AI Friend Apps Are Destroying What's Left of Society(currentaffairs.org) |
AI Friend Apps Are Destroying What's Left of Society(currentaffairs.org) |
I deeply, fundamentally disagree with that. Humans are one step mathematical operations that take in an input, transform to an output, and are done.
Human life is an endless continuous cascade of incentives, feedback loops, iterations, and modification. When you change anything in a person's environment, it will affect them. Perhaps the effect is small unless someone is primed by their prior environment in certain ways, but nonetheless nearly everything leaves its mark.
Can you eat healthy if your kitchen is full of free junk food? Yes, it's possible. Can you get out of the house and socialize even when endless media and parasocial relationships are just a screen away? Yes, it's possible.
Will you in practice? Evidence shows clearly over and over again that even tiny incentives have huge effects when compounded over time.
We all have a deep moral obligation to build an environment (physical, cultural, social) that is nourishing and incentivizes all of us to flourish. If you're building technology like AI chatbots that enables people to become more socially isolated, in my mind you are in the same category as junk food sellers, drug pushers, and polluting factory owners. You're making people sicker and the world worse.
The problem is when the junk food is cheaper/more easily available. There are plenty of people I could spend all day with and enjoy it. They are busy living life. The people who have time for me are usually the ones I feel drained after talking to. So I prefer to stay away from them.
1. Increase frequency of informal communication. For example if your hangout is a monthly coding club, you might casually message participants once or twice a week. “Holy smokes Jenny, this HN thread reminded me of you.”
2. Create convenient little group DMs (call it “Bob’s Coding Club”) and add in the people you like to hang out with.
This way, even if you invite someone privately, this person is well aware you hang out with others; they'll worry you can gossip if they bail too much (even though you won't, but fear of getting ostracized is a typical human trait and therefore a helpful forcing function.)
Source: I run meetups [0] for programmers, many of whom are recovering social media addicts.
It's no surprise that you have excellent advice on how to socialize more. :)
There's a theory that we're becoming increasingly removed from our work -- we have less control over what we get to build, we have less control over how the products we build function.
Because we don't influence what we create as much, work becomes much more about getting a pay check. We no longer work to craft, we work simply to build the things the bosses want.
Now that work is just a paycheck, we're increasingly unsettled, and increasingly in competition with one another. Material conditions are such that the bosses get most of the profits, and we get squeezed more and more. Competition gets more desperate, and we begin to see others as threatening our remaining resources, more than a community.
Now that we're increasingly isolated from one another, we end up isolating ourselves. We find ourselves less creative, less fulfilled, more alone, and looking for any semblance of community.
It's not surprising someone in this state turns to anything, even an AI, that wants to engage with the person.
For me, when work became all about the paycheck, I took my ego out of my work. I remained engaged and performed the job as expected. Whenever I became "unsettled," I took that as a sign to work more on keeping my ego out of my work.
Another advantage of reducing your ego in your work is that you think more about what the customer needs, rather than what the company needs from the product. Doesn't mean you'll make it happen, but at least you know you tried.
To your point about people looking for community, when I reduced my ego at work, I found connection, satisfaction, etc. with communities outside of work.
Even if you're engaged in work, however, you should never lose sight of the fact that the company is making money off the backs of the exploited worker, and it should always remain part of the decision process of stay or go.
If you work somewhere where you have control over the outputs of the your labor, you can both get a paycheck and not be exploited.
But AI exacerbates it, which is the point of the article.
I honestly can't imagine using an AI app to ever qualify as what I would determine to be what I deem a friend.
Or, you know, go crazy and do something bad.
As a pretty severe introvert, it's not hard for me to imagine "friends apps" getting good enough to provide a lot of comfort when I was younger, and if you grow up with them being a thing, you don't question them as much.
In fact, if "friend apps" were good enough to play video games on a decent level, I'm absolutely sure I'd use them instead of trying to deal with random jerks when playing multiplayer games.
Agree, but AI has one massive benefit I’ve seen.
Conversations that I can’t have IRL because the response would be “huh? What are you talking about? I don’t know what that is.”
LLM apps are a fountain of knowledge and can reason well enough to bounce ideas and speculation off of. I can dump all my esoteric conversational topics into it and be engaged without needing to do 5 degrees and work in 3 industries at once, and the massive amount of socialization that would entail.
Maybe there will be a division in my social life, where my IRL human connections are more grounded and homely, and the LLM bears the brunt of my neurodivergent interests.
I'd frame that as a people who want to deep dive can now do that without a huge overhead.
* You get up one day
* You enter a world where fewer and fewer people are trying to form in-person, human connections because they see pseudonymous social media and parasocial relationships as valid substitute
* You try these relationships too and find they are low-effort ways to keep yourself entertained with surface-level human connections
* Forming actual human connections in-person is too high effort (requires leaving the house; has a risk of rejection) so you don't do it
* An AI friend is low-effort and sort of a human connection so you do that
Ultimately I don't see "having an AI friend" as much worse than "'donating' $500 to Asmongold because he's my friend" (note: Asmongold has no idea who you are).
The problem is there's almost no way to regulate the guardrails, at least in a country like the US, and so then you're left with corporate interests deciding on the guardrails with their only incentive being hockey stick growth in engagement/revenue, which we already know is destructive in almost every corporate vertical (social media, food, etc.).
https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/projects-and-acti...
Welfare systems are a net good, but they aren't neccessarily the solution to this problem.
I think it's probably a multiple things we need situation -- a robust welfare system and social safety net AND a cultural acceptance of failing and needing that help.
These problems are like individual health. Everybody knows exactly what the solutions are: Stay active, eat vegetables, get enough sleep, etc etc. Technically simple, but not easy.
Now, if we could just get cities to keep their light pollution within the city, it would be a nicer world.
Speak for yourself. Humans are fundamentally social creatures.
It's the opposite of that. Fundamentally, people do want to be around each other and need to be or they go insane.
There are exceptions, of course, but they don't represent the norm.
Thats why NYC is empty.
None of this has to do with technology itself, people are actively choosing to be anti-social. If you aren't going to accept their choice, what are you going to do?
Yes, it's the value judgement that society is a good thing to have. Without real social interaction, there can be no society.
I haven't chosen to be antisocial, the people around me have, which makes it harder for me to be social. Others don't choose to be antisocial but are anyway mainly because they can't help but be glued to their screens.
Arguing that this has nothing to do with technology is (social media, in particular) is like arguing heroin has nothing to do with homelessness.
It would still be a value judgement in that case. There's the value of people having the choice to do less healthy things (as long as they're not hurting other people in doing so), versus preventing people from doing less healthy things.
AI didn't create the problem, but it makes the problem much worse by making it accessible at all times, making it seem believable, and disconnecting humans from reality (in a fantasy universe where the bot only praises them and succumbs to their every wish) to a degree never before possible.
And companies know how to exploit this to make money off these people, so their interest is in deepening the level of engagement, not putting guardrails.
The story of the 14-year old who committed suicide in order to "join" his bot lover sounds very similar to a drug overdose in order to escape reality.
You can say "drugs aren't the problem, humans are". Sure. But just like I don't want my kid carrying around a bottle of ecstasy or meth pills which he might be tempted to pop at any moment, neither do I want him carrying around a bottle of AI pills with potentially just as damaging effects.
This already happened, with Instagram and Tinder, though. No AI required. I agree with your analysis, that the accessibility is the issue, but we have been atomizing ourselves through screens for decades now already.
I'd argue that this was a significantly larger step than merely replacing the real human at the end of the fake interface with a fake human, because the interface is already artificial, already having removed voice intonation, body language, warmth, etc.
Instagram is primarily one-way consuming vs immediate two-way connections; completely different. Never used Tinder so no idea what that's like.
Having an immediate conversation _at any time_ with a friend/lover (who is completely devoted to you) is not something that was possible with previous tools if for no other reason than the human at the other end may not always be available.
The remaining.... people from my circle are not friends.
People who I spoke with generally share similar concerns, of the friendships breaking down for no apparent reason, so I'd rather reject the alarmist tone from the article.
The correlation is not causation. For me, at least.
Like, objectively, how much overlap is there between a NEET who is addicted to waifus and dating sims in Persona and AI Friend or NSFW Apps?
My hunch is the overlap is significant, and at that point the problem is WHY you have those kinds of NEETs and how to resolve it, not the technology or medium itself.
Western Civil libertarian fundamentalists like much of HN would not appreciate the kinds of solutions East Asian societies like China and South Korea used (cracking down on games; limit hours spent gaming; and SEVERE social ostracism and disgust)
Edit: because subtext is apparently difficult
My point is, automatically jumping to "ban XYZ" does not solve the core problem that causes obsessive tendencies to manifest
[1]: https://deathtofascism.com/files/2021-THE_YEAR_IN_FASCIST&FA...
[2]: https://www.who.int/news/item/30-06-2025-social-connection-l...
And to be frank. Only fascists fraternize with fascists. It probably also contributes to the loneliness epidemic when no one will be their friend because of their racist/nationalist/sexist beliefs except other such degenerates (who aren't really their friends at all).
You aren't friends with fascists. Fascists have no friends, only temporary allies. NEVER TRUST A FASCIST: EVER.
Fascism is far far worse than loneliness for society. Fascism causes world wars. Loneliness doesn't cause that level of societal destruction. Fascism is evil.
The only way out is a strict restriction on the development of technology, especiall AI. Sadly, those who develop it and fund it grew up with it and it has become a comforting and crucial part of life so it is simply impossible to convince them that technology has a systemic (rather than merely social) downside. They convince themselves that we just need to learn how to use it, because a true systemic decrease in life quality via technology would imply that their entire world is wrong, and most people cannot handle that psychologically.
Did it work? My understanding is there's no shortage of the individuals mentioned.
>How much of this is moral panic?
100%, but just because it is a panic over morals does not mean it is real. When the religious right feared that same sex marriage and weed was going to get legalized and that children were going to listen to music which rejected all christian values, they were 100% right.
This is about value judgments. Do you value interacting with other people more than, your comfortable fake reality?
This is not evidence that that kind of a solution is necessary or even acceptable. I mean, the whole idea that there's some kind of "special East Asian wisdom" is itself pretty racist.
People have the right to be weirdos as long as they're not hurting anyone.
That's my point. The symptom (becoming obsessed with virtual relationships) shouldn't be the end goal of remediation. If someone is doing so due to issues in their life, then those need to be solved.
> the whole idea that there's some kind of "special East Asian wisdom" is itself pretty racist.
It's not a comment on "special East Asian wisdom". Social and legal norms in much of Asia is Communitarian and Legalistic in nature.
Technological advancement is in my opinion unrelated to the way current “social” technologies impact “social relations”. Things are not going well, I’d agree. But I can imagine one hundred beautiful features (or historical technological advances) that have improved social relations, trust and general well-being.
Current big tech is dystopian and extraction based, but that’s not the general trend of the last two centuries. In the late ‘90s, early ‘00s I was actually very optimistic about technology and the state of the world (poverty, global village, war, climate).
Antisocial tech has put us back a long way. But that’s not technology general, ‘just’ Google, Apple, Meta and the app-0-sphere being or doing evil by extracting attention in finite time via small machines. The big machines have brought us much. And even then both ways; for good and for bad.
2. Airline and rapid travel encourages people to move away from friends and family because they can be visited or reuinted on occasion more often.
3. Not sure how you were enthusiastic about the climate – it's been going steadily worse since the use of fossil fuel technology, which in addition makes it harder for people to engage in sustenance farming in many places due to unpredcitability. People have to rely more on industrial farming
4. Industrial farming and large-scale farming puts many family farms out of business, meaing less human dependence on individuals and more on technology.
5. YouTube, etc. brings more knowledge to the world but many tutorials mean people can be more independent and rely on individuals less for their knowledge.
6. Personal cars mean people do not have to rely on each other for a lot of manual labor like hauling stuff, and they now drive instead of walk to the grocery store, which means a lower likelihood of encountering others you know.
7. All communications technologies in general mean less in-person communication, or a greater ability to move away from communities. The internet means less going to the library, etc.
Enough HN for today.
Not as bad as it was 20 years ago - which most of the stereotypes continue to perpetuate.
Hours worked are roughly comparable between the Scandinavian 4 and Japan [3]
Israel and Korea are the new Japan
> economic stagnation
Not much more different from Sweden or Finland, or Denmark+Norway once you exclude high value but low employment industries like biopharma and oil respectively.
Japanese GDP growth rates, interest rates, TFR, and median incomes largely converge with Northern Europe (or more like, Northern Europe converged with Japan by the 2000s).
Edit: can't reply to OP
Household disposable income is roughly comparable between DK and JP [0]
GDP growth rate is roughly comparable between DK and JP [1]
The only difference between DK and JP is age [2], but Denmark's demographics align with Japan's from 10 years ago, and given that Denmark's economic metrics have already aligned with Japan, it's safe to say that what Japan is today is what Denmark will converge to within the next 5-10 years.
If Japan is collapsing, then so is the rest of Northern Europe. If Northern Europe is booming, then so is Japan.
[0] - https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/household-disposable...
[1] - https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?locat...
[2] - https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/median-age/coun...
[3] - https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/hours-worked.html?oe...
2 & 6 & 7. access to airlines (and travel in general) was a net positive for meeting new people. Suddenly people could meet and get to know far more people than the handful of folks in the town they grew up in. Travel is probably on the best ways to meet new people and gain relationships and being able to pack up and move to where your new friends/love interests are is a good thing while communication tech lets you keep in touch with people who are in different cities/states/countries and maintain those relationships
3 & 4. People have to depend more on others to do their farming for them, but if you're working the fields you can't be out meeting real people face to face either. You're much more likely to have a social encounter at a grocery store than a grain silo. the hours you aren't spending growing your own food means you have more time to be with the people you love
5. independence is good and learning new skills means going out to new places to practice them or for supplies and equipment where you can meet other people with similar interests. It's the parasocial aspect of youtube that's most harmful.
Debatable because social relationships also become more frivilous.
> 3 & 4. People have to depend more on others to do their farming for them, but if you're working the fields you can't be out meeting real people face to face either.
But at least you can develop closer relationships with fewer people. Again, it's a matter of what place on the spectrum is ideal.
> 5. independence is good and learning new skills means going out to new places to practice them or for supplies and equipment where you can meet other people with similar interests
Independence is good only up to a point. Too much independence is a natural consequence of advancing technology and becomes pathological.
Even if you are video chatting? I video chat with family and friends all the time to keep in touch over longer distances. I feel technology is helping there a lot.
That's the key also: a small subset of people who benefit in the short-term does not mean that the technology doesn't move things in a worse direction in the long term. After all, the introduction of new technologies like video chatting sometimes just solves problems created by older technologies, possibly leading to a situation of decreasing LOCAL maxima, each of which seems like it is an improvement because it is, after all, a local maximum.
Large scale farming releases hands for more specialization. Specialization leads to interdependence and (in my naïveté) peace. ‘We’ did get a very large part of the world out of poverty. That was part of my optimism. And I thought we would reach peak oil faster and go for sustainable faster (batteries are still the major future potential upside for me).
Perhaps in a ‘might have been’-scenario 9/11 and the end of the end of history (Fukuyama), plus the antisocial tech are the turning points. Haven’t thought that shift from techno optimism to political, social and cultural negativity (in me, but it seems a trend as well) through enough. The whole bitcoin shebang, the return of the 80s American Psycho capitalism and consumerism, the wars just rub me the wrong way. I might be turning hippie in my second half of life.
As a child of the 80s I’ve never felt technology reducing social interaction. But that might have been a temporal sweet spot. Massive amounts of screen time, massive amounts of outside time (friends, sports).