@Tattie @cjust From my experience being around some (self-described but legit) highly empathic people, I think there's an element of wanting to believe. Instead of taking the "rational" step and attempting to interrogate the experience from a point of removal, they lean into it and that's when the feedback loops start to crank up.

There is something intensely seductive about how easy the interfaces make it look. Type in your prompt, and then watch as superficially awesome output scrolls up your screen. For a lot of people, that's as far as they get, because they don't really question the derivative nature of what they just saw, and how many sources were scraped only to be mangled in the sausage machine that is Grand Theft Autocorrect.

@michaelgemar @cjust @ianturton @Tattie You forgot the word "annoying" when describing the "podcast hosts"...

Anyway, the concept that an LLM thinks or it imitates human thinking mostly comes from marketing. For example, AI companies have decided to show LLM output in a chat-like interface because that increases adoption and trust, whether that's granted or not. There's a lot of literature on this, for example

Portraying Large Language Models as Machines, Tools, or Companions Affects What Mental Capacities Humans Attribute to Them
https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3706599.3719710

The effects of human-like social cues on social responses towards text-based conversational agents—a meta-analysis
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-025-05618-w

The benefits and dangers of anthropomorphic conversational agents
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2415898122

"When users cannot tell the difference between human interlocutors and AI systems, threats emerge of deception, manipulation, and disinformation at scale."

@michaelgemar @cjust @ianturton @Tattie I had never heard of this and it sounds like complete hell.

"This podcast could have been a 300 word article" turned on its head in the worst possible way

@Qybat @cjust @Tattie

I never really understood why I need to buy something just so I can throw away the old. I'm still using my 40+ year old desk lamp, it works just fine with a LED-bulb. I might have to change the button soon but at least it's an option, not like the new ones where if something breaks I have to throw the whole thing. For example the new LED desk lamp we bought 10 years ago has lost at least 50% of the brightness and there is no way of changing the LED.

@anne_twain @Tattie Absolutely agreed - and also why I think we engage in pareidolia (like seeing a "face" on the surface of Mars) - we naturally extend this sort of behavior to the virtual realm - tend to see (or want to see) intelligence where there is only the presentation of the "next most likely correct token."

Of course - since I am a science fiction and fantasy fan - I also love discussion of the "Uncanny Valley"

I'm certain that there's probably ample room for pulling concepts from this discussion into allegories for LLM pitfalls and shortcomings.