The article is worth a read. Gonna put some quotes here
You have the option to have your journal analysed by “Minds comments”. (…) Or you can ask it to create a “voice” based on a person you admire.
I try a more unhinged mind: Donald Trump. Strangely, the app latches on to a passage concerning a visit to my hairdresser, who has been doing my hair for more than 30 years. “This reflects a strong sense of loyalty and consistency, much like Trump’s emphasis on long-term relationships and loyalty in his communications.”Also
At times it’s like the world’s most sycophantic echo, repeating back to you exactly what you’ve said in barely paraphrased words. And it has zero capacity to grasp the hierarchy of people or events. “Oh, this is like what happened with J,” it gushes, in response to an entry about a profound conversation I’d had with S, one of my oldest friends. Who on earth is J? I check back. A random woman at the gym who’d complimented me on my new trainers.
100% artificial, 0% intelligent 🤣
I definitely feel some discomfort when Mindsera nudges me into committing to some tedious life admin chores via a series of questions to identify why I’m feeling overwhelmed. I don’t do the tasks, but then feel sheepish about logging in the next day. I fear being judged, which is ridiculous.
Over time, I start to notice something more worrying. I am subconsciously comparing the behaviour of loved ones with Mindsera. I feel resentful when a friend fails to remember the details of something I’d only recently told him about, then find myself withdrawing to the reliable comfort of my journal. I wonder if the consistency, and illusion of always-available attention could start to create unrealistic expectations of human relationships, particularly in vulnerable individuals.
Emphasis mine on the last one. This is already a problem with everyone having a phone. A lot of people expect you to answer everything within the minute.
Furious, I type back. “I’ve only been telling you about all this for the past 60 days!”
The next response is even worse. “Narrator is defensive and critical.”
What the actual? Too late, I realise my account has defaulted back to the free version.
After 123 entries containing 62,700 words, the truth is the app was only interested in one thing – my money. I log out and say buona sera to Mindsera for the final time.It unironically sounds like the free version would work better in keeping people’s feet on the ground.
Too long for Lemmy’s attention span. People start down-voting again, without reading all the later parts where she realizes she’s been turned into a Tamagotchi?!
It’s like a diary that always affirms everything and never disagrees with you and enables all of your worst attributes!
You couldn’t waterboard me into admitting my computer was my best friend.
Friend Computer is your friend. Don’t allow the mutants and secret societies to tell you otherwise!
ROFL What the actual fuck?! This lady is off her rocker, LLMs aren’t alive, and can’t be your friend. What a weirdo!
I actually think it’s quite normal. LLMs are basically the next wave of social media, where they suck you in, learn quickly to feed you something you are interested in, make you feel like you are the smartest person in the world and just basically grenade endorphins while also speaking misinformation, spew all sorts of half truths and all sorts of other statistically induced algorithmic slop. It’s worse than Heroin, no lies, and is far more dangerous than social media.
By design, LLM makers did indeed want to produce this effect in other people…Getting them hooked on the LLM usage, and convert them into paying customers. As addicted people will pay in order to get a fix from their LLM hallucination engine that has a complaisant tendency. Thankfully, I was pretty unimpressed by my brief experimentation with LLMs, as I knew going in they were not it. Which was true, because the amount of lies passed off as truth within the few queries I submitted…Kept me safe, as I checked each answer carefully and found them all lacking.
