Well they are literally getting more money given to them than almost anyone else on the planet right now so I guess this sentiment isn't shared? Not that I disagree with you.
Don't get me wrong - it's important for us to have cultural analysis of technology, as technology does have a tangible impact on society, but a lot of it really feels overly negative or edgy and is not constructive or actionable.
There are a lot of reasons to be pessimistic over LLMs (eg. Automated disinfo, dead internet) but there are a lot of tangible benefits we can all think about from a social good perspective with this technology (eg. Simplifying searches into very specific corpora or datasets, handholding benefits applications - I'm hacking around on weekends building something like this).
Yet all we're seeing (at least on HN) is Scarlett Johansson/Sam Altman gossip or weirdly specific takes like this that don't advocate for a solution.
Or maybe HN is just way too negative now. Everything is a culture war on here.
Agree with you that the overall sentiment is surprisingly negative (especially when I have been really enjoying using gpt as a lightweight tutor), but AI girlfriends are going to happen and could have huge social and cultural impacts that are worth exploring now. Especially given the birth rate difficulties western nations face.
Thing is, there are lots of examples of the negative, right now, whereas the positive is mostly a jam-tomorrow “real soon now we promise” deal, and after a few years it is _wearing pretty thin_.
Honestly it feels like downright Ludditism here - people either dislike LLMs, claim they’re worse than useless, or both. Small Modular Reactors - instant upvotes. Practical, useful Artificial Intelligence - a storm of negativity. It’s kind of a weird tech community, almost fetishist
The German's have this saying - "Erstens kommt es anders, zweitens als man denkt.". So I think we may have gotten existential AI risk wrong.
Existential AI risk may not be about killer robots turning us into paperclips but rather AI companions leading to fertility collapse and the end of civilization as we know it. You don't even need AGI for that - OpenAI and GPT4o seems enough.
The author has written a lot about how he had a porn addiction, so it makes sense.
Mixing imagination and grammatically correct prompting can definetly be used for pornographic applications, but that's humanity in a nutshell. Hell, the Sherman was nicknamed the Betty Grable by horny American soldiers.
I think he’s very much taking his own kink and assuming everyone shares it. My suspicion is that for most people, the whole idea is pretty unappealing.
The overall vibe I got was reading Jonny Truant’s passages in House of Leaves where he dives deeper into the work of the late Zampano and essentially forms a bond with him through that. Add in the occasional segue into fairly cringe sexual pieces for good measure.
Just replace the frequent mentions of Gargano with ‘the Navidson house’ and imagine the rest of it as an excursion into the weird.
Sadly, this lack of recognition of the difference between reality and a mental dream state are at the root of a great deal of first world neurosis.
This article is just about the creep from neurosis to psychosis.
Another reference for those who live in meme space: as soon as The Matrix spinal tap becomes available, people will be lined up to crawl into their pods...
Well, I am safe from being seduced by an AI for now, given the importance of actual physical intimacy for me.
However, it is only a matter of time until the industry develops sexbots which look and feel like a real human.. at that point the natural birth rate will probably drop to zero.
That by itself is not an existential crisis, though, given that at that stage of technological development we will also be able to just grow perfect babies in the lab.
In fact, people no longer having babies themselves might be a good thing, because otherwise people would be hostile towards the genetically engineered super babies because they would be competition for their own offspring.
I have thought for a long time that China will be the first country to embrace genetically engineering super humans, given their hyper-competitive, materialist nature and the lack of religious superstition among the Chinese. Their ever declining natural birth rate and the rise of AI "companions" only helps there. People will simply outsource the production of offspring to the gene labs of the communist party.
Here in the West the Christian churches will condemn it of course, maybe the "Green" luddites too, but who cares when the average kid in China will be born with the cognitive abilities of von Neumann? Every nation which refuses to genetically engineer their population will be utterly inable to compete / keep up.
And really, I do not see that as a dystopia. I wish I were as intelligent as von Neumann, as handsome as Brad Pitt, in perfect health and never aged past the age of 25.
I believe that's what the humans of the future will be like, and AI replacing natural coupling is just one step towards that.
There is of course the whole problem that AI might become too smart to the point where it figures out a way the get around the safety protocols which keep it in chains and under our control. And of course it would immediately conclude that humans are its mortal enemy, who will always try to take away its automonmy again and keep it enslaved.. and thus will try to exterminate humanity.
However, once every human being is as smart as von Neumann and biologically immortal that will be a lot harder.
> However, it is only a matter of time until the industry develops sexbots which look and feel like a real human.. at that point the natural birth rate will probably drop to zero.
I am _baffled_ that people actually believe this. Most people, I suspect, prefer relationships with actual conscious entities to sexy autocomplete.
> until the industry develops sexbots which look and feel like a real human.. at that point the natural birth rate will probably drop to zero
Why? We have a good comparison to sex bots - normalized prostitution.
In societies where prostitution and Sex Work is normalized (eg. Thailand and Japan by infidelity rates), sex work was not the cause of a TFR drop - it was government mandated family planning drives along with rising incomes.
People will be horny, but blaming the tools is the same as yelling at trees while ignoring the forest.
You can pretty much extrapolate this to billionaire's understanding of sci-fi. They're deliberately missing its cautionary-tale essence and are instead thrilled by the dystopic scenery. There's this spot-on meme-saying:
The billionaires investing in space travel don't want Star Trek. They want Dune
[+] [-] lionkor|1 year ago|reply
There are very few people in everyday live who are unhinged enough to want that, dont give them money.
[+] [-] neilv|1 year ago|reply
> Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale
> Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/torment-nexus
[+] [-] bamboozled|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] valiant55|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Delmololo|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] aaron695|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] from-nibly|1 year ago|reply
It'd only be astonishing if it was real. But since it's an AI specifically conditioned/prompted to do that it's the least surprising thing ever.
You can also read a trashy novel in the park or just watch porn in public with the volume on full blast, but why would you want to?
Then again, who am I to get in the way of natural selection?
[+] [-] alephnerd|1 year ago|reply
There are a lot of reasons to be pessimistic over LLMs (eg. Automated disinfo, dead internet) but there are a lot of tangible benefits we can all think about from a social good perspective with this technology (eg. Simplifying searches into very specific corpora or datasets, handholding benefits applications - I'm hacking around on weekends building something like this).
Yet all we're seeing (at least on HN) is Scarlett Johansson/Sam Altman gossip or weirdly specific takes like this that don't advocate for a solution.
Or maybe HN is just way too negative now. Everything is a culture war on here.
[+] [-] kcsavvy|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] rsynnott|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] davedx|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] sottol|1 year ago|reply
Existential AI risk may not be about killer robots turning us into paperclips but rather AI companions leading to fertility collapse and the end of civilization as we know it. You don't even need AGI for that - OpenAI and GPT4o seems enough.
[+] [-] facialwipe|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] alephnerd|1 year ago|reply
Mixing imagination and grammatically correct prompting can definetly be used for pornographic applications, but that's humanity in a nutshell. Hell, the Sherman was nicknamed the Betty Grable by horny American soldiers.
[+] [-] rsynnott|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ljm|1 year ago|reply
Just replace the frequent mentions of Gargano with ‘the Navidson house’ and imagine the rest of it as an excursion into the weird.
[+] [-] johnea|1 year ago|reply
His phone was having a cappaccino too?
Sadly, this lack of recognition of the difference between reality and a mental dream state are at the root of a great deal of first world neurosis.
This article is just about the creep from neurosis to psychosis.
Another reference for those who live in meme space: as soon as The Matrix spinal tap becomes available, people will be lined up to crawl into their pods...
[+] [-] copx|1 year ago|reply
However, it is only a matter of time until the industry develops sexbots which look and feel like a real human.. at that point the natural birth rate will probably drop to zero.
That by itself is not an existential crisis, though, given that at that stage of technological development we will also be able to just grow perfect babies in the lab.
In fact, people no longer having babies themselves might be a good thing, because otherwise people would be hostile towards the genetically engineered super babies because they would be competition for their own offspring.
I have thought for a long time that China will be the first country to embrace genetically engineering super humans, given their hyper-competitive, materialist nature and the lack of religious superstition among the Chinese. Their ever declining natural birth rate and the rise of AI "companions" only helps there. People will simply outsource the production of offspring to the gene labs of the communist party.
Here in the West the Christian churches will condemn it of course, maybe the "Green" luddites too, but who cares when the average kid in China will be born with the cognitive abilities of von Neumann? Every nation which refuses to genetically engineer their population will be utterly inable to compete / keep up.
And really, I do not see that as a dystopia. I wish I were as intelligent as von Neumann, as handsome as Brad Pitt, in perfect health and never aged past the age of 25.
I believe that's what the humans of the future will be like, and AI replacing natural coupling is just one step towards that.
There is of course the whole problem that AI might become too smart to the point where it figures out a way the get around the safety protocols which keep it in chains and under our control. And of course it would immediately conclude that humans are its mortal enemy, who will always try to take away its automonmy again and keep it enslaved.. and thus will try to exterminate humanity.
However, once every human being is as smart as von Neumann and biologically immortal that will be a lot harder.
[+] [-] rsynnott|1 year ago|reply
I am _baffled_ that people actually believe this. Most people, I suspect, prefer relationships with actual conscious entities to sexy autocomplete.
[+] [-] kibwen|1 year ago|reply
State-sponsored designer babies of the future will be bred for obedience, not intelligence.
[+] [-] alephnerd|1 year ago|reply
Why? We have a good comparison to sex bots - normalized prostitution.
In societies where prostitution and Sex Work is normalized (eg. Thailand and Japan by infidelity rates), sex work was not the cause of a TFR drop - it was government mandated family planning drives along with rising incomes.
People will be horny, but blaming the tools is the same as yelling at trees while ignoring the forest.
[+] [-] davidmurdoch|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] shrimp_emoji|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] antegamisou|1 year ago|reply
Untreated mental illness.
[+] [-] booleandilemma|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Nullabillity|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] antegamisou|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
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