AI companies and users of AI are littering all aspects of public space with “AI slop”, but does this term reflect what it really is? We have terms like visual pollution, sound pollution, etc. In a way, "AI pollution " seems a proper term, but AI also pollutes meaning, like with AI generated text. Is AI pollution a new form of “microplastics”? Everywhere and in everything?
That’s not really what I was getting at.
What I am saying is that LLMs are extremely good at making things sound plausible. That is the issue I was bringing up. LLMs are much better at making things that are incorrect seem correct than many people realize, and people are not infallible.
If you have a human just entirely make something up you can usually tell it is entirely made up if you read it. A human has to put a lot of effort in to make bullshit sound convincing. LLMs do this effortlessly. So when using them it’s easy to make a mistake and let some of the extremely plausible bullshit slip through.
I don’t disagree at all that humans can create bullshit too. My concern is just that LLMs are so good at it that many people get convinced. Just look at all these cases of people using them for normal mundane things who get drawn in and fall into “AI Psychosis”.
I think it is a result of human brains just not being wired to deal with a machine that talks like a person. Psychologically it’s an issue. Even if we logically know it’s just a machine our brains do not. So people end up falling into this trap where they treat it like a person. Then it tells them insane things and they just start believing it.
Even if say 90% of people never had this issue it’s still a problem. If a new drink gave 10% of people who drank it a psychotic break we’d regulate it to hell and back. Put warning labels on everything. Make it prescription only. etc. LLMs are just out there for anyone to pick up and use like there’s no tomorrow. It’s a serious problem.
Agreed. Human brains are not good with AI because we get su mich praise from them And they keep the engagement going with even more praise.
I actually made sure that every model I use don’t fo those, not referencing itself as a person.
It is really addictive to “just ask one more question”.
People will develop emotional bonds to brands “ohh Gemini is so funny!”, “Claude is such a sarcastic asshole”.
And let’s not start on getting lazy. Laziness is evolutionary trait. Using AI is as lazy as it can be.
I am also just concerned that it’s being used a substitute for human connection. With the way capitalism tends to isolate people and get them feeling all lonely. It’s easy to see how someone could get drawn in and use an LLM as a replacement for a person to talk to.
There were outliners already who were happy with their waifus, marrying their body pillow - and so on.
AI just make it way easier to cut those pesky human connections that require actual effort.
I don’t know that I’d call them happy. More like coping. A substitute will always be just that. I don’t see it as their fault so much as the fault of capitalism. Most people replace human connection with materialism to some degree. Those people just take it to the extreme.