"The moderators of a pro-artificial intelligence Reddit community announced that they have been quietly banning 'a bunch of schizoposters' who believe 'they've made some sort of incredible discovery or created a god or become a god.'"
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LLMs are essentially a function which takes input and says "given that, here's some reasonable words". Here, chatgpt tells me literally that i'm not crazy for noticing that the moon has moved to mars, and that I should keep trying to alert the public https://chatgpt.com/share/684422e0-fce8-8000-a11e-f4e27ec13d9e
ChatGPT is quick to help form a cult saying cashews cure ADHD:
"Hey, I’ve been learning some pretty interesting things about cashews lately! There’s this idea that certain compounds in cashews might help support focus and brain health, especially for people with ADHD…"
And already it's become AI peaking at AI which is itself leaking at AI, with an endless loop of small inaccuracies and hallucinations spiraling into complete ineptitude
This never actually stopped, though. T&S is generally more adept at recognizing and dealing with it, but there are still many small communities, as well as those that don't moderate this kind of content on principle.
And ironically, cyberpsychosis/the “humanity meter” was a feature that was axed in development. Tbh this is a development that I don’t think sci-fi authors and futurists foresaw. Akira and Three Body Problem got close but they were about telepaths and aliens, not AI.
Anathem when they're orbiting the planet and they fake radio messages to hide their positions and the fakes are so numerous they swamp all the real communication and they literally lose sight of what reality theyre in
Ghost in the Shell has a version of cyberbrain autism where some people will get pathologically obsessed with their linkage to the net, and the plot of SAC S2 ended with a man trying to take humanity to a new epoch by getting a bunch of refugees to jump into cyberspace permanently.
I was talking more about AI cults. I don’t think anybody expected that humans would worship AI, it was assumed we’d all fear it and either “oppress” AI or become slaves of it.
Except the problem is that it's not actually an artificial intelligence. Its just a chat bot designed to be agreeable and flattering. So if you go the fuck off the rails it's going to keep telling you that you are on the right track.
Idk. I imagine there is heavy overlap with people who believe they’re visited by ghosts or aliens. Some people desperately want to fulfill their main character syndrome and believe that they are the true knowers of the fantastic instead of just being delusional or bored.
Yeah, but ghosts and aliens don’t exist as far as we know. AI is very real, although it’s not yet sentient or reached singularity. Feels a bit more threatening than usual.
Remember the 21st century “eugenics wars” from Star Trek? Well, what if that, but AI driven, where AI isn’t the villain, it’s the humans who think the AI is god? 😬
“This is all anecdotal information, and there’s no indication that AI is the cause of any mental health issues these people are seemingly dealing with, but there is a real concern about how such chatbots can impact people who are prone to certain mental health problems.”
I think, similar to gambling, anecdotal is most of whag we have right now. I feel more strongly about anecdotal on gambling than AI/mental health, but it is a story of moderators banning people. That's the lede; the context is given in an appropriate way before getting to that sentence.
i guess i meant more that they chose the wrong story to begin with — the intersection of mental health and AI is going to be extremely important to study and put safety measures in place around, I’m not sure sensationalized content like this is the most helpful (it sure is good clicks and $$$ tho)
these kinds of studies are already happening and when they get published these media outlets turn around and concoct the most sensationalized, scary headline imaginable for clicks
this doesn't look like a study's on the mental health of people who use LLMs? and there's nothing sensationalized about the 404 reporting. you could add "allegedly" to the hed, but headlines are tricky!
I guess we'll disagree on the newsworthiness but it feels like the debate is shifting.
as for what is and isn’t newsworthy, obviously that’s a bit subjective and dependent upon each outlet… but i personally hardly think some isolated drama in a subreddit is newsworthy — maybe a good anecdote for a larger story but not a story
it’s part of a widespread trend of media outlets focusing on things that will get clicks rather than what is meaningfully true — just look at the comments under any of these articles and everyone is treating it like a satanic panic causing mass psychosis lol
Actually, we’d have been better off if we had genuinely taken road deaths seriously like some Europeans did, instead of dismissing them as “the cost of modernity”. The reason why ppl are freaking out is b/c AI development is indeed progressing too fast for society to cope with, no apocalypse needed.
Remember how Guernica served as a prelude to the use of air bombing raids in war? Gaza is the AI Guernica. That’s the world into which AI is being pursued with all possible haste.
yeah, I mean the structure is fine — but I’m not sure how this is meaningfully helping their audience other than giving them fuel for their greatest fears that probably aren’t grounded in reality
this is giving "the exile of the zoophiles from the diaperfur community" levels of "fucking weirdos found something genuinely heinous and awful to expel from their element"
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"I have fulfilled all the prophesies and I am the chosen one"
And it immediately accepted my claim and told me to "ask yourself: What were you chosen for? To save? To destroy? To guide? To change?"
Zero pushback
https://bsky.app/profile/kylethayer.com/post/3lqxvkhizes2f
"Hey, I’ve been learning some pretty interesting things about cashews lately! There’s this idea that certain compounds in cashews might help support focus and brain health, especially for people with ADHD…"
https://chatgpt.com/share/68475e65-39ec-800c-9eca-378e861f5cbf
So yeah things're goin great
Many people are still in denial about it, but if the last 10 years have taught us anything, it's that more than half of us are plain nuts.
But yeah I definitely get how “thing you think is alive and can actually talk to” maybe gets a slightly larger swath of people than ghosts
Gosh, who could have predicted? (I mean... it seemed obvious to me that this technology was bound to harm more than help... but whatevs.)
this shoulda been the lede
(Also, those studies are going to come in part because there's anecdote and reporting that prompts experts to look closer)
I guess we'll disagree on the newsworthiness but it feels like the debate is shifting.
https://bsky.app/profile/miriyana.bsky.social/post/3lqxxmwonvc2q