For some reason this is even sadder to me than that guy that married his Nintendo DS.

autoexec 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

At least in that case the software he fell in love with was offline and wasn't sending every conversation no matter how mundane or intimate to someone else's servers where they'll be stored and analyzed to profile the guy so that the company can manipulate him more effectively in the future the way "AI" partners will today.

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dieselgate 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

In other news today "The terrifying rise of schoolboys making AI girlfriends" with comments mentioning "this is actually a huge issue with girls too"

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ravenstine 2 hours ago | parent [-]

This subject is a near perfect example of "man bites dog" news. Is there a nugget of truth to it? Of course. My experience so far doesn't tell me that this is such an epidemic that it's anywhere approaching an existential threat to anyone other than a minority of individuals. The kids (and adults) having infatuations with LLMs probably were liable to not reproduce at replacement rate in the modern environment anyway. The fact that it involves kids terrifies everyone, making it an even more compelling story. The ability to measure it is so bad that it's almost not worth considering, because so much of it is based on survey data and lots of people are liars and post hoc rationalizers.

What I find interesting about your response here (and perhaps you could elaborate more) is that it does seem plausible that AI boyfriends would be a huge issue with girls. If anything, it might actually be worse for women, if not now then in the long term. Women love reading about things that invoke certain emotions (the market for literature targeting women dwarfs that for men) and playing games like The Sims which lets them vicariously experience social situations between imagined archetypes in a way that gives them ultimate control. LLMs could fit both of those niches beautifully. It's not that there aren't plenty of men and boys that are compelled by reading and talking to someone/something feminine, but many of a man's needs are already pacified by porn, which we don't even need AI to produce if we're being honest.

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xp84 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

> The kids (and adults) having infatuations with LLMs probably were liable to not reproduce at replacement rate in the modern environment anyway

I agree with you on this! However, it's deeply concerning[1] if this young population is accelerating this trend of what I'd call psychological degeneration.

If we take the cohort who's under 25 now, consider that within about 15 years of today, almost no women older than this cohort is even capable of reproducing[2]. So if a significant number of today's kids and teens and college-aged kids decide they'd rather opt out of human companionship, birth rates will plunge even more catastrophically than the current projections have them, with even more devastating effects due to the very bad ratio of retirees to workers. So this kind of thing actually does strike me as very concerning.

[1] I know there are many nihilists out there who think humans are a cancer, and that the best thing that could happen (morally? To nature? Opinions vary.) is for human population to be reduced by 90%+, if not exterminated. I am just not one of those people though, so I want to see humanity live and thrive.

[2] sure, it's not unheard of at 40+ but it's risky and often expensive, so we really shouldn't count on a sudden surge of very old first-time-moms to materially change the math here. Also culturally, looking at 25-year-old people on social media none of them say they're waiting for 40 to have kids, they say they don't want them.

	▲	lotsofpulp 17 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		>with even more devastating effects due to the very bad ratio of retirees to workers. But with great effects on reducing carbon emissions and other waste products in the environment.

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dieselgate 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You're reading into it too much; it's another news headline I saw today and an excerpt from a comment I read. It's related to the posted article and the parent comment.

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nisegami 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Consider there's a strong selection bias at play in your experiences. The ones most at risk of falling into a trap like this are the ones who are likely least visible to others. Also yes, I think it will be worse for women but I'm not 100% certain.

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smallmancontrov 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Back when the character.ai homepage ranked by popularity, the most popular models were reliably "bad boys" of various description -- Vampire Boyfriend and such. I'm guessing it wasn't the gents who pushed them to the top of the list.

Whether or not the usage is problematic is a separate question. I don't think anything rises to the level of "sharing fake nudes of a real person" and I suspect the effort of having a conversation is a natural limiter, but now I'm the one speculating.

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xp84 an hour ago | parent [-]

> "fake nudes of a real person"

sigh. I really hope someday people can achieve sufficient emotional strength to realize that it can't take anything away from you that someone can take a photograph of your face and create arbitrary fictional imagery from it.

It's been possible since realistic painting was mastered, and yes now it's far easier. But it still isn't real. People shouldn't let it affect them any more than fictional text. I can write "<insert moviestar> does <insert shocking sex act> on <insert shocking other person>" and it doesn't mean they did the act or that anyone should even care about that stupid sentence. It's make-believe.

	▲	pixl97 an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It would be nice if humans worked that way, but we're not emotionless machines. Now in the case they keep it private, you'll never know and never be bothered by it, but the issue is people tend to share this stuff and build on it. Other people read it and start assuming it's real or based on some kind of truth. When you add things like Americas fear of nudity you can start creating problems for the victims in these cases.
	▲	toasterlovin 24 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
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