This. If you never train stick, you can never drive stick, just automatic. And if you never let a real person break your heart or otherwise disappoint you, you'll never be ready for real people.
Ah, 'suffering builds character'. I haven't had that one in a while.
Maybe we should not want to get prepared for RealPeople™ if all they can do is break us and disappoint us.
"But RealPeople™ can also elevate, surprise, and enchant you!" you may intervene. They sure than. An still, some may decide no longer to go for new rounds of Russian roulette. Someone like that is not a lesser person, they still have real™ enjoyment in a hundred other aspects in their life from music to being a food nerd. they just don't make their happiness dependant on volatile actors.
AI chatbots as relationship replacements are, in many ways, flight simulators:
Are they 'the real thing'? Nah, sitting in a real Cessna almost always beats a computer screen and a keyboard.
Are they always a worse situation than 'the real thing'? Simulators sure beat reality when reality is 'dual engine flameout halfway over the North Pacific'
Are they cheaper? YES, significantly!
Are they 'good enough'? For many, they are.
Are they 'syncophantic'? Yes, insofar as that circumstances are decided beforehand. A 'real' pilot doesn't get to choose 'blue skies, little sheep clouds in the sky', they only get to chosen not to fly that day. And the standard weather settings? Not exactly 'hurricane, category 5'.
Are they available, while real flight is not, to some or all members of the public? Generally yes. The simulator doesn't make you have a current medical.
Are they removing pilots/humans from 'the scene'? No, not really. In fact, many pilots fly simulators for risk-free training of extreme situations.
Your argument is basically 'A flight simulator won’t teach you what it feels like when the engine coughs for real
at 1000 ft above ground and your hands shake on the yoke.'. No, it doesn't. An frankly, there are experiences you can live without - especially those you may not survive (emotionally).
Society has always had the tendency to pathologize those who do not pursue a sexual relationship as lesser humans. (Especially) single women that were too happy in the medevieal age? Witches that needed burning. Guy who preferred reading to dancing? A 'weirdo and a creep'. English knows 'master' for the unmarried, 'incomplete' man, an 'mister' for the one who got married. And today? those who are incapable or unwilling to participate in the dating scene are branded 'girlfailure' or 'incel' - with the latter group considered a walking security risk. Let's not add to the stigma by playing another tune for the 'oh, everyone must get out there' scene.
One difference between "AI chatbots" in this context and common flight simulator games is that someone else is listening in and has the actual control over the simulation. You're not alone in the same way that you are when pining over a character in a television series or books, or crashing a virtual jumbo jet into a skyscraper in MICROS~1 Flight Simulator.
This is the exact kind of thinking that leads to this in the first place. The idea that a human relationship is, in the end, just about what YOU can get from it. That it's just simply a black box with an input and output, and if it can provide the right outputs for your needs, then it's sufficient. This materialistic thinking of other people is a fundamentally catastrophic worldview.
A meaningful relationship necessarily requires some element of giving, not just getting. The meaning comes from the exchange between two people, the feedback loop of give and take that leads to trust.
Not everyone needs a romantic relationship, but to think a chatbot could ever fulfill even 1% of the very fundamental human need of close relationships is dangerous thinking. At best, a chatbot can be a therapist or a sex toy. A one-way provider of some service, but never a relationship. If that's what is needed, then fine, but anything else is a slippery slope to self destruction.
What do you think of the idea that people generally don't really like other people - that they do generally disappoint and cause suffering. (We are all imperfect, imperfectly getting along together, daily initiating and supporting acts of aggression against others.) And that, if the FakePeople™ experience were good enough, probably most people would opt out of engaging with others, similar to how most pilot experiences are on simulators?
DonHopkins|3 months ago
One of the first thing many Sims players do is to make a virtual version of their real boyfriend/girlfriend to torture and perform experiments on.
DocTomoe|3 months ago
Maybe we should not want to get prepared for RealPeople™ if all they can do is break us and disappoint us.
"But RealPeople™ can also elevate, surprise, and enchant you!" you may intervene. They sure than. An still, some may decide no longer to go for new rounds of Russian roulette. Someone like that is not a lesser person, they still have real™ enjoyment in a hundred other aspects in their life from music to being a food nerd. they just don't make their happiness dependant on volatile actors.
AI chatbots as relationship replacements are, in many ways, flight simulators:
Are they 'the real thing'? Nah, sitting in a real Cessna almost always beats a computer screen and a keyboard.
Are they always a worse situation than 'the real thing'? Simulators sure beat reality when reality is 'dual engine flameout halfway over the North Pacific'
Are they cheaper? YES, significantly!
Are they 'good enough'? For many, they are.
Are they 'syncophantic'? Yes, insofar as that circumstances are decided beforehand. A 'real' pilot doesn't get to choose 'blue skies, little sheep clouds in the sky', they only get to chosen not to fly that day. And the standard weather settings? Not exactly 'hurricane, category 5'.
Are they available, while real flight is not, to some or all members of the public? Generally yes. The simulator doesn't make you have a current medical.
Are they removing pilots/humans from 'the scene'? No, not really. In fact, many pilots fly simulators for risk-free training of extreme situations.
Your argument is basically 'A flight simulator won’t teach you what it feels like when the engine coughs for real at 1000 ft above ground and your hands shake on the yoke.'. No, it doesn't. An frankly, there are experiences you can live without - especially those you may not survive (emotionally).
Society has always had the tendency to pathologize those who do not pursue a sexual relationship as lesser humans. (Especially) single women that were too happy in the medevieal age? Witches that needed burning. Guy who preferred reading to dancing? A 'weirdo and a creep'. English knows 'master' for the unmarried, 'incomplete' man, an 'mister' for the one who got married. And today? those who are incapable or unwilling to participate in the dating scene are branded 'girlfailure' or 'incel' - with the latter group considered a walking security risk. Let's not add to the stigma by playing another tune for the 'oh, everyone must get out there' scene.
cess11|3 months ago
lifeformed|3 months ago
A meaningful relationship necessarily requires some element of giving, not just getting. The meaning comes from the exchange between two people, the feedback loop of give and take that leads to trust.
Not everyone needs a romantic relationship, but to think a chatbot could ever fulfill even 1% of the very fundamental human need of close relationships is dangerous thinking. At best, a chatbot can be a therapist or a sex toy. A one-way provider of some service, but never a relationship. If that's what is needed, then fine, but anything else is a slippery slope to self destruction.
verisimi|3 months ago
What do you think of the idea that people generally don't really like other people - that they do generally disappoint and cause suffering. (We are all imperfect, imperfectly getting along together, daily initiating and supporting acts of aggression against others.) And that, if the FakePeople™ experience were good enough, probably most people would opt out of engaging with others, similar to how most pilot experiences are on simulators?
IceDane|3 months ago
Dylan16807|3 months ago
Good thing that "if" is clearly untrue.
> AI chatbots as relationship replacements are, in many ways, flight simulators:
If only! It's probably closer to playing star fox than a flight sim.
__loam|3 months ago
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