I've been reading about what really helped people who had problems with "AI Psychosis" and one tip jumped out at me:
Open a second window and tell it exactly the opposite of each thing you say.
This helps to expose the sycophancy and shatters the illusion of sincerity and humanity.
Thought it was worth sharing. And frankly, it's exactly such an exercise that made me disgusted with the tech. "It just says ANYTHING is wonderful and genius. I'm not special."
Another "tip" is less welcome to me as an introvert. Make time for the people in your life. Talk to them. Let them know when you *really* think they are doing something amazing or creative. (Or when it's not "genius" because you are real and care.) Listen. Be there.
The thing is, as much as doing this is scary and I want to avoid it it makes me feel better too in the long run I think.
Frankly, I'm kind of glad these GPTs were so sycophantic. A more critical voice might have been more appealing to me. A contrarian bot who always nitpicks and argues with you.
That's how facebook's old 2016 algorithm wasted so much of my time. I sucked in by the opportunity to dismantle someone who is wrong. Not the most ... healthy personal quality. I'm working on it always.
But why is it so fulfilling to have a good back and forth with someone? To disagree and pull the whole problem apart and ideally come out on top? (though it's also fun to discover you needed to learn something too, it's just less fun and rewarding)
It's fulfilling because they care about what you are saying enough to criticize it. The difference between the art teacher who says "that's a very nice drawing" and "I can see that you are trying to do X but it's failing/working in these ways."
I'm trying to cultivate that perspective. But I do really love to be right. Probably too much.
@futurebird I just asked Claude what it thinks about our half-project report:
> Please play the role of an evaluator in the Innosuisse grant system. Write what you think when reading the report: are you convinced the project is on a good track? Do you agree that the project should be continued? What are dark spots where you think you would need more information in order to decide on a go/no-go?
It's answer was very direct and very critical :) But really useful.
Yeah, but asking it to change breaks the veil that makes "AI psychosis" dangerous to some degree.
The issue is that people get the feeling there is a thinking being in the machine and allow it to satisfy critical emotional needs for human connection that we all have. The program takes up space and time that could go to real people in their lives.
It's emotional empty calories. Food without real sustenance and if that dominates your diet you will get sick.
"I don't need to eat anything. I just looked at this photo of a meal and now I feel full. It was delicious. I didn't even need to cook or go out to get it. So expedient."
And then slowly they starve.
This can be very dangerous for people who think "I don't really ever need to talk to anyone about my feelings."
This isn't true, it's just their needs are minimal.
"Feeling down."
"ya"
That's two letters but getting such a response can make you feel so much better. It represents someone, should things get worse, who might come over and help you.
A chatbot can say "ya" too. But, it doesn't make you feel better... **unless** you think it's a person. That's the danger.
@futurebird Let's hope that people still will want to see other people :)
<sarcasm>Or, less nice: natural selection will take care of that?</sarcasm>
The thing is, in that group there will be an outsize proportion of the most vulnerable, the most marginalized, the youngest, those with fewest resources. (At a time when resources are being further stripped from thousands upon thousands.)
AI Psychosis will not be a righteous judgment on the perpetrators; it will be another perpetration.
@futurebird That reminds me of a situation I had a couple of months ago. I have a childhood friend, who was my best friend for a long long time, but we kind of drifted apart after he moved cities. Nevertheless we at least congratulate each other on birthdays and write back and forth to talk about our lifes a bit.
The last time I wrote to him we exchanged our personal problems and feelings. I offered him that he can always write to me if he needs someone to talk to, but he dismissed it by saying that it's fine and that he has an AI which he uses for that. I got to be honest: That kind of hurt me since I sincerely wanted to help with his emotional burden and I felt like I just got pushed aside.
Sorry, had to think about that and I felt like I needed to let that out.
we’ve been sold that lie by the same kind of predators selling AI.
That would hurt my feelings so much. And it's very likely I think he might not realize how hurtful it is or why.
"I don't want to bother you with my little stuff." That is how he could see it.
@futurebird Exactly. I'm pretty sure that is the reason. The thing is I don't care about how small his problems would have been. I would have listened regardless. That's what a good friend does.
Fuck, now thinking about this whole situation just made me cry.
@futurebird @flamecat The work of being human is hard & takes so much vulnerability. And our society sees vulnerability & interdependence as weakness. It's no wonder chat bots have been wedged into the spaces where real relationships (with partners, friends, communities) once lived.
When will we understand that kindness & empathy is how civilizations not only survive but thrive?
Yes! Patriarchy/crapitalism tries to make vulnerability this bad, disdainful thing, when it's really a normal and important part of being human.
In fact: "it's the birthplace of of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity." -B Brown..
I also wrote some words about vulnerability here if anyone is interested https://culturalptsd.org/vulnerability-as-a-keystone-quality/
Please follow up, and don't let it drop; AI is a poor substitute for real friendship.
I had a best friend like that who lived next door as we grew up. We shared interests and started college and careers together. Then we each moved to different states. He started having severe episodes of pain. A few months after I last visited him and his wife and kids, he killed himself.
@futurebird OK, I can agree with that. We do need more human interactions. At least I see my kids going in that direction, which is nice!
What I like about the LLMs is the possibility to give higher quality documents for review, because the low hanging fruits are already culled. But we should definitely profit from all the free time we get!
Who said in the 60s that we'll only be working like 2 days a week?
Very interesting …
You can quickly tell how dumbass your preferred AI slop provider is but asking it to write a 5000 word essay in support of your thesis. And then do the same for the antithesis. Two mutually exclusive, well-formed and seemingly well-reasoned arguments.
"Sycophancy creeps me out."
It's very creepy. The only people who have talked to me with that much positivity and agreeableness *ever* in my life were the worst sort of men who wanted to sleep with me in my 20s. I have a deep visceral negative reaction to that kind of consistent flattery.
It makes my skin crawl.
There’s an old Andre Previn joke where a comedian is playing the piano badly in his orchestra. He accuses the comedian of playing all the wrong notes. The comedian replies. That he is playing all the right notes. But in the wrong order.
That sums up AI for me. We have no way of knowing whether it has organised the facts into the right order.
@mauvedeity @Flisty @futurebird
Yup. And still one of the top five TV funniest moments. Previn was remarkable.
The easily picked apart rage bait kept me there for far too long.
Yup. I don't like to admit how well that worked on me.
Show me someone causally but confidently wrong with pretensions being an intellectual and I'm so excited to get in the ring and start proving them wrong.
Facebook could find such posts extremely efficiently. These were posts from real people I didn't know (who weren't even talking to me.) They would be served up on my dashboard because I'd type a response.
Now it might not even be a person.
There was a point many years ago, probably about the same time, where I started really getting sick of all the stupid misinformation people were spreading on Facebook, so I started "truth trolling".
Facebook algo: "oh, you like misinformation and conspiracies? Well here you go!" Anyway, suffice to say that my debunking efforts were not widely appreciated. That's when I gave up and largely ditched the platform. But, yeah, it sure was effective at keeping me engaged.
@futurebird Fuck... Thinking about it, I would hate a contrarian bot but I *might* become addicted to it. Or at least caught up in it sometimes. That's what Twitter was, right?
I'm pretty hedonistic. Sycophancy is just overdue recognition for me, but it's *cheap* for a bot to be a sycophant. It's just words, which are free. I can do that myself in my head. If a pretty girl were telling me I'm lovely, at least she's using time she could otherwise be streaming on Twitch and earning money! Value!
@futurebird "A contrarian bot who always nitpicks and argues with you. "
See? This is part of the whole problem!
You should be using us humans for this. As a developer AND a contrarian I get a double strike.
Next thing you know people will turn to bots to get their mansplaining.
@futurebird Yeah, why spend what little social reserves we have on fake interaction
We can strive for better interaction with the other humans and animals in our lives
We still need downtime to recharge. Intrusive fake digital interaction interferes with the recharge process
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