer even vet the quality of the output. I think the parent is saying now that that is attempting to be applied to "creativity" directly, as opposed to something like a shift of medium, that it threatens many peoples' ability to maintain creative capabilities. Anecdotally I've already experienced this at work where post-AI we had a junior completely stagnate and a senior with over a decade of experience in the bay atrophy to the point that he had to be let go.
  - xpct 2mo ago
    We're yet to see how this plays out, but a competing business model for creative work is emerging, where it's delegated to chatbots. Naturally, this would result in less creative work for humans.
  - hackrmn 2mo ago
    Fewer people aren't staring into their phones or talking to them -- makes your social antennas pick up automatically on not wanting to disturb them (lest you draw their ire for not having the social antennas long enough to pick up on the fact they're "busy and don't want to engage with you" like a gymrat with AirPods to signal they're there to pump in peace and quiet listening to their favourite playlist, not talk to strangers). Happened to me already many times just with people scrolling their phone instead of talking and not wanting to talk in particular either, not to me at least. And no -- I am not talking about bothering strangers in the gym etc, I am talking about sitting at the lunch table where half of the people look into their phones -- they aren't actually interested in talking, it turns out. Our devices have now increased the distance _between_ us -- it's not about _you_ being able to "do X" -- talking to others is not _you_ doing it, it's you _and the other person_ doing it _together_. You can't be doing anything together consentually when the other person is in the habit of talking with their AI, or doomscrolling for that matter.
    - andai 2mo ago
      There are still lots of social people. I found a lot of people actually do want to talk but are just shy. I spent a few weeks at a hostel last year. It was always kind of depressing and tense in the shared kitchen, just this heavy silence. I don't feel comfortable around strangers, so I solved that problem by just saying hi to everyone. Most people didn't respond much, although most of them smiled and the tension was eased. But a few of them struck up conversation and we ended up making friends. I ended up making like, ten new friends in two weeks. And then a bunch of them ended up becoming friends with each other as well.
      - domga 2mo ago
        This is an individual solution to a systemic problem. On a personal level, it is possible to solve such problems, but generally no, the ship has sailed quite some time ago (I personally think cars are to blame). Even if you do it, you are still swimming against the current.
        2mo ago
  - overgard 2mo ago
    In a personal context, you're not hindered from doing those things, so you're correct in that regard. The problem is economic and social. The AI is mediocre enough to drive the value of those things way down; possibly to zero. When something isn't valuable, people are less likely to learn it, and in the future it's less likely that anyone will actually have those skills. For example, we've slopped many illustrators out of jobs and essentially made art (an already awful paying career before AI) economically infeasible. AI illustrations kind of suck though, and even when they're technically competent they're kind of soulless. So you might say, ok, I will hire/contract an artist if I care about the quality of my illustration! Ok, but, if artists are being priced out by a machine then how long before there's no real market for finding a human to do it because all the artists gave up and got a job at starbucks and all you have left are amateurs? This is almost certainly going to bite us in the ass long term, because eventually without human creativity you're just training AI's on other AI slop, or limiting the possible catalogue of styles to "things that existed before AI ruined every creative job". I guess the question is, what kind of future do you want to live in? One where we have a massive abundance of easy-to-create but vaguely worthless artifacts in a society that's completely devalued being good at something? It just sounds really dystopian to me.
    - spongebobstoes 2mo ago
      "starving artist" is not a new concept AI doesn't stop creative people from creating. it gives creative people an additional tool with which to create
      - overgard 2mo ago
        > "starving artist" is not a new concept Exactly, so why make it worse? Why try to automate an industry when the money you make off killing it wouldn't even cover the cost of your research? > AI doesn't stop creative people from creating. it gives creative people an additional tool with which to create I can't emphasize enough how much actual creative people hate this shit. Here's a relatively balanced take, although the headline spoils it (How AI Poisons Creativity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeCSzEtZcUw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeCSzEtZcUw ). Long story short, the struggle is where creative ideas come from. If you automate away the process you automate away the result.
- ryandvm 2mo ago
  > "Well, we were just responding to our business competition" The business knows no humanness, because it is not a human. Yup. Except, by God, we ought to make sure the business has unlimited free speech (i.e. campaign contributions).
- Citizen_Lame 2mo ago
  Bit naive world view. There are forces of rich and powerful who's only purpose is to maintain their status. So thinking corporations and such were created to push human progress is laughable.
- supern0va 2mo ago
  Counter-point: I love that my rubber duck can talk (quack?) back, as well as record and summarize my thoughts on topics I'm working or stuck on. I've wanted a good voice mode for precisely this reason. When I take my dog on a walk and I'm thinking about a bunch of problems/ideas, I'd love to have feedback and a record, or perhaps to even kick off research or ask questions to fill in gaps that would otherwise have me debating pulling out my phone to try to get an answer.
  - zkmon 2mo ago
    You want to be a child forever, amazed by your toys or the new things you can do. The toys won't let you grow up and become a normal human. You don't need take a dog for a walk, if you live in a normal place that allows dogs to roam freely. And you don't need to think about a "bunch of problems/ideas". Your mind is a servant of your body. And your body never asked you for that.
    - supern0va 2mo ago
      >You want to be a child forever, amazed by your toys or the new things you can do. I don't think having a child-like sense of wonder at the world, or continued human ingenuity, is a sign that one wants to be a child forever. I'm genuinely sorry if you've lost that spark. >You don't need take a dog for a walk, if you live in a normal place that allows dogs to roam freely. I love my dog and love walking him, even though he can freely roam on my property. I also love walking with my wife, and I don't think her agency has much reason for why I might enjoy it? >Your mind is a servant of your body. And your body never asked you for that. ...are you okay, friend?
- bb88 2mo ago
  Businesses have been anti-human for a while now. If you think AI is bad, wait until I tell you about the horrors of social media who profit on controversy and division, US health insurance which profits on rejecting claims, and big pharma profiting on the opioid epidemic. And it's not like this is new, either. Upton Sinclair was writing about this stuff a century ago with books like The Jungle. The only difference between then and now is we "think" we're not evil today. We've lied to ourselves that "We're so much better than we were back then." Facebook wanted to bring people together originally, but they ended up providing the most toxic social media experience known to man. Facebook forgot to tell us they cared more about profit than people. Please spare me the argument AI is the straw to break the camel's back here. The system has been broken a long time before that.
seizethecheese 2mo ago
Isn’t voice I difference in degree rather than in kind? I definitely talk to AI as if it were human (one might say the UX of AI is to emulate a human). And a large portion of my interaction with humans is via text, for example, this post!
- jonstaab 2mo ago
  Right, I think the challenge is that LLMs are essentially language-based, which is itself a very convenient interface. Covering the maximally humanistic default interface with something more mechanical is like tying your own shoelaces together, but it would protect us from the psychological hijacking we're so prone to when interacting with these machines.
- 1659447091 2mo ago
  > Isn’t voice I difference in degree rather than in kind? There is a difference in expression / emotionality with speaking vs writing. Speaking tends to carry more emotion while writing is generally more deliberate/less-emotional*. Having a voice conversation will be more likely to get a human to engage in an emotional based expression mode, which could increase the chance of "false connections", believing the AI "gets" them or "understands" or "listens". This happens with text too, as some headlines show. The issue is that while some people are going to "connect" with their AI in text and voice, some who do not make the connection via text may do so via voice because it tends to change a persons expression mode. > I definitely talk to AI as if it were human Do you talk to it as if it were a friend or family? or Do you just use natural language to give directives? The distinction, I believe, is in the kind of way we express the "talking". I talk to AI as if it were a tool that understands human commands and then executes those commands and relays them in a human understandable format. This includes commands to provide options that I may not have covered and explain the options. If I talked to a human this way, they wouldn't be around much longer -- unless they were an employee and even then they would probably be looking for a new job After reading some of the psychotic break headlines from AI chats, I see some people really do talk to AI as if it were human. Which I would guess includes seeking broad "thoughts and feelings" on a persons situation or asking the AI if their view/side of things is the "right or wrong" side. Basically begging the AI to be responsible for their own thoughts, or simply offloading them and taking what comes back -- which is going to be what they wanted to hear because the entire context would be full of emotion based prompts. *I forget which books Ive read about this in. It's not an obscure concept, quick search brought this up: https://kellercenter.hankamer.baylor.edu/news/story/2023/speaking-or-writing-impact-expression-modalities https://kellercenter.hankamer.baylor.edu/news/story/2023/spe...
hoppp 2mo ago
But a lot of humans can't engage in meaningful technical conversations... So why not use a tool for that?
- FridgeSeal 2mo ago
  Somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy no? - nobody else with the skills - talk to machine - nobody develops the skills to have a conversation - go to step 1. - bonus step: your own skills atrophy too.
  - jdthedisciple 2mo ago
    Devil's advocate: The widespread lack of social skills was not caused by LLMs in the first place. In fact, AI ChatBots, if used right, can actually help remedy lacking socialising skills.
    - FridgeSeal 2mo ago
      Not if there’s good money to be made exploiting people for money instead! There’s plenty of evidence that these models worsen these issues, and we know from prior experience that companies like FB will happily exploit vulnerable users for money.
throwuxiytayq 2mo ago
How would talking to an AI as if it were not human sound? You can probably set your system prompt to insert “beep boop” between sentences and make it refer to itself as “Cybertron9000 Personal Computing Device” if that’s what you like. Is that an improvement? Or are you against voice computer interfaces altogether?
- SmirkingRevenge 2mo ago
  My preference would be to turn down the fake emotional expressions and notes in the responses. No cheeky quips, etc. Otherwise it's kind of like being manipulated by a psychopath
  - throwuxiytayq 2mo ago
    I would also like to tone those down, and prefer if they just focused on creating a nice, clear, natural-sounding voice. I don’t think the “emotional roleplaying” adds anything to what I perceive as a computer interaction. But that’s precisely the opposite of the problem the other commenters seem to be voicing; I have no problem recognizing what I’m interacting with, and I don’t worry about being manipulated - not by the tone of its voice, and even if it had a video avatar, all that. Do you guys seriously have this problem of being confused by LLMs that sound too much like humans, or is this a theoretical problem that you’re worried somebody else is having? I am open to the possibility that this is a future that is coming, but as far as I’m concerned, we’re years away from that tech. Is it actually here for you?
    - SmirkingRevenge 2mo ago
      Maybe it's just that conversing with something or someone that is acting manipulative can be unpleasant in and of itself, even if the manipulation is not successful. Each time I hear the bot emote, it's like a subtle suggestion to just play along and anthropomorphize it - it feels weird, silly and annoying
- jonstaab 2mo ago
  I don't know the answer. But a robotic voice is probably not a bad idea — just having a reminder that the thing you're talking to is not actually anything like you. If you want to go full send, you could have the LLM generate a clickable interface on demand so you could interact with it as a machine. Voice/computer interfaces are obviously useful, especially for disabled folks. But the ones that existed in the past didn't pretend to laugh at your non jokes or imitate vocal fry.
mlsu 2mo ago
Yes, every minute you spend texting or talking to a chatbot is a minute that you'd have spent talking to another human beings. Literally the only important thing in life, the basis of all value, the formation of self-identity, comes from communication with other human beings.
- Der_Einzige 2mo ago
  Such radical carbon chauvinism is ontologically evil. May those who hold this view reincarnate as durian fruits or cockroaches.
  - mlsu 2mo ago
    I'm sure you'd have no problem in solitary confinement. Why not make life easy?
  - rel_ic 2mo ago
    Just saying: those are also carbon-based lifeforms :D
  - beepbooptheory 2mo ago
    The implication that durians and roaches are somehow ontologically subaltern is a worse chauvinism.
  - wraptile 2mo ago
    > May those who hold this view reincarnate as durian fruits or cockroaches don't you dare clump the best fruit in the world with cockroaches!
- johnfn 2mo ago
  This is such a poor mischaracterization of OP that I actually started agreeing with OP more.
  - enraged_camel 2mo ago
    It's also hilariously wrong. It essentially argues, implicitly, that those who don't communicate with other humans are missing out on the "most important thing in life" and cannot form a self-identity.
quotemstr 2mo ago
> This is the opposite direction AI should be going. There is no moral obligation, in any domain, to refuse to make a product that adults, with full informed consent, find useful and purchase. Who are you to say you know better than the market?
- rel_ic 2mo ago
  I disagree. I think you absolutely have a moral obligation to consider the impacts of your product. > Who are you to say you know better than the market? You really don't think the scientists & engineers making these tools know some things better than the market?
- perching_aix 2mo ago
  Market conditions are not a moral standard either, nor do they represent any cohesive one in particular. Not sure why you're contrasting their opinion with this, it's literally no better.
- gf000 2mo ago
  Markets only work in well-regulated environments, this has been known since forever (Adam Smith). There is no meaningful competition in a marathon if I can drive you over with a car at the first 100m. And thanks fkin God that we have regulations and meaningful laws and some asshole for-profit company can't just put drugs into food.. the "informed buyer" is bullshit. Humans are faulty, and there is a billion dollar industry meant to take advantage of said faults: it's called marketing.
- FridgeSeal 2mo ago
  This is a cute argument to make, which patently doesn’t work in the face of decades of evidence on the pernicious effects of social media _alone_, let alone the “turbo infantilising sycophancy machine”. Pretending that everything’s totally fine and ok because “it’s adults” really just disregards reality.
  - quotemstr 2mo ago
    I don't accept that social media is self-evidently bad. Not everyone lives inside the bubble in which its wrongness is obvious.
LostMyLogin 2mo ago
Every new release I'm convinced we are just realizing the Knowledge Navigator. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umJsITGzXd0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umJsITGzXd0
2001zhaozhao 2mo ago
Just give it a scifi robot voice and pretend you're on a spaceship
- jonstaab 2mo ago
  This is actually not a bad option
- svantana 2mo ago
  I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.
jrflo 2mo ago
I see it more as a way technology could be abused rather than an inherent flaw in the technology itself. If you start to replace human interaction with chatbot interaction, that's bad, but there's nothing wrong with using a human-like chatbot in moderation. So many other types of technology are fine in moderation but can be abused in a human-interaction-replacing way: television, social media, video games, etc.
- jonstaab 2mo ago
  Yes, but design nudges use in one direction or another. Or, as McLuhan said, "the medium is the message."
  - jrflo 2mo ago
    I think the same applies with the examples I listed.
    - jonstaab 2mo ago
      The thing is, individual moderation isn't sufficient to combat collective capture. This is Ivan Illich's idea of "radical monopoly", where a technology (like cars or the internet) becomes so entrenched that individuals can't realistically opt out any longer. This happens when we abdicate our collective responsibility to the internal logic and incentives of the tech.
carloseduardopx 2mo ago
Again, we're paying for the fact that Sam Altman didn't understand the movie her
poly2it 2mo ago
Where do you draw the line on how good human-machine interfaces should be? I'm sure this model could be a convenience for many, and while it may be social for some, I am not sure it would substitute existing human interaction for those users. Besides, I do not think there is anything inherently immoral with not being social, or not having the ability to be. Consider for example people who do not naturally have the social network to interact with people they want to (e.g. some gifted children). I am not convinced this model has enough empathy to satisfy most users on an emotional level. A bond is not merely an exchange of words, but prolonged and deep contemplation of the other being. We cannot introspect into these machines, and they certainly cannot yet do the same to us.
nullbio 2mo ago
I disagree. Fluid natural conversational AI is far more productive than any other interface for working with LLMs. Although I suppose you could make the argument that it should be more... Robotic like. Like in StarTrek. Which, is honestly probably better for work, too. A "get shit done" mode, of pure, cold, efficiency.
- SmirkingRevenge 2mo ago
  In one of the videos the AI quips back things like "Happens to the best of us" - its basically pretending to be human and that feels kind of creepy and weird, like it's trying to cultivate a para-social emotional bond. I just want voice assistants to reliably understand what I say and do what I mean So hopefully you can turn that off. There are plenty of applications for that more human conversational style though (from mock interviews, improv practice, learning languages, etc) - I just don't want that for most things.
  - daveguy 2mo ago
    I doubt you can turn that off. That's how they upgrade it up from a tool to an engagement optimized addiction platform.
- derangedHorse 2mo ago
  Ironically, Data (from TNG) has a lot of heart to him
  - nullbio 2mo ago
    Data is the goal!
filoleg 2mo ago
> This is the opposite direction AI should be going. Human relationships are the most valuable thing we have, and so, naturally, technology seeks to intermediate and now replace them. Valid, but, I think, you conflate two separate things. AI voice mode as a human socialization/conversation replacement? Cringe in my book, fully in agreement with you. Though my opinion on that aspect remains the same, regardless of whether it is done through text or voice. AI voice mode as an alternative interface to interact with AI-as-a-tool? Great idea imo. There were a few instances where I was either too tired to type or wanted to brainstorm things in more of a freeform mode, for which a well-working voice mode would have been great. Naturally, the current distinction between AI-as-a-personality and AI-as-a-tool exists purely on the user's end. All I know is that I want the latter a lot, and if some people want to use it for the former purpose, that's not my problem. Sadly, I think that it will be judged more on how an average person decides to use it (i.e., in the most degenerate/reductionist ways possible), as opposed to being judged on the merits of what it can actually be used for by someone who just treats it as a tool.
- streb-lo 2mo ago
  Basically 100% of my interaction with AI is some form of question. But there are people that treat it like a therapist or a friend. In my opinion, the 2nd group should be discouraged from using these agents in this way, as it cannot be healthy. But if places like Reddit etc. turn into bot towns where do the AI companies get insight into the general population? Through the eyes of their most mentally unstable users? So I don't really see things changing, and they'll probably get worse.
akomtu 2mo ago
From one perspective, AI serves as a wedge that separates those who want human culture from those who want machine culture.
Sol- 2mo ago
Aren't they already very cognizant of handwringing like yours? Their article mentions various safeguards and actively steering the model away from being emotional companions and so on. It's a far cry from the OpenAI two years ago or whenever it was when they were entertaining the idea of allowing/enabling adult conversations with their models. I personally think this is a moralistic regulatory overreach. And they definitely do that due to political pressure too, since there are various bills around the world in various legislatures that want to regulate AIs giving useful advice and being too personal to talk to. So you can rest assured, I think, at least in that regard. The AI disempowerment will come to us anyway, just in a more sanitized corporate form.
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standardUser 2mo ago
I don't think most adults can get much social value or satisfaction from an AI conversation they know is not a real person. Those who can get that satisfaction likely have so few human-to-human interactions that an AI companion may be as good a solution to chronic loneliness as any. I'd be more worried about the inevitable robo-nannies who could end up talking more to young children than actual people.
bodash 2mo ago
I’m completely on your side, but also I think about all the AI saturations in the society like this: “Driving to work or running a 10km on the weekend sharing the same surface goal: from A to B. You may have less autonomy whether you should drive to work, but you definitely have more decision power about whether to go for that run or not”
jstummbillig 2mo ago
> This is the opposite direction AI should be going I don't understand the counterfactual. What's the opposite direction of this direction that's desirable? Less capable voice models are obviously not it, so I am curious what direction you mean or if it's just vague indirection.
mrcwinn 2mo ago
Regardless how natural AI becomes I’ve yet to replace any human relationships. Where do you see the aim of technology as trying to replace people? You might be using it wrong.
Unearned5161 2mo ago
I want to bring some attention to a spectacular sleight of hand that occurs at minute 4 of this podcast: "The way that I formulate the argument, just to get us started here, is that acts, the things we do, have ends. We act for an end. They have a purpose. And that it is wrong to deliberately frustrate an act from attaining its end, from attaining its purpose." I will draw your attention to the three instances of "end", first we have the noble, tautological, "have ends", actions have ends; then, following close behind we see "an end", we act for an end, those ends have been made into one now, singular end; and finally, "its end", the act, as an entity unto itself, has an end you mustn't interrupt.
imhoguy 2mo ago
Hopefuly I see conscious young people in my surroundings who refrain from using human like AI (voice). They say "it is cringe". Moreover I think aggresive robocalls and advertising will derail the entire trend in a few years, people will become tired of fake talk.
khurs 2mo ago
For people with disabilities who can't type or see, ai conversations I imagine may have been life changing way to access the internet and knowledge
asdewqqwer 2mo ago
SOME human relationships are the most valuable thing we have. Many (if not most) human relationships in many cultures are just trespassing everyone's boundary via peer pressure. Disclaimer: I am from Scandinavian.

zkmon 2mo ago

Most of what AI does is already in wrong direction. Not just human-to-human interaction, it took away thinking, creative work, sensory perception (glasses) and responses. People call it as helping humans, but I call it as sucking away the "human-ness" from humans. After the damage is done, the mega corps would simply shrug and will say "Well, we were just responding to our business competition" The business knows no human-ness, because it is not a human. Businesses and machines are creatures that see humans as their fodder. And humans created these, assuming it is progress, to have businesses and machines. We call it progress because it required our mind power and it helped us to dominate other species. Dolphins are laughing at us.

amarant 2mo ago
I don't understand this line of reasoning. How are you hindered from doing any of those things? What part of "AI can now do X" makes it so you can't also do X?
- zkmon 2mo ago
  I'm no longer writing code from scratch, as I used to do before. So, very soon, it will be "AI can now do X" makes it so I can't also do X? Same with many creative works. Radio music already sounds so plastic. I lost interest in crafting my text drafts because I can just dump some ugly text and get it refined by AI.
  - small_model 2mo ago
    You no longer have to grow your own food, can go to supermarket, but doesnt stop you from still doing it.
    - esafak 2mo ago
      I hope that's not the future of work before UBI gets settled, because almost nobody grows their own food.
  - motoxpro 2mo ago
    I'm confused. It feels like you are saying you did those things as a means to an end. Like saying I no longer walk because I can drive. I no longer cook because Doordash exists. I no longer play piano because midi exists. I mean i guess, but it seems like you didn't LIKE crafting the text or coding from scratch, you just wanted the outcome. If we are talking purely about work, I understand that its about being productive and it sucks to have a job shift to something you enjoy less. But for daily life? I dont see how it changes, maybe its a tech thing where people think about making their daily lives more productive, but most people dont.
    - zkmon 2mo ago
      The human-ness is not about outcomes only. It is about doing things, thinking, achieving, socializing, sharing, bonding, feeling happy about what you did, using senses for what they evolved fir, recognizing and responding to body signals and being a biological creature. A lot of these is affected by AI.
      - motoxpro 2mo ago
        None of those are affected by AI. You can CHOOSE to let AI think for you or achieve for you, but you dont have to. You only HAVE to in a work context (for some people), which I admit sucks (or is great depending on who you are). This feels like a touch grass moment.
- perching_aix 2mo ago
  Playing the devil's advocate a little, you say "can't also do", but that implies prohibition, not hindering. Hindering is not total like that. It's like trying to have meaningful conversations on Twitter. You don't go to Twitter to do things like that. Can you? Sure. It's just not what the format and the conventions (and the people) lend themselves to. I don't think there's much merit in pretending that human activities are only shaped by hard limits.
- monkaiju 2mo ago
  Hasnt this already been thoroughly discussed? Your ability to do X degrades as you offload it more frequently, eventually to the point that you can no longer even vet the quality of the output. I think the parent is saying now that that is attempting to be applied to "creativity" directly, as opposed to something like a shift of medium, that it threatens many peoples' ability to maintain creative capabilities. Anecdotally I've already experienced this at work where post-AI we had a junior completely stagnate and a senior with over a decade of experience in the bay atrophy to the point that he had to be let go.
- xpct 2mo ago
  We're yet to see how this plays out, but a competing business model for creative work is emerging, where it's delegated to chatbots. Naturally, this would result in less creative work for humans.
- hackrmn 2mo ago
  Fewer people aren't staring into their phones or talking to them -- makes your social antennas pick up automatically on not wanting to disturb them (lest you draw their ire for not having the social antennas long enough to pick up on the fact they're "busy and don't want to engage with you" like a gymrat with AirPods to signal they're there to pump in peace and quiet listening to their favourite playlist, not talk to strangers). Happened to me already many times just with people scrolling their phone instead of talking and not wanting to talk in particular either, not to me at least. And no -- I am not talking about bothering strangers in the gym etc, I am talking about sitting at the lunch table where half of the people look into their phones -- they aren't actually interested in talking, it turns out. Our devices have now increased the distance _between_ us -- it's not about _you_ being able to "do X" -- talking to others is not _you_ doing it, it's you _and the other person_ doing it _together_. You can't be doing anything together consentually when the other person is in the habit of talking with their AI, or doomscrolling for that matter.
  - andai 2mo ago
    There are still lots of social people. I found a lot of people actually do want to talk but are just shy. I spent a few weeks at a hostel last year. It was always kind of depressing and tense in the shared kitchen, just this heavy silence. I don't feel comfortable around strangers, so I solved that problem by just saying hi to everyone. Most people didn't respond much, although most of them smiled and the tension was eased. But a few of them struck up conversation and we ended up making friends. I ended up making like, ten new friends in two weeks. And then a bunch of them ended up becoming friends with each other as well.
    - domga 2mo ago
      This is an individual solution to a systemic problem. On a personal level, it is possible to solve such problems, but generally no, the ship has sailed quite some time ago (I personally think cars are to blame). Even if you do it, you are still swimming against the current.
      - 2mo ago
- overgard 2mo ago
  In a personal context, you're not hindered from doing those things, so you're correct in that regard. The problem is economic and social. The AI is mediocre enough to drive the value of those things way down; possibly to zero. When something isn't valuable, people are less likely to learn it, and in the future it's less likely that anyone will actually have those skills. For example, we've slopped many illustrators out of jobs and essentially made art (an already awful paying career before AI) economically infeasible. AI illustrations kind of suck though, and even when they're technically competent they're kind of soulless. So you might say, ok, I will hire/contract an artist if I care about the quality of my illustration! Ok, but, if artists are being priced out by a machine then how long before there's no real market for finding a human to do it because all the artists gave up and got a job at starbucks and all you have left are amateurs? This is almost certainly going to bite us in the ass long term, because eventually without human creativity you're just training AI's on other AI slop, or limiting the possible catalogue of styles to "things that existed before AI ruined every creative job". I guess the question is, what kind of future do you want to live in? One where we have a massive abundance of easy-to-create but vaguely worthless artifacts in a society that's completely devalued being good at something? It just sounds really dystopian to me.
  - spongebobstoes 2mo ago
    "starving artist" is not a new concept AI doesn't stop creative people from creating. it gives creative people an additional tool with which to create
    - overgard 2mo ago
      > "starving artist" is not a new concept Exactly, so why make it worse? Why try to automate an industry when the money you make off killing it wouldn't even cover the cost of your research? > AI doesn't stop creative people from creating. it gives creative people an additional tool with which to create I can't emphasize enough how much actual creative people hate this shit. Here's a relatively balanced take, although the headline spoils it (How AI Poisons Creativity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeCSzEtZcUw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeCSzEtZcUw ). Long story short, the struggle is where creative ideas come from. If you automate away the process you automate away the result.
ryandvm 2mo ago
> "Well, we were just responding to our business competition" The business knows no humanness, because it is not a human. Yup. Except, by God, we ought to make sure the business has unlimited free speech (i.e. campaign contributions).
Citizen_Lame 2mo ago
Bit naive world view. There are forces of rich and powerful who's only purpose is to maintain their status. So thinking corporations and such were created to push human progress is laughable.
supern0va 2mo ago
Counter-point: I love that my rubber duck can talk (quack?) back, as well as record and summarize my thoughts on topics I'm working or stuck on. I've wanted a good voice mode for precisely this reason. When I take my dog on a walk and I'm thinking about a bunch of problems/ideas, I'd love to have feedback and a record, or perhaps to even kick off research or ask questions to fill in gaps that would otherwise have me debating pulling out my phone to try to get an answer.
- zkmon 2mo ago
  You want to be a child forever, amazed by your toys or the new things you can do. The toys won't let you grow up and become a normal human. You don't need take a dog for a walk, if you live in a normal place that allows dogs to roam freely. And you don't need to think about a "bunch of problems/ideas". Your mind is a servant of your body. And your body never asked you for that.
  - supern0va 2mo ago
    >You want to be a child forever, amazed by your toys or the new things you can do. I don't think having a child-like sense of wonder at the world, or continued human ingenuity, is a sign that one wants to be a child forever. I'm genuinely sorry if you've lost that spark. >You don't need take a dog for a walk, if you live in a normal place that allows dogs to roam freely. I love my dog and love walking him, even though he can freely roam on my property. I also love walking with my wife, and I don't think her agency has much reason for why I might enjoy it? >Your mind is a servant of your body. And your body never asked you for that. ...are you okay, friend?
bb88 2mo ago
Businesses have been anti-human for a while now. If you think AI is bad, wait until I tell you about the horrors of social media who profit on controversy and division, US health insurance which profits on rejecting claims, and big pharma profiting on the opioid epidemic. And it's not like this is new, either. Upton Sinclair was writing about this stuff a century ago with books like The Jungle. The only difference between then and now is we "think" we're not evil today. We've lied to ourselves that "We're so much better than we were back then." Facebook wanted to bring people together originally, but they ended up providing the most toxic social media experience known to man. Facebook forgot to tell us they cared more about profit than people. Please spare me the argument AI is the straw to break the camel's back here. The system has been broken a long time before that.

seizethecheese 2mo ago

Isn’t voice I difference in degree rather than in kind? I definitely talk to AI as if it were human (one might say the UX of AI is to emulate a human). And a large portion of my interaction with humans is via text, for example, this post!

jonstaab 2mo ago
Right, I think the challenge is that LLMs are essentially language-based, which is itself a very convenient interface. Covering the maximally humanistic default interface with something more mechanical is like tying your own shoelaces together, but it would protect us from the psychological hijacking we're so prone to when interacting with these machines.
1659447091 2mo ago
> Isn’t voice I difference in degree rather than in kind? There is a difference in expression / emotionality with speaking vs writing. Speaking tends to carry more emotion while writing is generally more deliberate/less-emotional*. Having a voice conversation will be more likely to get a human to engage in an emotional based expression mode, which could increase the chance of "false connections", believing the AI "gets" them or "understands" or "listens". This happens with text too, as some headlines show. The issue is that while some people are going to "connect" with their AI in text and voice, some who do not make the connection via text may do so via voice because it tends to change a persons expression mode. > I definitely talk to AI as if it were human Do you talk to it as if it were a friend or family? or Do you just use natural language to give directives? The distinction, I believe, is in the kind of way we express the "talking". I talk to AI as if it were a tool that understands human commands and then executes those commands and relays them in a human understandable format. This includes commands to provide options that I may not have covered and explain the options. If I talked to a human this way, they wouldn't be around much longer -- unless they were an employee and even then they would probably be looking for a new job After reading some of the psychotic break headlines from AI chats, I see some people really do talk to AI as if it were human. Which I would guess includes seeking broad "thoughts and feelings" on a persons situation or asking the AI if their view/side of things is the "right or wrong" side. Basically begging the AI to be responsible for their own thoughts, or simply offloading them and taking what comes back -- which is going to be what they wanted to hear because the entire context would be full of emotion based prompts. *I forget which books Ive read about this in. It's not an obscure concept, quick search brought this up: https://kellercenter.hankamer.baylor.edu/news/story/2023/speaking-or-writing-impact-expression-modalities https://kellercenter.hankamer.baylor.edu/news/story/2023/spe...

hoppp 2mo ago

But a lot of humans can't engage in meaningful technical conversations... So why not use a tool for that?

FridgeSeal 2mo ago
Somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy no? - nobody else with the skills - talk to machine - nobody develops the skills to have a conversation - go to step 1. - bonus step: your own skills atrophy too.
- jdthedisciple 2mo ago
  Devil's advocate: The widespread lack of social skills was not caused by LLMs in the first place. In fact, AI ChatBots, if used right, can actually help remedy lacking socialising skills.
  - FridgeSeal 2mo ago
    Not if there’s good money to be made exploiting people for money instead! There’s plenty of evidence that these models worsen these issues, and we know from prior experience that companies like FB will happily exploit vulnerable users for money.

throwuxiytayq 2mo ago

How would talking to an AI as if it were not human sound? You can probably set your system prompt to insert “beep boop” between sentences and make it refer to itself as “Cybertron9000 Personal Computing Device” if that’s what you like. Is that an improvement? Or are you against voice computer interfaces altogether?

SmirkingRevenge 2mo ago
My preference would be to turn down the fake emotional expressions and notes in the responses. No cheeky quips, etc. Otherwise it's kind of like being manipulated by a psychopath
- throwuxiytayq 2mo ago
  I would also like to tone those down, and prefer if they just focused on creating a nice, clear, natural-sounding voice. I don’t think the “emotional roleplaying” adds anything to what I perceive as a computer interaction. But that’s precisely the opposite of the problem the other commenters seem to be voicing; I have no problem recognizing what I’m interacting with, and I don’t worry about being manipulated - not by the tone of its voice, and even if it had a video avatar, all that. Do you guys seriously have this problem of being confused by LLMs that sound too much like humans, or is this a theoretical problem that you’re worried somebody else is having? I am open to the possibility that this is a future that is coming, but as far as I’m concerned, we’re years away from that tech. Is it actually here for you?
  - SmirkingRevenge 2mo ago
    Maybe it's just that conversing with something or someone that is acting manipulative can be unpleasant in and of itself, even if the manipulation is not successful. Each time I hear the bot emote, it's like a subtle suggestion to just play along and anthropomorphize it - it feels weird, silly and annoying
jonstaab 2mo ago
I don't know the answer. But a robotic voice is probably not a bad idea — just having a reminder that the thing you're talking to is not actually anything like you. If you want to go full send, you could have the LLM generate a clickable interface on demand so you could interact with it as a machine. Voice/computer interfaces are obviously useful, especially for disabled folks. But the ones that existed in the past didn't pretend to laugh at your non jokes or imitate vocal fry.

mlsu 2mo ago

Yes, every minute you spend texting or talking to a chatbot is a minute that you'd have spent talking to another human beings. Literally the only important thing in life, the basis of all value, the formation of self-identity, comes from communication with other human beings.

Der_Einzige 2mo ago
Such radical carbon chauvinism is ontologically evil. May those who hold this view reincarnate as durian fruits or cockroaches.
- mlsu 2mo ago
  I'm sure you'd have no problem in solitary confinement. Why not make life easy?
- rel_ic 2mo ago
  Just saying: those are also carbon-based lifeforms :D
- beepbooptheory 2mo ago
  The implication that durians and roaches are somehow ontologically subaltern is a worse chauvinism.
- wraptile 2mo ago
  > May those who hold this view reincarnate as durian fruits or cockroaches don't you dare clump the best fruit in the world with cockroaches!
johnfn 2mo ago
This is such a poor mischaracterization of OP that I actually started agreeing with OP more.
- enraged_camel 2mo ago
  It's also hilariously wrong. It essentially argues, implicitly, that those who don't communicate with other humans are missing out on the "most important thing in life" and cannot form a self-identity.

quotemstr 2mo ago

> This is the opposite direction AI should be going. There is no moral obligation, in any domain, to refuse to make a product that adults, with full informed consent, find useful and purchase. Who are you to say you know better than the market?

rel_ic 2mo ago
I disagree. I think you absolutely have a moral obligation to consider the impacts of your product. > Who are you to say you know better than the market? You really don't think the scientists & engineers making these tools know some things better than the market?
perching_aix 2mo ago
Market conditions are not a moral standard either, nor do they represent any cohesive one in particular. Not sure why you're contrasting their opinion with this, it's literally no better.
gf000 2mo ago
Markets only work in well-regulated environments, this has been known since forever (Adam Smith). There is no meaningful competition in a marathon if I can drive you over with a car at the first 100m. And thanks fkin God that we have regulations and meaningful laws and some asshole for-profit company can't just put drugs into food.. the "informed buyer" is bullshit. Humans are faulty, and there is a billion dollar industry meant to take advantage of said faults: it's called marketing.
FridgeSeal 2mo ago
This is a cute argument to make, which patently doesn’t work in the face of decades of evidence on the pernicious effects of social media _alone_, let alone the “turbo infantilising sycophancy machine”. Pretending that everything’s totally fine and ok because “it’s adults” really just disregards reality.
- quotemstr 2mo ago
  I don't accept that social media is self-evidently bad. Not everyone lives inside the bubble in which its wrongness is obvious.

LostMyLogin 2mo ago

Every new release I'm convinced we are just realizing the Knowledge Navigator. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umJsITGzXd0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umJsITGzXd0

2001zhaozhao 2mo ago

Just give it a scifi robot voice and pretend you're on a spaceship

jonstaab 2mo ago
This is actually not a bad option
svantana 2mo ago
I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.

jrflo 2mo ago

I see it more as a way technology could be abused rather than an inherent flaw in the technology itself. If you start to replace human interaction with chatbot interaction, that's bad, but there's nothing wrong with using a human-like chatbot in moderation. So many other types of technology are fine in moderation but can be abused in a human-interaction-replacing way: television, social media, video games, etc.

jonstaab 2mo ago
Yes, but design nudges use in one direction or another. Or, as McLuhan said, "the medium is the message."
- jrflo 2mo ago
  I think the same applies with the examples I listed.
  - jonstaab 2mo ago
    The thing is, individual moderation isn't sufficient to combat collective capture. This is Ivan Illich's idea of "radical monopoly", where a technology (like cars or the internet) becomes so entrenched that individuals can't realistically opt out any longer. This happens when we abdicate our collective responsibility to the internal logic and incentives of the tech.

carloseduardopx 2mo ago

Again, we're paying for the fact that Sam Altman didn't understand the movie her

poly2it 2mo ago

Where do you draw the line on how good human-machine interfaces should be? I'm sure this model could be a convenience for many, and while it may be social for some, I am not sure it would substitute existing human interaction for those users. Besides, I do not think there is anything inherently immoral with not being social, or not having the ability to be. Consider for example people who do not naturally have the social network to interact with people they want to (e.g. some gifted children). I am not convinced this model has enough empathy to satisfy most users on an emotional level. A bond is not merely an exchange of words, but prolonged and deep contemplation of the other being. We cannot introspect into these machines, and they certainly cannot yet do the same to us.

nullbio 2mo ago

I disagree. Fluid natural conversational AI is far more productive than any other interface for working with LLMs. Although I suppose you could make the argument that it should be more... Robotic like. Like in StarTrek. Which, is honestly probably better for work, too. A "get shit done" mode, of pure, cold, efficiency.

SmirkingRevenge 2mo ago
In one of the videos the AI quips back things like "Happens to the best of us" - its basically pretending to be human and that feels kind of creepy and weird, like it's trying to cultivate a para-social emotional bond. I just want voice assistants to reliably understand what I say and do what I mean So hopefully you can turn that off. There are plenty of applications for that more human conversational style though (from mock interviews, improv practice, learning languages, etc) - I just don't want that for most things.
- daveguy 2mo ago
  I doubt you can turn that off. That's how they upgrade it up from a tool to an engagement optimized addiction platform.
derangedHorse 2mo ago
Ironically, Data (from TNG) has a lot of heart to him
- nullbio 2mo ago
  Data is the goal!

filoleg 2mo ago

> This is the opposite direction AI should be going. Human relationships are the most valuable thing we have, and so, naturally, technology seeks to intermediate and now replace them. Valid, but, I think, you conflate two separate things. AI voice mode as a human socialization/conversation replacement? Cringe in my book, fully in agreement with you. Though my opinion on that aspect remains the same, regardless of whether it is done through text or voice. AI voice mode as an alternative interface to interact with AI-as-a-tool? Great idea imo. There were a few instances where I was either too tired to type or wanted to brainstorm things in more of a freeform mode, for which a well-working voice mode would have been great. Naturally, the current distinction between AI-as-a-personality and AI-as-a-tool exists purely on the user's end. All I know is that I want the latter a lot, and if some people want to use it for the former purpose, that's not my problem. Sadly, I think that it will be judged more on how an average person decides to use it (i.e., in the most degenerate/reductionist ways possible), as opposed to being judged on the merits of what it can actually be used for by someone who just treats it as a tool.

streb-lo 2mo ago
Basically 100% of my interaction with AI is some form of question. But there are people that treat it like a therapist or a friend. In my opinion, the 2nd group should be discouraged from using these agents in this way, as it cannot be healthy. But if places like Reddit etc. turn into bot towns where do the AI companies get insight into the general population? Through the eyes of their most mentally unstable users? So I don't really see things changing, and they'll probably get worse.

akomtu 2mo ago

From one perspective, AI serves as a wedge that separates those who want human culture from those who want machine culture.

Sol- 2mo ago

Aren't they already very cognizant of handwringing like yours? Their article mentions various safeguards and actively steering the model away from being emotional companions and so on. It's a far cry from the OpenAI two years ago or whenever it was when they were entertaining the idea of allowing/enabling adult conversations with their models. I personally think this is a moralistic regulatory overreach. And they definitely do that due to political pressure too, since there are various bills around the world in various legislatures that want to regulate AIs giving useful advice and being too personal to talk to. So you can rest assured, I think, at least in that regard. The AI disempowerment will come to us anyway, just in a more sanitized corporate form.

deleted 2mo ago

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standardUser 2mo ago

I don't think most adults can get much social value or satisfaction from an AI conversation they know is not a real person. Those who can get that satisfaction likely have so few human-to-human interactions that an AI companion may be as good a solution to chronic loneliness as any. I'd be more worried about the inevitable robo-nannies who could end up talking more to young children than actual people.

bodash 2mo ago

I’m completely on your side, but also I think about all the AI saturations in the society like this: “Driving to work or running a 10km on the weekend sharing the same surface goal: from A to B. You may have less autonomy whether you should drive to work, but you definitely have more decision power about whether to go for that run or not”

jstummbillig 2mo ago

> This is the opposite direction AI should be going I don't understand the counterfactual. What's the opposite direction of this direction that's desirable? Less capable voice models are obviously not it, so I am curious what direction you mean or if it's just vague indirection.

mrcwinn 2mo ago

Regardless how natural AI becomes I’ve yet to replace any human relationships. Where do you see the aim of technology as trying to replace people? You might be using it wrong.

Unearned5161 2mo ago

I want to bring some attention to a spectacular sleight of hand that occurs at minute 4 of this podcast: "The way that I formulate the argument, just to get us started here, is that acts, the things we do, have ends. We act for an end. They have a purpose. And that it is wrong to deliberately frustrate an act from attaining its end, from attaining its purpose." I will draw your attention to the three instances of "end", first we have the noble, tautological, "have ends", actions have ends; then, following close behind we see "an end", we act for an end, those ends have been made into one now, singular end; and finally, "its end", the act, as an entity unto itself, has an end you mustn't interrupt.

imhoguy 2mo ago

Hopefuly I see conscious young people in my surroundings who refrain from using human like AI (voice). They say "it is cringe". Moreover I think aggresive robocalls and advertising will derail the entire trend in a few years, people will become tired of fake talk.

khurs 2mo ago

For people with disabilities who can't type or see, ai conversations I imagine may have been life changing way to access the internet and knowledge

asdewqqwer 2mo ago

SOME human relationships are the most valuable thing we have. Many (if not most) human relationships in many cultures are just trespassing everyone's boundary via peer pressure. Disclaimer: I am from Scandinavian.