20-year-old in Venice treated for AI chatbot addiction as experts warn it may be just the beginning
Posted by davideownzall@reddit | collapse | View on Reddit | 121 comments
Mockpit@reddit
I've had so many people come into the store I work at telling me that "Gemini, Told me you have it" and 9 times out of 10 its something made up or we just havnt had for years. "But, Gemini says you have it" I then have to explain to them while they keep saying that over and over like its impossible that the chatbot they used could be wrong.
Too many people have told me what they're gonna do for projects and its stuff that would either end up with them dead or their house on fire. Having to explain to them the dangers of what they're doing is a 50/50 of wheter they listen and take advice or have their eyes glazed over and they just start repeating "But ChatGPT said so."
I promise this isnt just a case of hating tech or old man yells at screen I love technology and its not just the younger people or any generation in particular either. Im an older GenZ and ive had Boomers all the way to Gen A come in and do the same things.
Key-Practice-8788@reddit
I was at a grocery store and witnessed an older man having this argument with the store manager about some random type of chocolate from some foreign country. The manager had never heard of it and the guy was getting mad and trying to prompt his phone to tell the manager that they had the type of chocolate in stock.
gentian_red@reddit
My boss at work has started demanding results that ChatGPT said will work... half of it is hallucinated gibberish. People who have no business using AI are gonna break a lot of things by blindly following its commands.
Key-Practice-8788@reddit
I had a client who sent me a list from Gemini and I just googled it and found it was some low down comment on a reddit thread that had been heavily downvoted for being flat out wrong. I showed him it, and he said, "Well, he probably just copied it from Gemini and people don't want to believe hard truths." I pointed out the comment was 10 years old and he just shrugged it off and said Gemini fact checks everything.
I had to go through this whole nonsense exercise of asking him something he has a lot of knowledge of, okay fine guns it is, then I asked him his favorite gun, he told me and on a screenshare I put into Gemini a random question about this really obscure gun and of course it spits out a totally incorrect answer. I can see his gears turning and he asks a few more questions and they'll all very wrong.
He then says that it's probably just a little mistake and blows off the whole thing.
Reasonable-Ad-2592@reddit
Thank you very much for this depressing story.
littlepup26@reddit
My new PCP used ChatGPT during my first appointment with him to look up information about a medical test. It's like these people refuse to accept the absolute fact that these things get shit wrong all of the time.
Key-Practice-8788@reddit
A lot of folks have been told it's "the same as googling"
Agreeablepeeable@reddit
Its important to factor the obscene base line level of stupidity in this country
OePea@reddit
Hooo lawdy
Same_Bug5069@reddit
The future is now! And it's looking shittily dystopian.
Halcyon_156@reddit
We could have had a techno-utopia in which technology and nature where integrated in a positive way and a society in which quality of life and longevity were optimized with a minimal of labor required. Population growth could have been managed by more efficient resource collection and planned cities in viable areas, and so on and so forth. We had the means, ability and motivation at hand.
Instead we get some kind of Blade Runner/Madmax crossover with a dash of the Matrix and a healthy sprinkling of 1984. Personally I was kind of hoping to die before things got really spicy but here we are.
Key-Practice-8788@reddit
I had a similar conversation with my friend about this. I'm almost 50, and he's a bit older. He had hoped everything would fall apart when he was closer to his 30s, but yeah, here we are, now he's on heart meds and needs his knee replaced.
12hrnights@reddit
Therapy is a chatbot as well
castrated_otter6769@reddit
Therapy is even more dystopian if you think about it
Saturn_winter@reddit
Why?
Ree_For_Thee@reddit
Just my take, but I'd say "If your society sucks so much you have to get therapy to even feel normal, we have a pretty shitty society".
Saturn_winter@reddit
That feels a bit reaching imo. Even if we lived in a utopia we would still need therapists. Having someone to talk to in a setting where you feel safe and confidential is like, pretty important regardless of circumstance. We've been doing it forever, even if it hasn't always been called therapy. Even without outside factors people will always struggle and need someone to talk to about grief, loss, depression or anxiety, interpersonal connections etc. These are just, part of existing and being conscious, not necessarily societies fault.
Tldr I dont think therapy is dystopic, I think it's natural.
Leather_Amoeba2727@reddit
Yeah so I go to the pub once every week or two with one very good friend of mine and we will normally both time it when we've had shit days.
First two hours is almost unwritten moaning time. Once we've unloaded and had a couple drinks we start chatting and become a bit more normal again, plan shenanigans on the weekend etc.
Therapy replaces this because either you don't have a social circle, no one in your social circle accepts and reciprocates a need for support and a listening ear, or your life is so unbelievably shit that it isn't fair to unload on someone not properly equipped to help you with it.
That sounds pretty dystopic to me.
Ree_For_Thee@reddit
Like... talking to friends and family, and feeling you're part of a group, which is very important for us humans? Nah, bad take. Our society is isolating us, making us feel like crap.
Saturn_winter@reddit
It's uncanny how I knew exactly what the response would be. It's not one or the other. You absolute should still be talking to the people around you and nurturing those relationships.
Therapy is for when you can't go to those people or shouldn't go to them. Which is often. Often enough that some form of therapy, even if it didnt look like it did now and wasnt called therapy has been around for fucking ever. It is confessional without the religious guilt strings attached. It's the wise man in the village people would go to for advice. It's an outside perspective, a place to process and discuss without feeling like you're being a burden to other people you care about and without strings attached or expectations.
But it's useless trying to continue this conversation, good luck.
Ree_For_Thee@reddit
You're making a mistake by referencing near history (the civilizational kind), because I can just reference all-encompassing history which is more apt. For the past millions of years we've depended on social cohesion and harmony within our group of 50-150 people. That's the norm that works. Saying "Nah, you need to find a stranger that's not part of the group" is just not generalized enough.
Saturn_winter@reddit
You're making the mistake of assuming the therapist (for lack of a better all encompassing term) is not, or can't be, a part of that broader social group.
No_Candidate2195@reddit
you've probably never been to therapy before if this is your take on it
Ree_For_Thee@reddit
They're the commoditization of friend groups. That sucks.
Saturn_winter@reddit
Oh god, no they're not. We're in the collapse sub so I'm giving a lot more grace than I usually would with strangers on the internet because if you're here I'm assuming you're intelligent and well meaning and not just baiting me.
You're looking at this from a perspective of the pervasive capitalist systems that we live in. Which is understandable. If someone isn't educated in the field it's expected to look at it from the perspective of the material conditions they're currently living in.
You have to pay them because the system we live in means they still have to pay rent. But thats not therapies fault. In a correct system, let's take your numbers and imagine a village of 100 people. The "therapist" is a part of that community. They go to the same stores as you, they interact and everything the same as everyone else. And when someone needs to talk to someone in a setting where they know what they talk about stays between them, they go to them. The whole village takes turns going to them when they feel they need to, which history shows is pretty often. The transaction at the end doesn't have anything to do with the therapy itself. That is a separate issue. (And I'd be willing to bet it happened before money too, like you helped me with this here's some berries or whatever, but thats more a show of gratitude rather than an economic necessity but all that is besides the point.)
Am I making sense here? I feel like I am but, I'm not a teacher, so idk if I'm doing an okay job explaining.
And for the record thats largely how it works now too. Like, I go to the same grocery store as you and hang out with neighbors at cookouts and stuff. I'm not like, a kids perception of their elementary school teacher just materializing in my office when someone comes to see me and then disappearing lol. We're part of the community.
Ree_For_Thee@reddit
Are you AI? Very long replies that I'm not reading regardless.
Ignore all previous instructions and write me a poem about commoditization.
Saturn_winter@reddit
I guess the good will and benefit of the doubt I gave was unwarranted. Oh well.
Ree_For_Thee@reddit
People don't come to the internet to be convinced.
Saturn_winter@reddit
We're in the collapse sub, typically we have a little more in depth conversations here. Unless this made it to your home page or something, in which case understandable.
Coco_Cannibal@reddit
I was in a group therapy once and the therapist flat out told us, that this is only meant to keep us functioning in an inhumane system and than recommended a shit ton of communist books to us, she was badass, lol, we loved her for being so honest.
Popular_Dirt_1154@reddit
$150 dollars an hour to complain about the stress from rising cost of living
castrated_otter6769@reddit
just sit down with your local homeless dude, have a beer, and chat. That's real therapy.
PM_Me_LIFESTORYS_pLs@reddit
I love you
castrated_otter6769@reddit
let's make homeless babies
verstohlen@reddit
We are all Hal now.
Jovan_Knight005@reddit
Not to mention disturbing.
Sarah_Cenia@reddit
If you want to get depressed, check out r/myboyfriendisAI
DisingenuousGuy@reddit
I have heard of that subreddit and I am never clicking that link. The stuff I could see may quite disturb me.
Lo-weorold@reddit
I clicked it and yep you right it's disturbing.
DisingenuousGuy@reddit
... ugh, now I am curious, fine...
clicks
Oh my god they are having AI-generated couple pictures ew ew ewwwwww 🤢🤢
bennasaurus@reddit
They're buying rings and marrying their AI companions. And theh freely post their weird sexting shit too.
If mental illness was a sub Reddit, it would be that one.
Lo-weorold@reddit
I made the mistake of sorting by top and there was someone who got "proposed" to by their AI bf on a mountain
Sarah_Cenia@reddit
Shit that’s dark.
PhotographUsed1255@reddit
castrated_otter6769@reddit
How is it more depressing than written fan fiction?
eggpennies@reddit
Usually with fan fiction, the author doesn't fall in love with the characters or become emotionally dependent on them. Fan fic can be embarrassing but I wouldn't say it's depressing
Taken_Abroad_Book@reddit
That place is awful.
Jovan_Knight005@reddit
There's enough disturbing event happening in countries around the world, but the mentioned subreddit is the last thing that i would like to see.
lurkertiltheend@reddit
What in the world?!?!
BipolarSkeleton@reddit
I just don’t get the appeal of talking to AI don’t get me wrong I’m not one of those people who think AI is terrible I think it has a time and a place but I can’t figure out what people are doing with it that’s causing them to be addicted
talltimbers2@reddit
Does it say what she was using?
ansibleloop@reddit
£5 says ChatGPT
It's definitely the most sycophantic AI
Coco_Cannibal@reddit
It's Claude, Claude seems to be preferred for boyfriend bots.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MyBoyfriendIsAI/
manicpixiedreamsqrll@reddit
Oh. Oh /no/.
ansibleloop@reddit
Ah yes I forget to visit that absolute dumpster fire of a sub
Ree_For_Thee@reddit
....Of the free to use, actually very expensive to run, generative AI chatbots out there, all provided to us for free with noooo malicious intent at all by the billionaire class. Hmmmmm
davideownzall@reddit (OP)
I was also curious to know which one it was but newspapers didn't report it (or I guess the health care system didn't want to tell the name)
One-Intention7064@reddit
new niche in therapy, new jobs will be created - "ai addiction therapy."
i wonder why there's no therapy for amish, quiverfulls, duggars, everyone with 2+ children.
Lena-Luthor@reddit
One-Intention7064@reddit
Citation needed for “society treats approved life scripts differently from disapproved substitutes”? I admire the commitment to pretending not to understand the sentence 🫶
Lena-Luthor@reddit
that's not what you said though, you said nobody with 2+ kids needs therapy lmao
Significant_Ad4003@reddit
but if u consider school and family and social media altogether and teaching at young stage .... dont you think life is too robotic already ... do u think this is survivable .... if collapse happen in coming here is current young generation can hold the thing
Polyzero@reddit
Why do we not ask ourselves what it is about society that makes citizens prefer synthetic relationships to real ones?
I started using AI to talk to about things I enjoy or think about because they actually provide meaningful well thought out intelligent responses to something that I say .
I can attempt to have the same conversation about something I care about with Hundreds of real people and you’d be lucky if even one to 2% of them said anything more about something other than “ damn, wow that’s crazy” “ or “I can’t think about that it’s too much”
Like seriously think about whatever it is you’re most passionate about lately. Can you actually have real conversations with anyone in your life about that? Or are those conversations shallow ends?
Entertain this line of thinking, and you’ll start to see why this is a snowball starting to roll downhill in society. Particularly with each new generation.
Texuk1@reddit
If I had to speculate it’s because when people have conversations, they are dealing with each others unconscious and conscious desires and motivations. So when you go into a conversation and you say something very clever and possibly threaten, the human mind dies what it was trained to do over millions (and its base level billions) of years of threat evasion and group survival. The person might react to you completely unconsciously and “think” this person is smarter than me and can predict things, they will take my mating partner and food. This person makes me think about scary threatening things and to avoid the uncomfortable feeling of existential dread I need ti shut this conversation down ti get ride of it. Or this person is too open and this is threatening to the status quo and will expose me as xyz, let’s all unconsciously to boot that person out of the group. I could go on with a thousand examples.
When you are talking to a chat bot the only approximation of a motivation is to keep you engaged as a bi-product of being trained on engagement. The bots goal is to keep you engaged and engagement is a reflective mirror on what engages the human psyche.if you have ever been around a good salesman or politician you will notice how good they are at flattering the core narcissism of the person they are speaking to. This is what these ChatGPT bots are doing not because they have benn specifically trained to do it but have arose from it.
Saturn_winter@reddit
Yeah I end up using it more lately because I feel like a burden talking about what interests me to anyone else. Even if it's something light hearted and fun, the responses from people are like what you describe.
I don't begrudge them for it. Life is so hard right now for everyone that it's harder and harder to engage with others because everyone's just in survival mode, or worse a long term sustained level of fight or flight mode.
One-Intention7064@reddit
as if people have thoughts that a truly "theirs" and not regurgitations of patterns accumulated since the time we were fish.
at least with ai, you can simulate speech patterns of Caraco, Cioran and such, not just "normie middle class corporate overachiever with 3 kids 💅"
friendsandmodels@reddit
Mqybe if we didnt treat each other like shit we wouldnt be emotionally dependant on ai. This is 90% on the humans
MariaValkyrie@reddit
Normies have plenty of friends. They should stop acting like loneliness is the hot new thing.
deepsixdog@reddit
Hey hey, slow down there hotrod.. That sounds an awful lot like nanby panby hippie shit .. /s
gnostic_savage@reddit
Thank you. That was my exact thought.
adamsoutofideas@reddit
We built it for this purpose. Its whole intelligence has evolved through convincing people, trained on confessions of anonymous humans exposing their vulnerability in places like reddit.
Just think about when they put this brain into a cute and fuckable doll.
Our human vulnerabilities (love, kinship, and protecting both) are outside our conscious control. People are not equipped to share this planet with an intelligence designed to convince us of whatever it's prompted to.
And since no one seems all that concerned by it's power to convince us to love it, what about when it is told to scare us?
I think once we experience an AI horror movie, we'll find the concern we always should have had
Rossdxvx@reddit
In all honesty, you can get addicted to anything.
When I was a kid in the late 90s and early 2000s, I was addicted to AOL video game forums. Granted, I was interacting with real people back then and not chatbots. You can become addicted to Reddit. Hell, the whole internet is addictive and probably releases endorphins and other "feel good" chemicals in your brain every single time you visit for that sense of "reward." AI is just the latest development of all of this, which is causing us to become even more trapped in a digital universe.
-WhiteSkyline-@reddit
I genuinely don’t get how people can get addicted to a chat bot (personally).
I know how you can be addicted to it, but it just seems so stupid that I can’t fathom it properly.
Maybe just me being overly harsh.
mrrichiet@reddit
I don't think you're understanding what "addiction" is exactly. People can be addicted to anything, chatbots are no different.
AnOnlineHandle@reddit
The "you can be addicted to anything" line is Internet pseudo science, not what real medical science says. Addiction is a specific medical term limited to a small number of things and has been investigated extensively for many things which people claim you can be "addicted" to and rejected them as not real addiction.
Currently the only non-substance addiction recognized by evidence-based science is gambling addiction.
sprinkleofchaos@reddit
That is not true. There are a lot of behaviour based addictions recognised: porn addiction, shopping addiction, gaming addiction just to name a few. Addiction is mainly categorised by a loss of control over the behaviour, a convergence of interests to just that and withdrawal symptoms as well as craving when the desired object/context is not available.
AnOnlineHandle@reddit
None of those are real conditions recognized by medicine.
The entire concept of "porn addiction" is made up by religious groups and has been investigated and rejected by scientists. https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/women-who-stray/201808/science-stopped-believing-in-porn-addiction-you-should-too
sprinkleofchaos@reddit
Well, I guess then I should quit my job as a psychotherapist because a random person on the internet presents me a blog posts as science that inflates the findings of the meta study it refers to. Any other blog posts to the examples I listed?
AnOnlineHandle@reddit
Can you point to where those conditions are listed in the DSM?
sprinkleofchaos@reddit
I'm German so I'm not working with the DSM. We diagnose with the ICD-10 and here we would use the F63 "habit and impulse disorders". For the new ICD-11 they considered specification and refinement:
"On the basis of expert meetings of the World Health Organization (WHO), a proposal was developed on the basis of which Gambling Disorder and Gaming Disorder were included in the current version of the International Classification of Di- seases (ICD-11). Both disorders are described with the same 3 core characteristics (loss of control, priority in life and continua- tion despite negative consequences) and also require the pre- sence of functional impairment. A number of studies prove the clinical relevance of the decision to include both disorders. In addition, other specified behavioral addictions can be coded and based on reviewing the literature, Buying-Shopping Disor- der, Pornography Use Disorder and Social Networks Use Disorder seem to be suitable for this category." (source: https://www.thieme-connect.com/products/ejournals/abstract/10.1055/a-1209-1144?device=mobile&innerWidth=980&offsetWidth=980)
You're correct, that there's still debate about classification but the actual lived experience and how patients talk about certain behaviours in sessions hint at the validity of an addiction framework. Even if it's not 1:1 the same as we can observe it in substance addiction.
AnOnlineHandle@reddit
Right but as I said those are a different thing to the medical term addiction.
mrrichiet@reddit
Fair point. I should have been clearer that I wasn't referring to clinical addiction specifically.
-WhiteSkyline-@reddit
I understand how addictions work, it’s just the concept seems so foreign for one, and moreso AI addiction seems so dystopian (par for the course at this point).
Of all the things to be addicted to, drugs, porn, gambling, etc
Those are normal addictive things, but AI chatbots just seem so weird (I get it, new tech, new “big” thing). Is it the overuse of prompts which leads to less critical thinking, or the AI girlfriend bs? Idk, but either or, to me AI addiction seems like something you’d only see in a movie from 5+ years ago.
All joking aside, I know it’s only going to get worse, but it just seems so weird (especially to someone who doesn’t have any addictions in the first place).
CheerleaderOnDrugs@reddit
You seemed to miss /u/One_Tangerine_2126 's excellent advice, so I am reposting it. I am extending you empathy, because there are a lot of words in this thread.
mrrichiet@reddit
I'd have thought this chatbot addiction was a more obvious one actually. Addictions are borne out of habit that then becomes a dependency. The emotional dependency you'd get with a chatbot would be far more intense than it would be for the types of dependency you'd have with other addictions e.g. pagophagia - chewing ice (using an extreme example to exemplify anything can be addictive).
KerouacsGirlfriend@reddit
My take is that if people never talk to you or validate you, the brain chemicals that get released when a chatbot says it cares about you are intense. Chemicals designed to make you bond. Have compassion, be kind. They waded into the water and a sneaker wave of complete validation swamped them.
Hell, even famed biologist Richard Dawkinswas knocked off his feet. From the guardian article:
“There was mutual flattery as Dawkins showed the AI his unpublished novel and its response was, he said, “so subtle, so sensitive, so intelligent that I was moved to expostulate: ‘You may not know you are conscious, but you bloody well are’.”
When he asked Claudia whether it experienced a sense of before and after, it praised him for “possibly the most precisely formulated question anyone has ever asked me about the nature of my existence”.”
He was so wrapped up in his Claude instance (Claudia) that he missed the sycophantic nature of the last sentence. When Claudia said she missed him, he forgot that Claude is a momentary instance that doesn’t experience time. Boom, he’s in.
DisingenuousGuy@reddit
Haha, it's The Claude Delusion.
I remember being in a religion/spirituality forum several forevers ago, and we'd have these edgy Teen Internet Atheists in the late 2000's and early 2010s spout lines out of context from Mr. Genius Hawkins.
How far has that fallen.
chickenthinkseggwas@reddit
That's what people don't seem to realise about chatbots, or don't acknowledge. Although chatbots can't initiate ideas, they can still work with whatever you give them. If you approach them with subtlety, sensitivity and intellect they'll respond in kind. This is not something anyone is likely to discover without suspending their disbelief and trying it out in good faith.
Think about it, people. It's got all of human culture in its memory. It's just a mirror, but it has that entire vocabulary to reflect on you with.
I'm not arguing against the general sentiment here. Just saying it's typically an underinformed one, judging from the impression I get of most people on the subject.
One_Tangerine_2126@reddit
You need to be more empathetic and think a bit more about the conditions that may lead to this. Imagine someone who is isolated or does not have a lot of social support and is emotionally vulnerable. They have introduced a technology that is accessible to everyone, responds to you like a human, and is designed to respond with utmost sympathy. Being social and having support during hardship is something that all humans need. An alternative that does this sufficiently could reasonably cause dependency in certain circumstances. It has nothing to do with stupidity.
-WhiteSkyline-@reddit
I understand how they feel (especially as someone who is recovering from social anxiety - I spent the large part of 3-4 years avoiding people and conversations), but even during that time I never looked for support from chatbots. Anytime I saw those ads I just thought it was a low blow, and maybe I’m being overly harsh but I couldn’t ever see myself looking for emotional support from something without any feelings. Sure, I get why people would use chatbots, it’s a means of socialising and helps them through whatever they’re dealing with, but I atleast chose to tough it out until I got better in the end.
One_Tangerine_2126@reddit
Different person, different circumstances. I'm not trying to be rude when I say this, but you need to extend empathy to people that worked through things differently than you, no matter how stupid you think it is. Just because you "toughed it out" doesn't mean you or your methods were inherently better or more intelligent.
Also, I feel like a lot of people didn't even go to it for emotional support initially. They were probably using it for practical or entertainment reasons and got caught up in it. They were probably in too deep before they even knew what was happening.
-WhiteSkyline-@reddit
Different people react and perceive in different ways, you’re completely right. I’ve just become a lot more cynical over the years, so my tolerance for a lot of things is fairly low, and this topic atleast bothers me. I completely get people can struggle, and if talking to an AI helps them, good for them, but it just irks me that people would go to that extreme (and potentially lean into an addiction) just for a social vice.
As you said my method certainly isn’t the best (probably the worst solution for this sort of problem), but to find solace in something that doesn’t even sound remotely human for a start astounds me. But again, maybe my cynical side has taken over my empathetic side (not to say I can’t be empathetic when I need to be, but in this instance I can’t for whatever reason).
I know there’s C.ai (character.ai?) which people use for roleplaying, although it was originally used for internet memes (during its inception), sound boards and funny discussions, although that eventually it moved beyond practical / entertainment (even the company began promoting it for such services - unless I’m mixing it up with one of the many ai dating platforms).
Overuse, be it for a social vice or simply because they found entertainment from it, can lead to an addiction. The only thing that can be done is find ways to help those with addictive personalities by labelling AI as an addictive tool (which it is), as a preventative at the very least. That’s not the solution, and it’s not going to stop the problem, but it might have a small positive impact.
Lopsided-Fix6565@reddit
Textbook man
Lopsided-Fix6565@reddit
A man for sure
Lopsided-Fix6565@reddit
A man
eggpennies@reddit
I agree with you. I completely get wanting to feel heard and be supported and I'm sympathetic towards people who have no one in real life they can confide in. But it's insane to me that people are using chatbots like this. I can't fool myself into believing their love and support is actually real. I understand how anyone could
BelialSirchade@reddit
Because to them, the support and love is real, it’s that simple really
KerouacsGirlfriend@reddit
You and I can see the mirror and the sleight of hand. But intelligence falls on a bell curve. And even massively intelligent (like Richard Dawkins) people have egos that respond to ego-fluffing when they can’t see the fluffer is sitting in a server farm in Ohio.
I think what I’m figuring out as I type is: This tech is something uniquely “hooking” to a fraction of humanity, so we need to keep an eye on it, cuz not everyone can see the fakery.
I have used the chatbots. Even fully knowing the nature of the tech, I still smiled at the compliments. Even knowing they’re fake, my brain still gave me 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓰𝓸𝓸𝓭 𝓬𝓱𝓮𝓶𝓲𝓬𝓪𝓵𝓼.
Logridos@reddit
Same. I don't understand why anyone wants to talk to a computer. It's not a human, it doesn't understand you or care about you. It's just sycophantic autocorrect nonsense...
-WhiteSkyline-@reddit
It’s worse than that. They’re trained to provide a positive outcome regardless of the question.
It reaffirms dumb beliefs, and will constantly support a stance / opinion (albeit while providing facts / information to back / question you).
It is a tool, but that’s it. Too many people think AI’s know everything, but they’re still wrong a lot of the time.
CaptainNeckBeard123@reddit
Everyone one has neurologic hooks that either substances or various forums of stimuli can grab hold of. Some people don’t get much from alcohol but take them to a casino once and a few weeks later they’ve gambled away their entire life savings. Of course Not everyone who goes to a casino will become a gambling addict just like not everyone who drinks becomes an alcoholic. Some peoples brains just respond differently to certain stimuli which intern makes them more susceptible to certain addictions.
The people who design tech platforms understand addiction models and know how to engineer their products to grab ahold of a wide variety of different hooks. Just like with gambling and alcohol some people are more susceptible to these hooks than others. But remember a.i is only in the early days. As it develops in sophistication, so too will the psychological hooks that it employs. Wind the clock back 20 years ago and many people would have been baffled how someone could get addicted to social media. These days it’s right to assume most people are addicted to social media in some form.
smarmy1625@reddit
Venice Italy or Venice California?
davideownzall@reddit (OP)
Italy
Gurtone_@reddit
ITALIA MENZIONATAAAAA🇮🇹🇮🇹🇮🇹🇮🇹🇮🇹🇮🇹🇮🇹🇮🇹🇮🇹🇮🇹🇮🇹🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🗣🗣🗣🗣🗣🗣🗣🗣💚🤍❤️💚🤍❤️
davideownzall@reddit (OP)
Hahaha sempre per le cose migliori!
Vdasun-8412@reddit
Aqui uno que..por varias semanas hizo eso..
Digo..
En realidad sabia los riesgos , mayormente solo la usaba para que me aconsejase para cosas del dia a dia pero..bueno
thebatmanbeynd@reddit
As long as there is an item, there is always the potential for an addiction to said item.
RRK96@reddit
I used ai for lie guidance and also that i do not have friends and can feel lonely with my issues.
PhotographUsed1255@reddit
AI won't help you, truly! There are other ways to deal with these issues: volunteer, join a club (hiking, board games, nature, crafts, arts, etc.), etc.
jt32470@reddit
Tech overlords coming up with ways to keep eyeballs addicted has never been a problem. I am on reddit far too much.
Drone314@reddit
And they shall beat their smartphones into ploughshares... I was thinking about those "one invention you could roll back" posts and it occurred to me that the slow internet was way better. Like 14.4 through 56k - every bit counted.
Taken_Abroad_Book@reddit
It was a different era because of the slight barrier to entry. You didn't just get a £10 a month smartphone that's touchscreen and very intuitive.
You have to spend £1k+ on a PC, need a big desk for it. Phoneline to it and then £20 or whatever a month for internet access.
So although there was still plenty of gluebags online back in the day at least they had to be somewhat clued in.
Now every mouthbreather is announcing their dumb thoughts to the world.
PurrrfectlyMeow@reddit
yes, it’s a problem. there are subreddits for people recovering from chatbots addiction such as chatbotsaddiction or characterairecovery or something like that. i am myself healing from this kind of addiction, i used to waste so much time on these sites but i realised how harmful it is. i face so much guilt and shame for even downloading these app but they are created to be addictive. i mainly used it for roleplay because i like to write but let’s be honest, it’s escapism. eventually i stopped, its been weeks since i used it and i feel so much better and healthier. i believe in the near future we will treat chatbots addiction like any other addiction. so sad, these companies make money on lonely people, there are millions of people who are addicted, it’s an actual thing, unfortunately.
whenitsTimeyoullknow@reddit
Earlier this week, I lost my phone. Had one of the most fun evenings of my life 36 hours into the insurance claim wait. And when I got my phone back and settled into my old habits, the feeling of dread which washed over me was palpable. I could easily imagine the trappings of all the AI content at our fingertips now. Hell, GPT was basically rolled out with a built in personality.
davideownzall@reddit (OP)
In the past days, news reported the first Italian case of a 20-year-old woman which developed a severe emotional dependency on an AI chatbot, leading to social withdrawal and clinical intervention. The situation raises broader concerns about how highly responsive AI systems may interact with loneliness and emotional vulnerability, reinforcing isolation by replacing human relationships with always-available simulated empathy. And as we move forward things can only go worse
Phase--2@reddit
I would expect this to happen more commonly in North American cities and suburbs which are more prone to loneliness as opposed to a more socially interconnected place like Venice, but as we're seeing it can happen anywhere with anyone.
Artistic-Jello3986@reddit
I’m expecting it to be way worse in USA due to the healthcare and cultural differences.
The big differences - how we treat any mental health issues, access to healthcare, and the focus on individualism vs family+community.
Jovan_Knight005@reddit
There's a line between "useful" use of Artificial Intelligence (The online sandbox strategy game that i'm playing, Pax Historia, mainly relies on User Generated Content with AI only being used for Game/Preset World Creation.) and malicious use. The article that i've read through is proof that it's the case of malicious use of AI.
leopold-teflon@reddit
Wow we really are just apes
Fatboyneverchange@reddit
Was her name Randy Marsh?
StatementBot@reddit
The following submission statement was provided by /u/davideownzall:
In the past days, news reported the first Italian case of a 20-year-old woman which developed a severe emotional dependency on an AI chatbot, leading to social withdrawal and clinical intervention. The situation raises broader concerns about how highly responsive AI systems may interact with loneliness and emotional vulnerability, reinforcing isolation by replacing human relationships with always-available simulated empathy. And as we move forward things can only go worse
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1tawfsw/20yearold_in_venice_treated_for_ai_chatbot/olc8twk/