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Adam Haesler's avatar

These are some interesting findings, especially the "...emotional engagement with chatbots can heighten loneliness, reduce real-world social interactions, and lower overall wellbeing." This sounds so familiar. Where have I heard that before? The same was predicted about social media! Unfortunately, I would imagine AI accelerates the feedback loop driving these predictions.

For example:

Social media used for validation: create a post on social media hoping people like it>get likes and agreeable comments, but not as many as was expected>post more content that will optimize for more likes and agreeable comments>belief that the likes and agreeable comments equate to like or validation of who you are>repeat

AI companion used for validation: Prompt: Do you love me, SAIr?; SAIr's response: Of course I do (as a video likeness of your dream date blows you a kiss).

An interesting longitudinal study to look at would be the relationship people have with social media versus AI companions over the next five years. The one good thing about chasing validation on social media is that it requires effort to understand what others might like. As you pointed out with references, AI gives the immediate desired response, but leaves the user worse off.

Thus, I am going to say: the best AI companion is no companion at all! Friendship with real people is the best answer, no matter how complex. Granted, most of the Western world has gotten bad at social skills, and that is a problem worth solving. However, this cannot be done with the help of AI, as this would be considered insanity: "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results" - Narcotics Anonymous, since AI is a recombination of everything ever published online.

As a funny side note, often quotes like the one above defining insanity get attributed to famous people of the past. The irony, we made up this connection before AI was part of our daily lives. This quote is attributed to Mark Twain, Albert Einstein, and Ben Franklin. Supposedly, the quote is actually from Narcotics Anonymous (link below). No matter what the truth is, it makes me wonder how much factually incorrect information will exist in 5 years. Or will we have to redefine truth?

https://professorbuzzkill.com/2017/05/29/einstein-insanity-qnq/

Thank you for the great article, Nicole, and next time I will try to create some not-so-agreeable comments! LOL!

Have an amazing day!

P.S.: This whole comment is brought to you from the mind of a real human being, and no AI was used to create the ideas. Grammarly was used during editing for grammar.

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