People always say things like this, but the fact of the matter is that there are a lot of extremely lonely people desperate to express themselves, and some of them think that a machine is their only hope.
Some of those people talking to LLMs are fools who think they’ll get some sort of wise response, sure. The rest of them are just looking for someone to talk to. Unfortunately, if politics gets brought up, that LLM might lead them down a dark path without them realizing it.
And honestly, the pathetic fallacy is an easy trap to fall into, especially with computers. Back in the 80s when I talked to ELIZA, I knew rationally that it wasn’t alive, but there was still a tiny emotional part of me that would think of it as a human on the other end that I was talking to. And plenty of people let their emotions take over their reasoning abilities.
People always say things like this, but the fact of the matter is that there are a lot of extremely lonely people desperate to express themselves, and some of them think that a machine is their only hope.
https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2023/05/03/new-surgeon-general-advisory-raises-alarm-about-devastating-impact-epidemic-loneliness-isolation-united-states.html
Some of those people talking to LLMs are fools who think they’ll get some sort of wise response, sure. The rest of them are just looking for someone to talk to. Unfortunately, if politics gets brought up, that LLM might lead them down a dark path without them realizing it.
And honestly, the pathetic fallacy is an easy trap to fall into, especially with computers. Back in the 80s when I talked to ELIZA, I knew rationally that it wasn’t alive, but there was still a tiny emotional part of me that would think of it as a human on the other end that I was talking to. And plenty of people let their emotions take over their reasoning abilities.