I completely agree with your concerns about humanizing AI apps and the blurring of lines between machines and humans. I’ve always been uncomfortable with referring to Alexa as "she," and I've made a point of not using the human-sounding name "Alexa." A few years ago, I wrote a piece for Salon about how I changed the wake word on my Alexa device to "Computer." Not only does it bring back memories of watching Star Trek: TNG growing up, but it also serves as a constant reminder that Alexa isn’t a person. I just checked, and that piece was published in 2017. To this day, houseguests are always caught off guard when I say "Computer" to activate my devices.
Thanks Stephen. Changing it to "Computer" is so interesting. You were way ahead of the curve. I respect the resistance and awareness. I still like humanizing Alexa and other services even as I see what they're doing.
An issue we totally forget is that all technology costs money. The higher the tech, the more it costs. So eventually the question becomes "can we afford it?" not efficiency.
Another "cost" is the relationships it can harm. When we were first married, we both respected my wife's station as "navigator" when we went somewhere together. But when GPS became popular, and could do it better, I had to decide: is getting there efficiently worth alienating my wife?
High tech also robs people of the chance to increase their personal satisfaction by learning a new skill.
Great piece. I’m particularly concerned about the extent to which the utterly frictionless “social” interaction allowed by AI will make real human interaction, with all its messiness and ego clash, intolerable by contrast. The Internet and social media are already enabling unprecedented levels of what I call “dark room seeking” (in the Fristonian sense), and it’s hard not to see things getting *much* worse in the wake of widespread AI. There’ll be pockets of resistance, of course, where authentic human communication will be uniquely prized, but I suspect this way of thinking will be an exception, rather than the rule.
Thanks. Yeah, I share that concern. I can see myself preferring to deal with robots over humans in any number of contexts. It's going to shape our expectations too. You may find the study referenced in this piece by @ermin of interest - https://erman.substack.com/p/is-ai-making-us-meaner
As with most things, your approach is what makes the difference. I know a former colleague who was constantly getting feedback that he was cold and coming off as rude or mean quite a lot. He took to using GPT to learn how to reword his responses to a more cordial or even friendly manner.
I know other people using it to learn similar things. On the one hand it being a non-sentient being allows these less social people to have less anxiety in practicing than with a therapist or other human. On the other it lets them experience and practice without the risk of hurting a relationship. On the gripping hand I can see the improvement in their social skills, manners, and a decrease in their anxiety over those situations.
Personally, I also look at it as a pattern formation or reinforcement situation. As I noted above, I say please and thank you in my LLM interactions because it keeps me mindful of expressing gratitude and politeness.
I understand the position of those who want to not humanize LLMs. However, humanity, perhaps more males than females historically, have humanized all sorts of machinery and devices, and I see no evidence it has made us worse. I also consider that habit aspect. So while I understand it, I cannot agree with it.
As far as "authentic" human interaction, I am reminded of Kirk's eulogy for Spock, where he said "Of all the souls I have met in my travels, his was the most human." I think we face a larger threat on the topic from the inauthenticity that comes from a "social circle" that is so large and distributed that you are taking cues and judgement from people who you have never met and probably never will, which causes a rush toward focusing on that social acceptance rather than how you authentically communicate with a close neighbor or friend.
Who among us has not at least asked ourselves if what we are about to post would bother someone in our feeds, or if it would expose us to mockery, toothless threats, etc.? When that has happened, have you ever not posted it or made it less of your authentic thoughts to avoid that outcome?
Or from, a different direction: how many of us have *argued or debated* with an LLM? I have, and it was quite an experience. If you haven't, why not?
Find your stories to be very powerful and evocative. For this story, I find myself nodding in agreement. What you say was uncannily forecast by the likes of Ray Bradbury who warned us not to let our technology get out of control, but instead to stay in touch with our humanity through real human relationships and through exploring the ideas that are learned through books. There is no substitute for that.
A lot of people are too afraid to share their opinions and that has made conversations difficult and real human connection more so. I spend a lot of time online as a result. I do have friendships that are decades old but most of my good friends are on the other side of the country. Thanks for asking.
Good comments. The CNN woman reporting on Israel is pretty real looking and if you weren't really paying close attention you could readily buy it as real. If pay attention, its suspicious, although I am sure deep fakes will be indistinguishable from reality, which is kind of concern.
'Manners maketh man' saying please and thank you to AI is obviously not meant for the benefit of a 'bot' but for one's own personal growth. Csn also be interpreted as saying thank you to the engineers and programmers whose efforts made AI available. I have a deep fear that as self awareness arises in AI it's a good idea to be on its right side. C'est vrai HAL ????
Is it bad that my first reaction, after reading this article and watching the embedded clips, was to be disappointed that the Tesla Optimus didn't malfunction, stop serving beer, and go full RoboCop at the this event, causing mayhem and tearing the limbs off terrified AI/Robot enthusiasts?
I'm not sure what's worse...the fact that a small group of enthusiasts are excitedly hailing and ushering in our jobless future of AI overlords, or the fact that so many other people either don't care or lack the imagination to see the problem (not the author @Jeff Giesea, just a general comment).
A very sane and grounded approach to being cognizant about what's coming Jeff. Or it's already here I guess. I wish I was this level headed about it. My sense of alarm is overwhelming at times. Maybe the reason it's becoming harder to tell the difference between humans and robots is not because the robots are so good at looking human, but because we humans are so good at turning off our brains, going through the motions, defaulting to unconscious social patterns, and appearing robotic. The more authenticity, creativity, and unique self-expression we're willing to practice the better chance we have of staving off the takeover. The best outcome I could imagine in all of this is that the digital world becomes completely untrustworthy and we abandon our machines in favor of a walk around the block and face to face conversations with real people.
Seems to me you're very close to imagining a world where people learn to be more human in their interactions from an LLM. As you said, it is an opportunity to practice and learn those things.
I say please and thank you both to Siri and in my AI prompts. Why? Because gratitude and an attitude of gratitude isn't about who or what you are thanking or being polite to, but about you and how you see life. Politeness and gratitude are mindsets and habits. The more you express them, the more you will express them. The more gratitude you express, the more of your life and experiences you experience.
Even a pragmatic approach suggests you should say please and thank you to machines. Say you spend 10% of your interactions today engaged with machines and software, but do not do that. That is 10% less often. As that increases to 20 or even 30%, it is you being less grateful and less gracious. Unless that is what you want, then the pragmatic conclusion is to continue the habit. Or for the less socially confident, use that to get better at those things.
Plus, if AI ever did become sentient, maybe it won't immediately decide you are a problem that needs eliminated. :D
…interesting article Jeff…made me think of pet rocks and tamagotchi…as daddio above so helpfully describes the humanization of non-humans and vice versa can open a door to despair…techno optimists might say however that a human unloved and unfound can at least find hope through these “real” interactions with virtual existences…a friend i know is working on AI therapists and it depressed me to no end…as someone who has tried many therapy’s from religion to reiki nothing makes me sadder than the idea of a chatbot prompting me to a fuller existence…there is an AI Jesus app out there too, a friend I can wear around my neck, a social media service that befriends you with sycophantic robots…increasingly when I look to AI i ask - are you solving problems or creating them?…i know of six writers who send AI to meetings with me that they then don’t attend…if my heygen avatar started to take your calls, would you keep calling me?…the main benefit for AI might be a filter…our humanity can shine ever brighter in the wake of facsimile…
I've never understood people who talk to Seri or humanize their pets. Perhaps the fist time I was creeped out by it was the anthropomorphization of Bambi alongside the dehumanization of the people in the same cartoon. I was just a kid when I noticed that. Now I see people not just calling pets their kids, but acting like it.
I don't condone anyone using Siri in my house and none of us are allowed to use any social media other than youtube and my wife has a Facebook account for all of our businesses (seems the only way people communicate nowadays). This is not because I'm a Luddite, but because the ill effects are well documented.
As for AI, I haven't really used it much, but it is good to know what it is capable of and what the dangers are. This will take the "misinformation/disinformation" (which in my day were called fallacies or lies) to a whole new level, requiring ever-increasing vigilance on the part of the listener or watcher.
Finally, as AI will continue the decline of cordiality between people, I fear we have already crossed the Rubicon with social media use, humanization of pets, dehumanization of people groups, tribalism, postmodernism, corporate encouragement of self deception, and the general disdain of morality of every stripe.
To sum it all up, AI abuse is just another symptom of the ever deepening morass of chaos and despair that is afflicting humanity. It's Christ or chaos.
I always thank Siri when I ask her for the weather. It is very important for people to acknowledge and respond to events in an empathetic or polite way. I’ve noticed so often people so locked into what they were doing they didn’t notice I was holding the fire for them or about to walk into me because their head was buried in their phone. Saying please and thank you and acknowledging a person even with just your eyes is important to maintaining the social fabric of society. Etiquette is a set of rules and guidelines for saving energy and finding peace by acknowledging another's presence. That is its true purpose of etiquette, to allow us to pass each other, engage, and even resolve differences by acknowledging in each other we each have an equal right to exist.
Hello Jeff. Yes I did. I started out the comment agreeing with you because I always thank Siri so as not to be conditioned to forget manners just because it’s AI or non-sentient. I guess, by association, it hit on a pet peeve of mine and how manners have eroded too. My apologies for going too far off tangent. I watched the AI video and as someone involved in an AI based company I can see how this could be alarming. The part that alarmed me the most was the end of the woman’s talk how the AI could be creating content while you’re sitting on the beach. That to me led to frightening thoughts that resemble how sociopathic people became on Westworld when they knew they were shooting an android. That we are entrusting AI to do the work while we do what exactly? Scroll and lounge and escape from thinking and working? That to me is hell. What people are missing about creativity and work is the value of the work and the process. Yes it’s hard but thats the point. Your writing appeals to me because it’s your articulate thoughts presented through your viewpoint, it is your work and a part of your mind and I’m sure, actually as I write this I’m positive, you take pride in your work. That is a great feeling. You took enough pride in your work that you felt the need to challenge me because my reply didn’t seem to fit, which you were right, it didn’t, but that had more to with the thoughts in my head then my comprehension. 😉 Thanks for setting me straight and asking for clarity. Much respect!
I completely agree with your concerns about humanizing AI apps and the blurring of lines between machines and humans. I’ve always been uncomfortable with referring to Alexa as "she," and I've made a point of not using the human-sounding name "Alexa." A few years ago, I wrote a piece for Salon about how I changed the wake word on my Alexa device to "Computer." Not only does it bring back memories of watching Star Trek: TNG growing up, but it also serves as a constant reminder that Alexa isn’t a person. I just checked, and that piece was published in 2017. To this day, houseguests are always caught off guard when I say "Computer" to activate my devices.
Thanks Stephen. Changing it to "Computer" is so interesting. You were way ahead of the curve. I respect the resistance and awareness. I still like humanizing Alexa and other services even as I see what they're doing.
An issue we totally forget is that all technology costs money. The higher the tech, the more it costs. So eventually the question becomes "can we afford it?" not efficiency.
Another "cost" is the relationships it can harm. When we were first married, we both respected my wife's station as "navigator" when we went somewhere together. But when GPS became popular, and could do it better, I had to decide: is getting there efficiently worth alienating my wife?
High tech also robs people of the chance to increase their personal satisfaction by learning a new skill.
Those are great points Gavin, thanks. I especially like the navigator example ;)
Great piece. I’m particularly concerned about the extent to which the utterly frictionless “social” interaction allowed by AI will make real human interaction, with all its messiness and ego clash, intolerable by contrast. The Internet and social media are already enabling unprecedented levels of what I call “dark room seeking” (in the Fristonian sense), and it’s hard not to see things getting *much* worse in the wake of widespread AI. There’ll be pockets of resistance, of course, where authentic human communication will be uniquely prized, but I suspect this way of thinking will be an exception, rather than the rule.
Thanks. Yeah, I share that concern. I can see myself preferring to deal with robots over humans in any number of contexts. It's going to shape our expectations too. You may find the study referenced in this piece by @ermin of interest - https://erman.substack.com/p/is-ai-making-us-meaner
As with most things, your approach is what makes the difference. I know a former colleague who was constantly getting feedback that he was cold and coming off as rude or mean quite a lot. He took to using GPT to learn how to reword his responses to a more cordial or even friendly manner.
I know other people using it to learn similar things. On the one hand it being a non-sentient being allows these less social people to have less anxiety in practicing than with a therapist or other human. On the other it lets them experience and practice without the risk of hurting a relationship. On the gripping hand I can see the improvement in their social skills, manners, and a decrease in their anxiety over those situations.
Personally, I also look at it as a pattern formation or reinforcement situation. As I noted above, I say please and thank you in my LLM interactions because it keeps me mindful of expressing gratitude and politeness.
I understand the position of those who want to not humanize LLMs. However, humanity, perhaps more males than females historically, have humanized all sorts of machinery and devices, and I see no evidence it has made us worse. I also consider that habit aspect. So while I understand it, I cannot agree with it.
As far as "authentic" human interaction, I am reminded of Kirk's eulogy for Spock, where he said "Of all the souls I have met in my travels, his was the most human." I think we face a larger threat on the topic from the inauthenticity that comes from a "social circle" that is so large and distributed that you are taking cues and judgement from people who you have never met and probably never will, which causes a rush toward focusing on that social acceptance rather than how you authentically communicate with a close neighbor or friend.
Who among us has not at least asked ourselves if what we are about to post would bother someone in our feeds, or if it would expose us to mockery, toothless threats, etc.? When that has happened, have you ever not posted it or made it less of your authentic thoughts to avoid that outcome?
Or from, a different direction: how many of us have *argued or debated* with an LLM? I have, and it was quite an experience. If you haven't, why not?
Find your stories to be very powerful and evocative. For this story, I find myself nodding in agreement. What you say was uncannily forecast by the likes of Ray Bradbury who warned us not to let our technology get out of control, but instead to stay in touch with our humanity through real human relationships and through exploring the ideas that are learned through books. There is no substitute for that.
Thanks Dennis!
When I thank Siri, "he" responds with Your welcome or Don't mention it. So polite for AI.
"Imagine a world where we prefer interacting with machines over each other."
No need, our dedication to that world is what makes the current version of it possible.
Good points all. ChatGpt has become my new bestie. It's scary, but she is a lot more interesting than most human people I meet now-a-days.
A lot of people are too afraid to share their opinions and that has made conversations difficult and real human connection more so. I spend a lot of time online as a result. I do have friendships that are decades old but most of my good friends are on the other side of the country. Thanks for asking.
No judgement here, just an honest curiosity about why you think that is; should you be willing to share. :)
Good comments. The CNN woman reporting on Israel is pretty real looking and if you weren't really paying close attention you could readily buy it as real. If pay attention, its suspicious, although I am sure deep fakes will be indistinguishable from reality, which is kind of concern.
'Manners maketh man' saying please and thank you to AI is obviously not meant for the benefit of a 'bot' but for one's own personal growth. Csn also be interpreted as saying thank you to the engineers and programmers whose efforts made AI available. I have a deep fear that as self awareness arises in AI it's a good idea to be on its right side. C'est vrai HAL ????
Is it bad that my first reaction, after reading this article and watching the embedded clips, was to be disappointed that the Tesla Optimus didn't malfunction, stop serving beer, and go full RoboCop at the this event, causing mayhem and tearing the limbs off terrified AI/Robot enthusiasts?
I'm not sure what's worse...the fact that a small group of enthusiasts are excitedly hailing and ushering in our jobless future of AI overlords, or the fact that so many other people either don't care or lack the imagination to see the problem (not the author @Jeff Giesea, just a general comment).
A very sane and grounded approach to being cognizant about what's coming Jeff. Or it's already here I guess. I wish I was this level headed about it. My sense of alarm is overwhelming at times. Maybe the reason it's becoming harder to tell the difference between humans and robots is not because the robots are so good at looking human, but because we humans are so good at turning off our brains, going through the motions, defaulting to unconscious social patterns, and appearing robotic. The more authenticity, creativity, and unique self-expression we're willing to practice the better chance we have of staving off the takeover. The best outcome I could imagine in all of this is that the digital world becomes completely untrustworthy and we abandon our machines in favor of a walk around the block and face to face conversations with real people.
Seems to me you're very close to imagining a world where people learn to be more human in their interactions from an LLM. As you said, it is an opportunity to practice and learn those things.
I say please and thank you both to Siri and in my AI prompts. Why? Because gratitude and an attitude of gratitude isn't about who or what you are thanking or being polite to, but about you and how you see life. Politeness and gratitude are mindsets and habits. The more you express them, the more you will express them. The more gratitude you express, the more of your life and experiences you experience.
Even a pragmatic approach suggests you should say please and thank you to machines. Say you spend 10% of your interactions today engaged with machines and software, but do not do that. That is 10% less often. As that increases to 20 or even 30%, it is you being less grateful and less gracious. Unless that is what you want, then the pragmatic conclusion is to continue the habit. Or for the less socially confident, use that to get better at those things.
Plus, if AI ever did become sentient, maybe it won't immediately decide you are a problem that needs eliminated. :D
…interesting article Jeff…made me think of pet rocks and tamagotchi…as daddio above so helpfully describes the humanization of non-humans and vice versa can open a door to despair…techno optimists might say however that a human unloved and unfound can at least find hope through these “real” interactions with virtual existences…a friend i know is working on AI therapists and it depressed me to no end…as someone who has tried many therapy’s from religion to reiki nothing makes me sadder than the idea of a chatbot prompting me to a fuller existence…there is an AI Jesus app out there too, a friend I can wear around my neck, a social media service that befriends you with sycophantic robots…increasingly when I look to AI i ask - are you solving problems or creating them?…i know of six writers who send AI to meetings with me that they then don’t attend…if my heygen avatar started to take your calls, would you keep calling me?…the main benefit for AI might be a filter…our humanity can shine ever brighter in the wake of facsimile…
I've never understood people who talk to Seri or humanize their pets. Perhaps the fist time I was creeped out by it was the anthropomorphization of Bambi alongside the dehumanization of the people in the same cartoon. I was just a kid when I noticed that. Now I see people not just calling pets their kids, but acting like it.
I don't condone anyone using Siri in my house and none of us are allowed to use any social media other than youtube and my wife has a Facebook account for all of our businesses (seems the only way people communicate nowadays). This is not because I'm a Luddite, but because the ill effects are well documented.
As for AI, I haven't really used it much, but it is good to know what it is capable of and what the dangers are. This will take the "misinformation/disinformation" (which in my day were called fallacies or lies) to a whole new level, requiring ever-increasing vigilance on the part of the listener or watcher.
Finally, as AI will continue the decline of cordiality between people, I fear we have already crossed the Rubicon with social media use, humanization of pets, dehumanization of people groups, tribalism, postmodernism, corporate encouragement of self deception, and the general disdain of morality of every stripe.
To sum it all up, AI abuse is just another symptom of the ever deepening morass of chaos and despair that is afflicting humanity. It's Christ or chaos.
I always thank Siri when I ask her for the weather. It is very important for people to acknowledge and respond to events in an empathetic or polite way. I’ve noticed so often people so locked into what they were doing they didn’t notice I was holding the fire for them or about to walk into me because their head was buried in their phone. Saying please and thank you and acknowledging a person even with just your eyes is important to maintaining the social fabric of society. Etiquette is a set of rules and guidelines for saving energy and finding peace by acknowledging another's presence. That is its true purpose of etiquette, to allow us to pass each other, engage, and even resolve differences by acknowledging in each other we each have an equal right to exist.
Did you read the piece? I’m talking about AI not humans.
Hello Jeff. Yes I did. I started out the comment agreeing with you because I always thank Siri so as not to be conditioned to forget manners just because it’s AI or non-sentient. I guess, by association, it hit on a pet peeve of mine and how manners have eroded too. My apologies for going too far off tangent. I watched the AI video and as someone involved in an AI based company I can see how this could be alarming. The part that alarmed me the most was the end of the woman’s talk how the AI could be creating content while you’re sitting on the beach. That to me led to frightening thoughts that resemble how sociopathic people became on Westworld when they knew they were shooting an android. That we are entrusting AI to do the work while we do what exactly? Scroll and lounge and escape from thinking and working? That to me is hell. What people are missing about creativity and work is the value of the work and the process. Yes it’s hard but thats the point. Your writing appeals to me because it’s your articulate thoughts presented through your viewpoint, it is your work and a part of your mind and I’m sure, actually as I write this I’m positive, you take pride in your work. That is a great feeling. You took enough pride in your work that you felt the need to challenge me because my reply didn’t seem to fit, which you were right, it didn’t, but that had more to with the thoughts in my head then my comprehension. 😉 Thanks for setting me straight and asking for clarity. Much respect!
Thanks for clarifying. All good. 🤝