this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2024
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If an AI friend is "better" than a normal friend, it looks like something in the social environment is seriously broken.
I mean, it will be. The AI friend is always available, always knows what to say, never fights with you, and never messes up (ideally).
However, all those things are part of the human element: and at the end, you’re still talking to a computer. The AIs are just trying to please you. A person can actually love you, and that’s something else. And I’d take that over the perfect chatbot any day.
And isn't that what people really want in a relationship? A perfect, frictionless yes-person trained to parrot whatever you wanted to hear six weeks ago.
Its a bit worse than that. Monetized social media is designed to provoke engagement. So the AI isn't trying to please you, its trying to maximize your utilization. That means establishing a clingy, desperate, attention seeking (ie, toxic) relationship that keeps you looking at your phone for as long as possible.
Its pleasurable in the same way a heroin addiction is pleasurable.
our brains didn't evolve to need total compliance and total agreement from relating, tho. it's more a sign of problems with society and too much isolation.