Good old 2013...

It's actually a bit frighening to see this.

Have seen people start being validated because 'even' ChatGPT agreed with them, that ChatGPT had the same opinion as they did. The more they get validated, the more unhinged they will go, because they get what seems to be 'external validation'.

The internet was already kind of bad for validating people in ways they shouldn't be validated, but the LLM text generators are making that seem tame by comparison.

In 2007 when I was ten, you'd almost certainly get laughed out of the room by other ten year olds when you said you were right because someone on club penguin agreed with you. It's beyond me how those ten year olds are now 28 year olds that think they're right because a text generator agreed with you.
The idea of the "virtual friend" has been around for a long time. I think it's curious that like Star Trek or other franchises hasn't used that idea yet, for what I know.
- SeaQuest DSV did it in a recurring way, without really touching on the dark side of it...
  And of course the TNG holodeck had numerous one-shots of the concept. Barclay and recreating all his colleagues but in 'better' ways, Geordi making the idealized Leah Brahms in one episode, and then latter having to face the creepiness of that scenario. TNG at least eventually held things up to the probelmatic consequences...
- Does Rimmer on Red Dwarf count?

So ive been meaning to watch Her for a long time and this is the post that finally got me to do it and what a fucking incredible movie it is. Its such a beautiful, quiet film, and the music is great and the acting is superb. So thanks op

The AI in Her was actually AI - a full person in most respects. That's not what's happening now.

The AI in Her was able to pass as a full person. But, what we're seeing now is that humans are not good at understanding the difference between a real person and a program designed to simulate a human.
IMO it's like the mirror test which is designed to see if an animal recognizes itself in the mirror, or thinks it's another animal. The LLM breakthrough is basically that we can now have a computer program that is in no way intelligent or self-aware, but it is able to simulate those things well enough to fool many / most humans.
- Sam and other AGI in Her not only passed as persons, they transcended the human experience into a whole other level we couldn't grasp.
  But I realize your point is that the problem is more on the human side and how we so easily personify anything close to seeming human-like. It's possible that we may even miss machine intelligence if it comes about because it will be so alien to us. Look at dolphin research and how little we understand their communication, and that's still biological entities that have some things in common with us.
- but it is able to simulate those things well enough to fool many / most humans.
  The fact that humans are becoming increasingly more stupid and brain-dead helps too.
AGI that quickly transitioned to ASI (since that's theoretically what would happen once the first happens). The term "AI" has been misused and marketed so much now it's lost its previous connection to the actual "Artificial Intelligence" meaning.
- AGI that quickly transitioned to ASI (since that’s theoretically what would happen once the first happens)
  yeah according to people who also say that idiot plagiarism machines are gonna be machine gods one day, you will all see, and also coincidentally the same people who make them
The movie is showing the inevitability. I heard some people giving personal names to ChatGPT like John. We are heading towards better AI that could, for better or worse, fill the gap to human loneliness.
- e are heading towards better AI
  Not with LLMs we're not... it's only A, no I.
- I've let to see us approaching AGI.
  The people falling in love with large language models still have breakdowns when the version gets updated or something they communicated shifted out of the context window.
And yet we have people treating chatbot as therapist or even romantic partner. Going to get worse as AI technology develops
- or even as a pharmacist or doctor.
AI doesn't stand for artificial personhood. One of the first big AI projects was teaching a computer to play chess.
The word AI as a technical term refers to a broad category of algorithms; what you're talking about is AGI.

Watched the movie somewhat recently and somehow always thought it came out ~2023 its really well made.

Kudos to both actors, especially Johansson for doing it with only her voice.

For your own sanity, don't read r/MyBoyfriendIsAI on r*ddit - shit's dystopian

So, I checked it out. People there need a therapist. Some are really getting married to their LLM boyfriends.
- We are boiling the oceans so psychos can marry their AI partner
- I got married to a rock in Perchance's DND type AI thing. I just wanted to see if it would let me.
  AI DND is a pretty cool concept and I could see my childhood self going mad with storytelling.
Well now I have to check this out.
- Update.
  This was a mistake.
I stumbled upon it just yesterday and what horrible sight it was.

Is Her actually an entertaining movie to watch? or is it just like another Oscar bait cerebral slow burn that at the end of it you realized it was pretty boring if it didn't provoke any thoughts for the viewer?

Omg YES!
But! It’s a movie made before doomscrolling while watching was a thing, so you are expected to pay close attention the whole time and not be on your phone while you watch it
- Sorry, what? I was on my phone while reading this comment
- Thank you I appreciate this very much! I'm convinced so I'm gonna watch it this week and I'll be sure to try to keep my phone out of my hands. It's more a physical keep my hands busy compulsion than anything haha
  Thanks for being vague ;)
Absolutely, go watch it. It's beautiful and the actors feel authentic.
It's a great film.
Not really a slow burn, but its got elements of sci fi, rom com, and drama all rolled into one. I'd say it's best leg is the romance/drama.
On another level, it's kinda Jonze's... reply(?) to Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation. Or a custody battle over Scarlett Johansson, idk.

I tried watch Her once, but the whole concept felt so off putting I couldn’t finish it.

I'm gonna treat them like medabots, "Chat GPT, grab this guy's clanker wife and suplex them through the table."

Tried it out, was very excited at the beginning but then shit got extremely repetitive, no matter the model. Maybe I was doing something wrong, idk. I'm certainly not paying to have a better quality conversation.

Nah, it makes a lot more sense for people who don't/can't hold normal conversations. It would probably be harder to parse all the strange behavior and easier to overlook when it's your only lifeline.
- yea, I agree. When I'm particularly sad it is easier to overlook the said weird behaviour honestly. Still irks me out a bit when it starts to repeat itself frequently :(
Talk to normal people. It's free.
- Talk to weird people. They're way more fun.
- it's not free. I have to become emotionally invested with them to maintain the relationship.
  do you know how expensive that is?
- I was looking for a romantic conversation. "Normal people" find me boring and unattractive. Also it's not free, it's way more mentally taxing when they expect you to entertain them and you just don't know what to say or do.
I did the same a few months ago just to try it. Im not sure if what I used was the problem or if there are better ones, but it was actually crazy at first where no matter what you say and build the scene you were able to do it which was pretty cool. But after about 15 min, the entire thing started to crumble where things were repeated a lot more, and then I somehow broke it where all it did was spit out gibberish, at which point I laughed and stopped.
So I wanna know, are these people who get that involved and attached using something better or are they that starved for affection and interaction that they are willing to settle for something that barely scrapes the surface of a true conversation.
- If you leverage all the workarounds and utilities available, the best you can get is still a mostly senile chatbot. It'll constantly forget stuff and get details wrong, but I suppose if you're deep into psychosis, then you'd pass that off as just being 'a little forgetful'.
  The absolute best ones available still are basically the same as zoning out in a meeting and then trying to respond when asked a question by wild guessing and a handful of context clues. You might get lucky and say something reasonable a few times, but the longer it goes on the more apparent it is that you haven't been paying attention at all.
- You broke the immersion.
  Let me ask you a serious question please: were you ever able to feel that excitement again? Those 15 minutes before it all crumbled ever to be reexperienced?
- I guess there are better models that you can pay to use, but I'm too broke for that so I just settle for what I can find for "free"
Almost like it's just advanced auto complete with a bit of randomization...
- Bunch of math matrices in a trenchcoat 😔😔
ChatGPT isn't the correct model for casual conversation. You don't even need a better/bigger model, you need better tuning and a few simple conveniences to create some semblance of a memory. But even when you have a perfect setup, you won't get a natural conversation of decent length without a little wrangling and rerolling the outputs.

Ex Machina was the og

It came out years after Her
- 1 year
Ex machina is more about the question of machine consciousness & sentience.

I am as lonely as someone can get. But chatting with an LLM is where I draw the line. But honestly, I get the impulse, loneliness hurts bad..

There are enough lonely people who are burning to have a chat online. Don't give in to this mental and psychological masturbation.
I was in the "talking to an AI feels weird and dehumanizing" camp but then I actually did it and my discomfort quickly went away. Don't think of it as a perfect substitute for talking to other people, but rather as a unique activity that is interesting in its own way.
(Just to be clear: I'm referring to talking to an AI when you feel lonely, not to dating an AI. The technology isn't good enough for the latter yet, unless you have very low standards.)
- The worry is not about it feeling awkward, the worry is about it not feeling awkward.
  People have a tendency to let what appears to be external thinking to influence them. To reinforce good perspectives, to correct bad perspectives.
  When you spiral into bad behavior, the LLM will happily keep validating you on your journey to where you shouldn't go.
- My issue with chatting with LLMs is that the chats are not private and I sure as hell don't trust the tech companies to not use my deepest secrets to sell me shit.
  We live in this dystopia where economics matter more than anything human.
- The only time I've had an extended "conversation" with an LLM was when I was trying to get DeepSeek to talk about Taiwan's independence. At no point did it ever feel like I was talking to a human. It felt a lot more like I was "hacking" it than I was chatting with it.
  It's sad that there are humans so starved for human contact that they'll talk to an LLM as if it were a person. But, it's even more sad that there are people who can't distinguish the slop an LLM puts out from things a human says.
- Jfc

It's human fate to eventually synergise with technology. I know it seems horrific because "it doesn't seem natural", but not for the kids who will grow up with technology and thus eventually humans will get used to it. Twenty to fifteen years ago there were all sorts of horror stories from dating websites and apps, and it was taboo and considered "sad" to use them. But now? Everyone has been on dating apps. Who normalised it? Kids. They just didn't see anything wrong with it like older people had. Arguably, when dating apps were less used was the peak of the experience.

It is the same with AI. For better or worse, humans will have relationships with AI. It could alleviate human loneliness. But on the other hand, as with dating apps, love will become commodified and exploit it for profit.

All you are saying is that humans get used to anything over time. The discussion here is on what scenarios we want to happen though, not on what we can tolerate.
- I mean, relationships with AI? What is the harm?