The only reasons I can think for OpenAI and Meta to make their always-on agents cute little cartoons are all nefarious in nature.

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duplessitous 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Really, none? Was Microsoft nefarious when they deployed Clippy? I feel like there is an incredibly obvious reason that is not nefarious at all: the average consumer likes cute things

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jpnc 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Was Microsoft nefarious when they deployed Clippy?

Yes. It was predictive programming for getting (paper)clipped by AI.

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layer8 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The average consumer doesn’t have a $100+ ChatGPT Pro subscription though.

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duplessitous 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Isn't that a vote for 'not nefarious' as they are not deploying it widely across their user base? Unclear on the point

	▲	layer8 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		My point is that your argument regarding the average customer doesn’t seem to apply. But neither do I believe in a nefarious motive.

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tavavex 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

People are already doing most of the work of anthropomorphising LLMs, so OpenAI is just capitalizing on that. Drawing a face on it will make people even more attached to the LLM, they will treat it even more like a person. If they ever get desperate for money they could change the cancel flow to have the cute character plead not to die, and play a cartoony animation of its death when the subscription is canceled. It would stop at least a few users.

	▲	galaxyLogic 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Good point. I've though about my own mental attitude when interacting with AI agents. When they do something good I feel like saying "Thank You". Does that make sense? I guess it does because it communicates to the model their output was correct. But it feels silly to say "thank You" to a machine. I guess I just have to get over it?

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vovavili 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I actually greatly appreciate that I can put something cute on my sister's PC that comes from a developer that won't bundle it with malware. Seems like they fail miserably at being evil.

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therealdrag0 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What’s nefarious about attracting users?

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guywithahat 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It could be to market more towards women, who they may have both independently determined aren't paying for AI as much. I don't have any data to go one way or another but I can imagine lots of reasons to make the agent cute that aren't nefarious