These things abuse deep psychology. Our ability to anthropomorphize inanimate objects is being (purposefully) targeted by these LLM’s, and it goes deeper than intelligence.
This harm was first postulated back in the 70’s with Eliza and is fully coming to fruition with the widespread use and shudder “trust” of these tools.
I don’t even understand how people anthromorphize LLMs. They all read like “this person was lonely” or “this person was in mental health crisis.”
I was too? I found out my ex-wife was still having an affair 3 years after she “cut it off.” I TRIED to use LLMs to “generate” companionship. On purpose. (side note, I did get the actual professional help I needed)
Either something else is deeply wrong with these people, or, more likely, something is deeply wrong with me.
I anthropomorphize ChatGPT only in that I type questions as if I were talking to a human, not like I would in a search box. That’s eerie to me all on its own. But there is no circumstance under which I would forget I’m talking to a computer with no human agency. Guess “computers are dumb and cannot think” was beat into my head at my first computer camp in the early 80s.
But that’s just me. End users have always frustrated me when describing their PC issue and assigning agency to the dumb office tool. Imagine how those some people view software like an LLM.
People are different. People value different things. Some people are more susceptible to chatbot addiction, just like how some people are more susceptible to gambling addiction. It’s simple as that.
I did a bit of a dive on it, and its fascinating. Its a “bias” in a sense, but its apparently a cognitive pattern of “source monitoring.”
I don’t exactly know how that works, because I don’t think “is this artifact computer generated?” Instead, I see all digital information as computer generated. The text you type isnt linked to you as a person. It’s linked to the screen on which I read it from. Which is then linked to software and networking, and another computer, a keyboard (or AI!) and eventually you.
This allows other knowledge of mine to create another layer - I know machines literally don’t know anything (as an electronic/computer engineer, you kinda get that at a core level). So, by default, I just take everything I consume digitally with a grain of salt.
But it goes further than that. I really don’t “learn well” unless I do the thing I’m learning and can explain it to others. So, if a “new things” deviates from existing knowledge, I need to find how either my existing knowledge is flawed, or the authority of the actual original source, which is never a computer screen, and rarely a person. (I’ve been told this is considered by many to be very taxing and burdensome and they’re right, but it works for me).
Because I have this source monitoring pattern, inherent bias against digital information, a taxing learning preference, AND pre-existing knowledge on how LLMs work, I just find the patterns in the AI generation quickly. As they advance, it could potentially circumvent my cognitive pattern, but it won’t be in a way I can predict.
These things abuse deep psychology. Our ability to anthropomorphize inanimate objects is being (purposefully) targeted by these LLM’s, and it goes deeper than intelligence.
This harm was first postulated back in the 70’s with Eliza and is fully coming to fruition with the widespread use and shudder “trust” of these tools.
I don’t even understand how people anthromorphize LLMs. They all read like “this person was lonely” or “this person was in mental health crisis.”
I was too? I found out my ex-wife was still having an affair 3 years after she “cut it off.” I TRIED to use LLMs to “generate” companionship. On purpose. (side note, I did get the actual professional help I needed)
Either something else is deeply wrong with these people, or, more likely, something is deeply wrong with me.
I anthropomorphize ChatGPT only in that I type questions as if I were talking to a human, not like I would in a search box. That’s eerie to me all on its own. But there is no circumstance under which I would forget I’m talking to a computer with no human agency. Guess “computers are dumb and cannot think” was beat into my head at my first computer camp in the early 80s.
But that’s just me. End users have always frustrated me when describing their PC issue and assigning agency to the dumb office tool. Imagine how those some people view software like an LLM.
I really try not to.
People have different vulnerabilities.
People are different. People value different things. Some people are more susceptible to chatbot addiction, just like how some people are more susceptible to gambling addiction. It’s simple as that.
Eh, they’re either not tuned to you, or you have a bias that’s blocking you from engaging with their output.
I definitely have a bias, I’m always looking for the intelligence behind the words and getting repulsed when it’s not there.
But I know intelligent, normal people who aren’t looking for that and are quite happy consuming the slop.
And then there are people who get output that’s tuned exactly to their mental state. Which does not end well at all.
I did a bit of a dive on it, and its fascinating. Its a “bias” in a sense, but its apparently a cognitive pattern of “source monitoring.”
I don’t exactly know how that works, because I don’t think “is this artifact computer generated?” Instead, I see all digital information as computer generated. The text you type isnt linked to you as a person. It’s linked to the screen on which I read it from. Which is then linked to software and networking, and another computer, a keyboard (or AI!) and eventually you.
This allows other knowledge of mine to create another layer - I know machines literally don’t know anything (as an electronic/computer engineer, you kinda get that at a core level). So, by default, I just take everything I consume digitally with a grain of salt.
But it goes further than that. I really don’t “learn well” unless I do the thing I’m learning and can explain it to others. So, if a “new things” deviates from existing knowledge, I need to find how either my existing knowledge is flawed, or the authority of the actual original source, which is never a computer screen, and rarely a person. (I’ve been told this is considered by many to be very taxing and burdensome and they’re right, but it works for me).
Because I have this source monitoring pattern, inherent bias against digital information, a taxing learning preference, AND pre-existing knowledge on how LLMs work, I just find the patterns in the AI generation quickly. As they advance, it could potentially circumvent my cognitive pattern, but it won’t be in a way I can predict.