Millions turn to AI chatbots for spiritual guidance and confession
Millions turn to AI chatbots for spiritual guidance and confession
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/36040248
Confessing to a data mining company is such an absurd concept.
Chat GPT doesn't judge you like all your friends/family will.
People are desperate something to talk to that doesn't judge them.
Jesus forgives, you but our partners will never forget.
Well, at least this way they know for certain that something is listening to what they say. Most deities are awful when it comes to offering feedback.
For real, you should be confessing it to your preacher so they can use it to manipulate you.
30 million morons.
Well...
From an evolutionary standpoint, we're basically the same collection of mostly-hairless primates that, 20,000 years ago, hadn't yet figured out agriculture and were roaming the land in small groups of maybe 100 or so at most, living off it as best we could.
From that standpoint, I think that we've done pretty well with a brain that evolved to deal with a rather different environment and is having to navigate a terribly-confusing, rather different situation.
I mean, you see any other critters that have been outperforming us on improving their understanding of the world?
Well that for one, but also self destruction of their environment for living in roughly 150 years. Chapeau!
So yeah I think we were doing well at some point. Now we're here.
Also we need to redefine success.
Why? Is it somehow better to go to an actual church or pay someone to confide in?
People using technology to fill a need on the company's funds is not the worst thing in the world.
Is it somehow better to go to an actual church or pay someone to confide in?
Objectively yes.
A real person isn't a stochastic parrot yes-anding whatever stupid idea falls out of your head and is less likely to provide obsequious responses to questions asked.
A real person is less likely to compile what you say to them and mine data from it or turn it over to authorities without a warrant.
A real person also has the ability to actually understand what you're saying and provide an intelligent response rather than getting back a statistical block of words that are mathematically good words to use based on the underlying model.
Yes, touching grass and talking to someone with life experience and their own opinions is better than talking to an LLM that agrees and validates everything you say, doesn't hold you accountable, and siphons your data, all while you get more and more mentally ill (because people treat talking to an LLM like they're talking to a Cortana like AGI, but the limitations of machine learning make it literally fucking impossible).
This is sad on multiple levels. People are clearly hurting and willing to turn to LLMs trained on Reddit posts for help. I know there's still a stigma for some people around mental illness, and for too many help is not covered by their health insurance and unaffordable otherwise, but this "solution" feels more like another problem in the making.
It is. I've cautiously broached it with a lot of skeptical openness and the sycophancy is really going to harm people. It's like going to AITA or relationshipadvice — it's going to tell you that you are completely justified and should get a divorce, stand up to your boss, do the self-righteous thing, etc.
And that's great, sometimes those are the answers. But other times maybe loneliness will be worse than accepting the other person. Maybe you aren't being treated fairly at work but it beats being unemployed. Getting pumped up to storm in and demand satisfaction isn't always the best way to handle things and sometimes we need a little more self-awareness and encouragement to look within ourselves for change.
ChatGPT doesn't get any of that because Reddit never got any of that (certainly not enough). And when folks blow up their lives, it's not ChatGPT that will suffer.
That being said, if you just want a sympathetic ear to listen and you take it like Charlie from work, who has never had a relationship last longer than a case of PBR, telling you to divorce that removed — it can help people feel heard, help them voice and be aware of their feelings. In some cases it is better than nothing, but I think few people will approach it with the awareness to take the good and leave the bad.
And that doesn't even cover the privacy concerns. I wouldn't want to be in a situation to have my ChatGPT history to be subpoenaed.
The stigma around therapy is shifting to people not trusting therapists to be effective. It doesn't seem like people fault each other for having mental health struggles as much these days but people do not trust that a therapist will be of any help to them. When I talk with other people they say therapy was a waste of money/time even trying upwards of 10+ therapists.
The problem is therapy isn't a catch all for all your problems in life.
People have over generalized it. Therapy works best if it's applied like physical therapy... identify the problem and go through the exercises to deal with the problem...
but that requires a skilled therapist and patient... and often one/both parties are neither of those things. some therapists and clients develop codependency.
ultimately however, the work is done by the person. and a lot of people dont' want to do the work.
If you're hurting, it isn't necessarily because you're mentally ill. You could have empathy, for example.
Well, we already know that the religious are stupid
Technology just helps them to be stupid more efficiently
A whole bunch of Star Trek episodes all becoming true at once
Let me guess, the server on which the prompts are processed are located in the US, and the police has unlimited access to them?
yeah and they're built from crawling reddit and facebook
Well, that worries more for people using it for "therapy".
Religions using AI is an obvious move as religion has never been about a higher power, it's about power,control, and money.
Had religions been about actual real higher powers then all of them would have been smited to hell and back for their behaviours.
There isn't such a thing as a non evil religious organization
So AI is obvious for them. A system that can capture the less intelligent amongst us and make them members of the flock so that they get more money and power? Must be awesome
We're cooked
What is happening on this world ? Somebody wake me up please.
CANT WAKE UP
Rejoice because it gives you purpose - to go fix it.
the most frequent question from users is, "Is this actually God I am talking to?"
🤣🤣🤣
Oh boy, we should drive them out of our country, and give them a country of their own.
Oh wait...
We already did, and the name of that country is USA!
So Terry Davis was right... I guess. Who's going to put an AI into TempleOS to honor him?
So "God" is a LLM trained on all human text. Created in the image of man. And it helps you analyse bible texts, in stead of going through a pastor, not very Catholic is it?
“My time is yours…”
George Lucas was right.
perusing comments to see if anyone would mention thx.
Repost:
"God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?"
Honestly, expected. The Western painfully empty God-hole needs to be filled and hedonism and consumerism can only go so far. 🤷
I don't know if I agree with the notion of a god-hole.
There are different philosohcal approaches to making sense of it all and finding extistential meaning.
One my favourite quotes from Alan Watts (from the 50s no less):
"It's like you took a bottle of ink and you threw it at a wall. Smash! And all that ink spread. And in the middle, it's dense, isn't it? And as it gets out on the edge, the little droplets get finer and finer and make more complicated patterns, see?
So in the same way, there was a big bang at the beginning of things and it spread. And you and I, sitting here in this room, as complicated human beings, are way, way out on the fringe of that bang. We are the complicated little patterns on the end of it. Very interesting. But so we define ourselves as being only that. If you think that you are only inside your skin, you define yourself as one very complicated little curlique, way out on the edge of that explosion. Way out in space, and way out in time.
Billions of years ago, you were a big bang, but now you're a complicated human being. And then we cut ourselves off, and don't feel that we're still the big bang. But you are. You are the big bang, the original force of the universe, coming on as whoever you are."
The gist of it is there is no god and yet paradoxically god is literally everything. How can there even be a "god-hole" with such an approach?
I am not saying this (or any other approach) is the right way for a given individual. Just pointing out an existential view that works for me.
My argument is that we have all these information technologies and we don't really know what to do with them. As things stands they merely enable a group of oligarchs, authoritarians, professional demagogues, fraudulent hustlers.
And deep down no one wants to be in such a position and no amount of money or technological distractions can account for that.
the vast majority of people need something to believe in. very few people can live with the detachment of skeptical approaches to life. if they don't have a god or a religion they will substitute something else for that role. politics or sports are two big ones.
even the tech gods themselves, are mostly driven by egotistical belief sets where they tend to ignore any information that doesn't cohere and reinforce their beliefs.
Lots of people are painfully empty, theists or not. It's part of the human condition. Some of us are just more honest about it than others.
Trying to stuff "god" into that hole isn't a solution. It's denial.
"Millenia ago, people used to tell the future from the entrails of dead animals. Later, it was tea leaves. If you ask me, humanity has made a lot of progress for very little gain." - Jarvik, The Harvest of Kairos.
bruce almighty (2003)
Bless me Father Chat GPT for I have sinned.
We killed God once, and we can do it again.
Oh good. A population empowered by the ultimate “yes and” affirmation machine to believe all their opinions are perfect and they don’t need to compromise with each other.
From a local community of a few thousand to isolated online community of a few hundred to a private discord server of a few to just you and AI.
Strangely enough this is the exact same path addiction leads to.
I am beginning to think it was a bad idea to prioritize engagement and retention over safety.