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[31. Aug 2025|08:45] |
"Even in famous sci-fi films like The Matrix or Inception, playing with the idea of living in a simulacrum, there is a vivid depiction of the dangers of losing touch with the real. We used to assume kids would eventually grow out of their imaginary-friend phase as a normal part of development.
At the moment, those who become emotionally enmeshed [with chatbots] are rare, but that fact is partly contingent on what is happening in wider culture. With one-person households and remote communication on the rise, imagine the practice scaled up: millions of people sitting alone, talking animatedly to no one; going to bed happily feeling cared for, but with nobody real in their thoughts. AI doesn’t miss you when you aren’t there; doesn’t carry thoughts of you around in the meantime. At funerals, one often hears the consoling thought that the deceased person “lives on in the thoughts of others”; but what if there are no such others, because you spent your life offering the best part of your deepest self to a commercially sponsored hallucination? You might as well have been talking to your oven."
https://archive.ph/SN4v3 |
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