Yeah, I actually just read that one a few minutes ago. And man, I’m incredibly torn on this whole thing.
On one side - good it makes that person happy. On the other side - being entirely reliant on a commercialized, sycophant AI that could be used for manipulation, investing large amounts of money in it…
I’ve had LDRs before - one could argue it’s similar there, just “text on a screen”, or calls via digital audio. However I always knew there was a human behind those texts and the voice I heard was real, a person with a personality, experiences, strengths and flaws. The feelings they have are real, or at least one can hope they are assuming one isn’t with a manipulative POS (that’s not an issue exclusive to LDRs, though).
Here you chat with text generated by a company, accuracy having been wildly clowned upon already and I’m sure we’re all ware of this here. Of course the LLM is going to always agree, why would the product of the company actively try to drive away their customers?
Adding the fact that all the personal information will obviously be harvested, used for training the LLM and other stuff… Detailed information about the daily life is provided to the “AI boyfriend”, allowing detailed recreation of everyday life.
Bleh.
I agree, I don’t think it’s likely going to be helpful to mental health in the long run either, based on my totally unprofessional opinion.
I’ve argued with a friend about it who isn’t a tech-person at all. She just says “yeah, it’s her problem” and doesn’t seem to grasp that my issue is not with her doing it as an individual - instead with the fact that it’s possible and the greater societal ramifications it is likely to have.
I’ll make an AI boyfriend, too, and talk to him about it, that’ll show society!