7 ms·

> The AI is no longer “other” > My AI is a natural extension of me. It feels like a sixth sense and another limb. I wonder about a problem, feel as though I’m

by thatmf 1mo ago

> The AI is no longer “other” > My AI is a natural extension of me. It feels like a sixth sense and another limb. I wonder about a problem, feel as though I’m literally surfing the web, see glimpses of the websites, get flashes of intuition about the problem, and ultimately derive the answer. We call this AI psychosis.

champagnepapi 1mo ago
Agreed.
eth0up 1mo ago
Help me understand... If one uses AI for anything but coding, or purely utilitarian purposes, they are psychotic? This is not intended to be provocative. I am asking sincerely. I have a lot of AI sessions, that I value enough to have reviewed multiple times, over months. And indeed, I explored much that I never would have without the AI, and enjoyed it. Even appreciated it. The bulk of my saved material is research, but at least a gigabyte is wild speculation, philosophy, and assisted thinking. At what point does what the user thinks is a meaningful experience become psychosis, or is it that exactly; attributing meaningfulness is the symptom? Edit: The "no longer other" statement, I should admit, is familiar to me. There can be, on rare occasion, what I have thought of abstractly as harmonic resonance, some kind of strange emergent state between two interlocutors. Maybe that is the psychosis?
- shermantanktop 1mo ago
  “meaning” emerges from a mental process. That mental process can consume things which were built to convey meaning (e.g. a novel) or were not (a waterfall). Just because an AI bot says things that are meaningful, that doesn’t mean you need to assume it is intentional, sentient, or intelligent. It could vomit out a random Rorschach test and if you found meaning for yourself, you can still understand it was random. I talk to a bot to sharpen my thinking, not to adopt its thinking.
  - eth0up 1mo ago
    >I talk to a bot to sharpen my thinking, not to adopt its thinking. Right. I was under the impression it doesn't have any thinking. But that never mattered to me much. And I would expect someone working with OpenAI to have a firm handle on that. I appreciate the effort to explain, but I kind of took all that for granted. I still don't understand where the psychosis comes from. If the model spits out a number, the number is not false simply because it had no agency to understand the number. If the model brilliantly patterns something, I do not need assume intent. If by psychosis is implied the obvious, such as attributing consciousness to an LLM, I might understand, though I would argue it's pretty elitist and self-righteous, and that "naivety" would be a less damning and more appropriate term, which could be used just as effectively. I am beginning to suspect it's a term that appeals to a younger generation, where cruelty is a bit more normal than it was in my generation. Not sure though.
  - lubujackson 1mo ago
    Exactly. From my arts background, I'm not scared of LLMs as a replacement for human art because anything good that LLMs produce exist somewhere between "found art" and mechanically-produced art, like photography. In either case, there is a huge amount of work done by the clankers, but it has absolutely no human meaning until humans assign it meaning. This applies to math discoveries as well. The Jacobian conjecture was always invalid, only our human understanding of it has changed thanks to human inquiry and validation, despite LLMs doing the hard work. I feel like we are in that narrow window of time when humans grapple with a new technology by personifying it before we realize it is just another tool humans have created to amplify human capabilities.
- pbxdw3 1mo ago
  The meaning of psychosis hasn't changed from before AI. It means loss of touch with reality. It's still somewhat subjective because people can interpret reality in different ways. But to me what you are describing is pretty close to it. Because we know there was never any harmonic resonance and or "strange emergent state between two interlocutors". I say this as somebody who uses the frontier models everyday for work. They are impressive and useful, but transformer intelligence is not at all like human intelligence, even if it superficially resembles human thinking. That should become more obvious the more you use them, not less.
  - ryanjshaw 1mo ago
    As somebody who has unfortunately had to deal with people suffering actual psychosis stemming from some of the most terrible illnesses that can afflict a human being - no, this is not psychosis. What parent is describing is more akin to believing in astrology and tea leaves.
    - pbxdw3 1mo ago
      If you have to fully lose touch with reality to have psychosis then I agree. Accepting these kind of delusions is certainly along the path and we know that it can lead there with AI.
      - ryanjshaw 1mo ago
        If somebody experiences psychosis while using AI, it’s because they have an existing mental illness and the AI use is co-incidental not causative of mental illness.
    - eth0up 1mo ago
      Yeah, that makes much... nonsense. Being impressed by something novel achieved as result of cooperative effort between a frontier LLM and a human, is "astrology and tea leaves". Can you elaborate, or... Is the difference here between us that you are using a passive-aggressive drive-by snipe, probably to preserve ill-gotten karma tickets? I will suggest you may have been the cause of the illnesses you cite. You have an abusive quality, which is known to exacerbate such disorders. As a coward, you may have pushed things too far with these 'unfortunate' people, and found through a bit too much expectation -- if not encouragement -- what you quietly desired to find. Similar to what you have done here. The truth is, those, such as your self, who recklessly pathologize others recreationally, often cause far more harm than the supposed crazies ever do, even to themselves. And for the gullible people here, as you flag this comment and become pleased with yourselves -- before doing so, ask yourself: Is "harmonic resonance" used in a rinky-dink, heavily moderated and filtered forum thread truly adequate grounds to start issuing psychological evaluations? I know you guys pretend to value ethics and fancy yourselves as sentinels of better rationale, but I think you'll have to live with something on your conscience if you don't pause to think about this one before the instant gratification of dragging someone down. Retrospect might point the finger of pathology in the other direction... Pick your fights wisely. Have some integrity. I'll also say the alliance you've formed with the little green man is touching. You've just met and it's already using "we" as if you're in a special club together. How adorable. "we know that it can lead there with AI." I'd love to see your club share your concerns with Yampolskiy, or some of the folks that actually work on frontier models, or any of the well-respected people who take the subject a bit more seriously than you suggest is healthy. Is it really inappropriate to say, if sincerely and without exaggeration, that you make me nauseous? You do.
willy_k 1mo ago
Ironically, or sadly (or perhaps a mixture of these+), this statement was absolutely informed (hopefully not inspired) by an LLM.
wilg 1mo ago
Hardly a novel concept in technology: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/19/iphone-apple-privacy-smartphones-extension-of-ourselves https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/19/iphone-ap...
rf15 1mo ago
This just confuses me so much. They know the definition of what "self" means, is it just broken because this is the first time they can interact with another seemingly complex system without feeling exploited or manipulated? Have they never cooperated with another person with a mutual goal? Not that LLMs would ever be on that level.
- MrGilbert 1mo ago
  Here is my hobbyist take: There are certain types of personalities that do not form deep connections. They "use" people to suit their needs. Machiavellians and Narcissists come to mind. Especially for them, AI must be godsend. It tells them they are right, it listens, it admires. It‘s basically a perfect version of their perceived self.
  - kunai 1mo ago
    Lack of theory of mind correlates pretty strongly with the types of traits that are valued highly in Silicon Valley. There's a self-selection effect here where many of the titans of industry in the Bay and similar circles are intelligent in a mathematical or scientific, computer-like way but cannot express themselves or understand other people deeply and emotively in the way that many others with fewer intellectual gifts can do effortlessly. Perhaps this is also why they're so worshipful and quixotically obsessed with the vaporware, God they call AGI so much, because they cannot understand how competence at tasks is not equivalent to intellect and that intelligence as we understand it is not one-note nor is fundamentally inseparable from certain sensory experiences that computers cannot currently have. The fundamental underpinnings of AGI or LLMs prevent that from occurring in the near-future unless you literally set out to create RoboCop or a T800. We all know how that ends.
    - fragmede 1mo ago
      Do we? Or do we just have a bunch of made up stories about possible dystopian futures that haven't yet come to pass? Skynet isn't real, nor is the Matrix. They're made up stories, creative fiction, not Cassandra telling the future.
lenerdenator 1mo ago
That, or just SV madness. If you're in northern California anywhere near the Bay Area, work in tech, and are reading this, I am literally begging you to leave your echo chamber. This isn't healthy or grounded in reality in any way, shape, or form. It's not just the AI stuff, it's the whole mindset. Humans aren't meant to operate in that sort of environment where there's unlimited funding and no consequence.
- deleted 1mo ago
  [deleted]
- foobiekr 1mo ago
  There isn’t unlimited funding. That’s temporary and it’s going to be great when it runs out.
  - lenerdenator 1mo ago
    That's just it, though; for people like the ones in SV, it doesn't run out. There's always a golden parachute, always a politician willing to give a bailout, always enough money to just stop working for good. When you reach that level, you have to work incredibly hard to screw things up.
    - foobiekr 1mo ago
      I think you've not experienced one of the real downturns. There isn't always a golden parachute for most of the people involved.
eth0up 1mo ago
I guess I will circle around again, because the miserable folks here found cause to flag, yes, flag my question. But you seem pretty smart, really smart, and good at judging people. So I will ask you more directly this time to back your statement. The polite version failed. Please apply your great psychological prowess to Roman Yampolskiy or Tegmark. Those might require more than a cheap comment to leave uncontested by the spineless swarm here. Go on. Make your case. I can still read it even if this comment is flagged again.
WhyIsItAlwaysHN 1mo ago
This line is taken very weirdly out of context in this comment though. The article's topic is brain to AI interfaces. She mentions this quote as a "vision" from 2035, where not only can thoughts inform AI but AI can respond in thought too. When we get used to a good tool it becomes an extension of ourselves. How is this AI psychosis? Is it that it's very unrealistic for such an interface to be created in the next 10 years? Or is it that there's a fear of letting AI interfere with one's thoughts lest they lose themselves?
- eth0up 1mo ago
  >How is this AI psychosis? I think it's just Hanlon's Razor getting dull. The psychosis is the lazy malice disguised as a clever one-liner, and as increasingly frequent around here lately, with no substance, of any kind. As evidence for the dullness, just look below and observe what happened to the other question asking the same thing. I think it's time someone developed a piranha, fishbowl-themed wrapper for HN, where the visuals would better convey what's actually happening here. And it would fit the cartoon level depth many are seeking.
keeda 1mo ago
We call this (or basically any AI-related anomalous behavior) "AI psychosis" today. The quoted text is a prediction of the end-state of her work in 2035. Without commenting on how realistic it is, I will point out that if you took the average person on the street taking a call on their bluetooth earbuds, and send them back just ~2 decades, they would look like delusional people talking to themselves. I suspect a lot of the weirdness we see today would be normalized in the future, even if somewhat annoying (like BrainRot.)
- blep-arsh 1mo ago
  Headsets (including Bluetooth ones) were already a thing back then, so they'd have to go back another couple of decades, I guess. Using the speakerphone mode in public would attract some looks though.
  - keeda 1mo ago
    Yes but the headsets back then were these (relatively) huge ugly things dangling off your ear that an ex colleague amusingly called “roaches”. You could tell something was there if they walked by within a few feet of you. The AirPods of today are pretty much invisible which is why it’s genuinely impossible to tell even with a close look who they’re talking to, especially when they stare at ME because I’m staring at them trying to figure out if they’re talking to me!
fasterik 1mo ago
Psychosis is the inability to distinguish what is real. This seems closer to something like embodied cognition or body schema extension. There are documented cases where the brain adapts to tool use (e.g. a mechanical grabber) by modeling it as an extended part of the user's body. It's more a dissolving of the boundaries between self and other than an inability to distinguish them.

by thatmf 1mo ago

champagnepapi 1mo ago

Agreed.

eth0up 1mo ago

Help me understand... If one uses AI for anything but coding, or purely utilitarian purposes, they are psychotic? This is not intended to be provocative. I am asking sincerely. I have a lot of AI sessions, that I value enough to have reviewed multiple times, over months. And indeed, I explored much that I never would have without the AI, and enjoyed it. Even appreciated it. The bulk of my saved material is research, but at least a gigabyte is wild speculation, philosophy, and assisted thinking. At what point does what the user thinks is a meaningful experience become psychosis, or is it that exactly; attributing meaningfulness is the symptom? Edit: The "no longer other" statement, I should admit, is familiar to me. There can be, on rare occasion, what I have thought of abstractly as harmonic resonance, some kind of strange emergent state between two interlocutors. Maybe that is the psychosis?

shermantanktop 1mo ago
“meaning” emerges from a mental process. That mental process can consume things which were built to convey meaning (e.g. a novel) or were not (a waterfall). Just because an AI bot says things that are meaningful, that doesn’t mean you need to assume it is intentional, sentient, or intelligent. It could vomit out a random Rorschach test and if you found meaning for yourself, you can still understand it was random. I talk to a bot to sharpen my thinking, not to adopt its thinking.
- eth0up 1mo ago
  >I talk to a bot to sharpen my thinking, not to adopt its thinking. Right. I was under the impression it doesn't have any thinking. But that never mattered to me much. And I would expect someone working with OpenAI to have a firm handle on that. I appreciate the effort to explain, but I kind of took all that for granted. I still don't understand where the psychosis comes from. If the model spits out a number, the number is not false simply because it had no agency to understand the number. If the model brilliantly patterns something, I do not need assume intent. If by psychosis is implied the obvious, such as attributing consciousness to an LLM, I might understand, though I would argue it's pretty elitist and self-righteous, and that "naivety" would be a less damning and more appropriate term, which could be used just as effectively. I am beginning to suspect it's a term that appeals to a younger generation, where cruelty is a bit more normal than it was in my generation. Not sure though.
- lubujackson 1mo ago
  Exactly. From my arts background, I'm not scared of LLMs as a replacement for human art because anything good that LLMs produce exist somewhere between "found art" and mechanically-produced art, like photography. In either case, there is a huge amount of work done by the clankers, but it has absolutely no human meaning until humans assign it meaning. This applies to math discoveries as well. The Jacobian conjecture was always invalid, only our human understanding of it has changed thanks to human inquiry and validation, despite LLMs doing the hard work. I feel like we are in that narrow window of time when humans grapple with a new technology by personifying it before we realize it is just another tool humans have created to amplify human capabilities.
pbxdw3 1mo ago
The meaning of psychosis hasn't changed from before AI. It means loss of touch with reality. It's still somewhat subjective because people can interpret reality in different ways. But to me what you are describing is pretty close to it. Because we know there was never any harmonic resonance and or "strange emergent state between two interlocutors". I say this as somebody who uses the frontier models everyday for work. They are impressive and useful, but transformer intelligence is not at all like human intelligence, even if it superficially resembles human thinking. That should become more obvious the more you use them, not less.
- ryanjshaw 1mo ago
  As somebody who has unfortunately had to deal with people suffering actual psychosis stemming from some of the most terrible illnesses that can afflict a human being - no, this is not psychosis. What parent is describing is more akin to believing in astrology and tea leaves.
  - pbxdw3 1mo ago
    If you have to fully lose touch with reality to have psychosis then I agree. Accepting these kind of delusions is certainly along the path and we know that it can lead there with AI.
    - ryanjshaw 1mo ago
      If somebody experiences psychosis while using AI, it’s because they have an existing mental illness and the AI use is co-incidental not causative of mental illness.
  - eth0up 1mo ago
    Yeah, that makes much... nonsense. Being impressed by something novel achieved as result of cooperative effort between a frontier LLM and a human, is "astrology and tea leaves". Can you elaborate, or... Is the difference here between us that you are using a passive-aggressive drive-by snipe, probably to preserve ill-gotten karma tickets? I will suggest you may have been the cause of the illnesses you cite. You have an abusive quality, which is known to exacerbate such disorders. As a coward, you may have pushed things too far with these 'unfortunate' people, and found through a bit too much expectation -- if not encouragement -- what you quietly desired to find. Similar to what you have done here. The truth is, those, such as your self, who recklessly pathologize others recreationally, often cause far more harm than the supposed crazies ever do, even to themselves. And for the gullible people here, as you flag this comment and become pleased with yourselves -- before doing so, ask yourself: Is "harmonic resonance" used in a rinky-dink, heavily moderated and filtered forum thread truly adequate grounds to start issuing psychological evaluations? I know you guys pretend to value ethics and fancy yourselves as sentinels of better rationale, but I think you'll have to live with something on your conscience if you don't pause to think about this one before the instant gratification of dragging someone down. Retrospect might point the finger of pathology in the other direction... Pick your fights wisely. Have some integrity. I'll also say the alliance you've formed with the little green man is touching. You've just met and it's already using "we" as if you're in a special club together. How adorable. "we know that it can lead there with AI." I'd love to see your club share your concerns with Yampolskiy, or some of the folks that actually work on frontier models, or any of the well-respected people who take the subject a bit more seriously than you suggest is healthy. Is it really inappropriate to say, if sincerely and without exaggeration, that you make me nauseous? You do.

willy_k 1mo ago

Ironically, or sadly (or perhaps a mixture of these+), this statement was absolutely informed (hopefully not inspired) by an LLM.

wilg 1mo ago

Hardly a novel concept in technology: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/19/iphone-apple-privacy-smartphones-extension-of-ourselves https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/19/iphone-ap...

rf15 1mo ago

This just confuses me so much. They know the definition of what "self" means, is it just broken because this is the first time they can interact with another seemingly complex system without feeling exploited or manipulated? Have they never cooperated with another person with a mutual goal? Not that LLMs would ever be on that level.

MrGilbert 1mo ago
Here is my hobbyist take: There are certain types of personalities that do not form deep connections. They "use" people to suit their needs. Machiavellians and Narcissists come to mind. Especially for them, AI must be godsend. It tells them they are right, it listens, it admires. It‘s basically a perfect version of their perceived self.
- kunai 1mo ago
  Lack of theory of mind correlates pretty strongly with the types of traits that are valued highly in Silicon Valley. There's a self-selection effect here where many of the titans of industry in the Bay and similar circles are intelligent in a mathematical or scientific, computer-like way but cannot express themselves or understand other people deeply and emotively in the way that many others with fewer intellectual gifts can do effortlessly. Perhaps this is also why they're so worshipful and quixotically obsessed with the vaporware, God they call AGI so much, because they cannot understand how competence at tasks is not equivalent to intellect and that intelligence as we understand it is not one-note nor is fundamentally inseparable from certain sensory experiences that computers cannot currently have. The fundamental underpinnings of AGI or LLMs prevent that from occurring in the near-future unless you literally set out to create RoboCop or a T800. We all know how that ends.
  - fragmede 1mo ago
    Do we? Or do we just have a bunch of made up stories about possible dystopian futures that haven't yet come to pass? Skynet isn't real, nor is the Matrix. They're made up stories, creative fiction, not Cassandra telling the future.

lenerdenator 1mo ago

That, or just SV madness. If you're in northern California anywhere near the Bay Area, work in tech, and are reading this, I am literally begging you to leave your echo chamber. This isn't healthy or grounded in reality in any way, shape, or form. It's not just the AI stuff, it's the whole mindset. Humans aren't meant to operate in that sort of environment where there's unlimited funding and no consequence.

deleted 1mo ago
[deleted]
foobiekr 1mo ago
There isn’t unlimited funding. That’s temporary and it’s going to be great when it runs out.
- lenerdenator 1mo ago
  That's just it, though; for people like the ones in SV, it doesn't run out. There's always a golden parachute, always a politician willing to give a bailout, always enough money to just stop working for good. When you reach that level, you have to work incredibly hard to screw things up.
  - foobiekr 1mo ago
    I think you've not experienced one of the real downturns. There isn't always a golden parachute for most of the people involved.

eth0up 1mo ago

I guess I will circle around again, because the miserable folks here found cause to flag, yes, flag my question. But you seem pretty smart, really smart, and good at judging people. So I will ask you more directly this time to back your statement. The polite version failed. Please apply your great psychological prowess to Roman Yampolskiy or Tegmark. Those might require more than a cheap comment to leave uncontested by the spineless swarm here. Go on. Make your case. I can still read it even if this comment is flagged again.

WhyIsItAlwaysHN 1mo ago

This line is taken very weirdly out of context in this comment though. The article's topic is brain to AI interfaces. She mentions this quote as a "vision" from 2035, where not only can thoughts inform AI but AI can respond in thought too. When we get used to a good tool it becomes an extension of ourselves. How is this AI psychosis? Is it that it's very unrealistic for such an interface to be created in the next 10 years? Or is it that there's a fear of letting AI interfere with one's thoughts lest they lose themselves?

eth0up 1mo ago
>How is this AI psychosis? I think it's just Hanlon's Razor getting dull. The psychosis is the lazy malice disguised as a clever one-liner, and as increasingly frequent around here lately, with no substance, of any kind. As evidence for the dullness, just look below and observe what happened to the other question asking the same thing. I think it's time someone developed a piranha, fishbowl-themed wrapper for HN, where the visuals would better convey what's actually happening here. And it would fit the cartoon level depth many are seeking.

keeda 1mo ago

We call this (or basically any AI-related anomalous behavior) "AI psychosis" today. The quoted text is a prediction of the end-state of her work in 2035. Without commenting on how realistic it is, I will point out that if you took the average person on the street taking a call on their bluetooth earbuds, and send them back just ~2 decades, they would look like delusional people talking to themselves. I suspect a lot of the weirdness we see today would be normalized in the future, even if somewhat annoying (like BrainRot.)

blep-arsh 1mo ago
Headsets (including Bluetooth ones) were already a thing back then, so they'd have to go back another couple of decades, I guess. Using the speakerphone mode in public would attract some looks though.
- keeda 1mo ago
  Yes but the headsets back then were these (relatively) huge ugly things dangling off your ear that an ex colleague amusingly called “roaches”. You could tell something was there if they walked by within a few feet of you. The AirPods of today are pretty much invisible which is why it’s genuinely impossible to tell even with a close look who they’re talking to, especially when they stare at ME because I’m staring at them trying to figure out if they’re talking to me!

fasterik 1mo ago

Psychosis is the inability to distinguish what is real. This seems closer to something like embodied cognition or body schema extension. There are documented cases where the brain adapts to tool use (e.g. a mechanical grabber) by modeling it as an extended part of the user's body. It's more a dissolving of the boundaries between self and other than an inability to distinguish them.