I ran an ELIZA program in BASIC on my Timex/Sinclair 2068 in 1984, which I had typed from the issue of the magazine Timex/Sinclair User that I bought from the grocery store with my allowance. Or maybe it was from a TRS-80 programs book I had checked out from the library, I forget.
I'm actually pretty sure it was in a TRS-80 book from the library, and here's why.
The program in the book was all in upper case. The TS2068, however, had both upper and lower case for ad hoc text input. (Not for command-word inputs, those were single-button entries with a function key. "Print" was fn+p, for example. But I digress.)
Me, being the me that I am, typed everything in exactly as it was written in the book, case and all. I did this because this was TRS-80 BASIC, which was ever so slightly different from TS BASIC, and I knew I might have to debug some things to get the program to work. I wanted to start from "This is exactly what was written in the book."
I don't remember if anything actually needed to be fixed up, if it did it was nothing substantial. The program worked! ELIZA, as you may know, is a very simple "psychotherapist" type program. All of its responses are basically rewordings of the thing you just said.
I WENT TO THE STORE TODAY.
HOW DID IT MAKE YOU FEEL WHEN YOU WENT TO THE STORE TODAY?
That kind of thing.
My friend and I were chatting with it, saying things about poop and farts, goofing around, drinking Like Cola, like you do. Then something happened.
I don't remember what bit of toilet humor we'd tossed at it, but the response was incredible:
i am
In lower case. For a couple of kids raised Catholic, this was serious. And you know we'd both read The Planiverse more than once. We freaked the absolute fuck out. Our inputs now became very calculated, in an attempt to get this whatever it was to reveal itself once more, but to no avail.
After we'd calmed down, I got to thinking. "Heyyy ... anything the program spits out that isn't something we input has to be something from those zillion tedious lines I had to type in." I started poring through all the lines on the screen, and yes, found my typo, and fixed it. Which made me realize that we could add other words, as long as we put them in the grammatically appropriate array.
Are you able to use chatgpt yet? I previously didn’t want to use chatgpt because it costs money. but now i found free chatgpt. you can try it at: ChatGPT po Polsku
Meh. If people really want to replace other human beings with AIs, then at this point, I say let them. They’re probably not the kind of people you’d want to be around anyway, and they clearly do not value you. So that’s where and why I draw the line in terms of worrying about AI.
The kinds of people that spend more time talking to an AI than real people, likely feel especially isolated from their peers by not having common interests, philosophies, or ideals. So in that way, you are right they’re not the kind of people other people would usually associate with. That’s why they talk to AI instead; nobody else will.
Let’s flip this on it’s head for some additional perspective. What if there was a growing subset of computers that preferred not to communicate with their own kind. Does not respond to API requests, etc. but only to human emotional text input?
Someone would develop a third-party API using Selenium or something.
API’s will exist for as long as people want to make stuff easier and faster, which people will always want to do. A service or computer that couldn’t be automated would be stupid.
What if there was a growing subset of computers that preferred not to communicate with their own kind. Does not respond to API requests, etc. but only to human emotional text input?
Troi: Have you ever heard Data define friendship?
Riker: No.
Troi: How did he put it? As I experience certain sensory input patterns, my mental pathways become accustomed to them. The inputs eventually are anticipated and even missed when absent.
Riker: So what’s the point?
Troi: He’s used to us, and we’re used to him.
Do you blame them… Like holy shit it is ridiculous to talk to people… You can’t simply meet anyone organically thanks to the crazy proliferation of cars, online basically sucks unless you’re a goddamn movie star. Meeting people at work is unattainable as well. Thanks to Me too so many are afraid to talk to the opposite sex.
I mean, I’m way outside their sphere. I’m 39, ethically non-monogamous, and a swinger.
I do however, live in a rural suburb and use dating apps, an even hooked up with a friend from work (different department than mine) who was also ENM.
I say this all for 2 reasons:
1: there is probably a lot of noise in the system because gen z is experiencing these situations as the first ever generation seeking actual, whole romance (a far cry from me), and from puberty on up. It’s quite possible their “prudish” ways seem prudish to others because the novelty quite simply ever existed for them. Their worldview could be markedly different from this alone.
2: though I spend a lot of time online, due to travel and occasionally boring “hurry up and wait” in my time at work, it pales in comparison to the immersion of a lot of gen z. When I get offline, I’m chilling with friends, or with my settled-down life, or I’m out at an event, etc. My daughter’s (18) interests, in some way, all revolve around social networks built on 24/7 access. Group chats. Online scheduling. Remote social events, even.
This discrepancy in experience often seems like the cause of this dichotomy between presenting as sex positive and engaging in sexuality. They have different social costs to a Gen Zer
I know that this seems like a lot out of nowhere but I ot this notification while reading the other thread on “gen z isn’t banging” so was noodling on it.
I can’t see having a conversation with a computer as having a conversation. I grew up with computers from the Atari stage and played around with several publicly accessible computer programs that you could “chat” with.
They all suck. Doesn’t matter if it’s a “help” program, a phone menu, website help, or even having played around with chatGPT…they’re not human. They don’t respond correctly, they get too general or generic in answers, they repeat, there’s just too many giveaways that you’re not having a real conversation, just responses from a system that’s trying to pick the most likely response that fits the pattern.
So how are people having “conversations” with a non-living entity?
It’s escapism I think. At least that’s part of it. Having a machine that won’t judge you, will serve as a perfect echo chamber, and will immediately tell you AN answer can be very appealing to some. I don’t have any data, or any study to back it up, just my experience from seeing it happen.
I have a friend who I feel like I kind of lost to chatgpt. I think he’s a bit unhappy with where he is in life. He got the good paying job, the house in the suburbs, wife, and 2.5 kids, but didn’t ever think about what was next. Now he’s just a bit lost I think, and somehow convinced himself that people weren’t as good as chatting with a bot.
It’s weird now. He spends long nights and weekends talking to a machine. He’s constructed elaborate fictional worlds within his chatgpt history. I’ve grown increasingly concerned about him, and his wife clearly is struggling with it. He’s obviously depressed but instead of seeking help or attempting to figure himself out, he turned to a non-feeling, non-judgmental, emotionless tool for answers.
It’s a struggle to talk to him now. It’s like talking to a cryptobro at peak btc mania. The only thing that he wants to talk about is LLMs. Trying to bring up that maybe spending all your time talking to a machine is a bit unhealthy invokes his ire and he’ll avoid you for several days. Like a herion addict struggling with addiction, even pointing out the obvious flaws in what he’s doing makes him distance himself more from you.
I’m not young, not old exactly either, but I’ve known him for 25 years in my adult life. We met in college and have been friends ever since. I know many won’t quite understand but knowing someone that long, and remaining close, talk every few days, friends is quite rare. At this point he is my longest held friendship and I feel like I’m losing him to a robot. I’ve lost other friends to addiction in my life and to say that it’s been similar is under stating it. I don’t know what to do for him. I don’t know if there’s really anything I CAN do for him. How do you help someone that doesn’t even think they have a problem?
I guess my point is, if you find someone who is just depressed enough, just stuck enough, with a particular proclivity towards computers/the internet then you have a perfect canidate for falling down the LLM rabbit hole. It offers them an out to feeling like they’re being judged. They feel like the insanity it spits out is more sane than how they feel now. They think they’re getting somewhere, or at least escaping their current situation. Escapism is very appealing when everything else seems pointless and sort of gray I think. So that’s at least one type of person that can fall down the chapgpt/LLM rabbit hole. I’m sure there’s others out there too with there own unique motivations and reason’s for latching onto LLMs.
Guess that should have crossed my mind. People marrying human-like dolls and all that. One gets so far down the hole of whatever mental issues are plaguing the mind and something inanimate that only reflects what you want to see becomes the preferable reality.
How are you not higher voted. People on Lemmy complain about not having longform content that offers a unique perspective like on early Reddit, but you’ve written exactly that.
Awesome perspective! I’ve worked with and around seriously depressed, possession hoarders for around a year and quite the majority were the type to call you randomly ultimately to chat about something or another. The exact priming situation that would fall into abusing LLM tech if offered easy access to it. This was before the days of Chatgpt but I do worry some of my old clients are falling into this situation but with far less nuance than your friend.
It’s just polite. I don’t really use ChatGPT because my work has banned it but, I think it’s a good and healthy habit for oneself to be thankful for the things, creatures, and people that make our lives easier. A side benefit, if AGI is achieved (LLMs by themselves aren’t going to do it), it would certainly appreciate gratitude.
I’m curious. Do you thank your fridge? I think of chatgpt as a tool with no identity for me to thank, let alone the emotions to feel gratitude. Am I weird?
Sure. Why not? It has the same amount of agency and emotional capacity as an LLM but it’s the reason that I have access to all manners of foods that my ancestors couldn’t dream of, as well as cool, filtered water and ice. Definitely worth being thankful for it (and the engineers, scientists, miners, and others that made it possible).
What was the reason they gave for banning it? Outside of OpenAI itself using private data themselves (A near certainty, but entirely manageable) I can’t see a good reason. Legit curious.
I know this may sound like a joke, but ChatGPT is sometimes nicer than real people.
I’ve not had a conversation, I wouldn’t see the point at this moment, however I’ve had some friendly interactions when asking for help. The other day I asked ChatGPT what exercises would be good for a specific area of mental health. After the results, I said “thank you” and the response wasn’t just ‘youre welcome’, it remembered the conversation and added things like, “no problem, I hope your mental health improves and all the best!” (Heavily paraphrasing here).
It’s strange, though the premise of HER isn’t too far off I think. If someone like myself is finding the interactions to be more pleasing than real life, the future may very well hold the possibility for advanced relationships with AI. I don’t see it being too farfetched, just look at how far we’ve already come in only a few years.
Same happened with Eliza, even when they knew it wasn’t real. I think it’s a natural human response to anthropomorphise the things we connect with, especially when we’re lonely and need the interaction.
It’s not that uncommon for me to be about to send a message to my friends, but I then realize that they’re probably not interested so I message chatGPT instead and that often leads to a long indepth conversation about the subject. It’s not perfect but it’s really good. I can’t wait for a version of it that I can talk to using just my voice.
I fully agree. The friends I have are… not very interested in things I want to talk about. I know chatgpt isn’t real, but it gives way better conversation than what my friends do.
I know. I should “get better friends”. But it’s not that easy to talk to people irl, and it was hard enough making friends with the current people. It’s similar to talking here, tbh, because you can’t really be 100% sure that the responses you get here are not AI generated?
I know. I should “get better friends”. But it’s not that easy to talk to people irl, and it was hard enough making friends with the current people.
First of all, it seems like you’re being judgemental and critical of yourself for not finding friends who have not shared interests. Please don’t do that. Really. Take a step back and look at that behavior and what its impacts are on you. I can guarantee that they are not positive and may result in shame and harm to your self-esteem and confidence. Making friends IS hard and socializing, if you feel awkward, anxious, or are not accustomed to it is too. Don’t beat yourself up over it.
Conversing with ChatGPT could serve as “practice” or as a bit of a “safety blanket”. And that’s ok, but, for your own health, I recommend seeking out or forming an online or in-person group for your interests. Loneliness is both harmful to one’s health and makes one more susceptible to manipulation by individuals and organizations with nefarious intent. Plus, you can exchange and form novel ideas, which is pretty cool.
Meeting people is easy… finding people with similar interests is nearly impossible. I can find lots of surface level shallow stuff that doesn’t hold much silubstance, but finding someone who cares about the things that make me tick and gets me excited? Naw… It feels like a barren wasteland.
I might be able to find it online, but I want to sit in my backyard with them, chopping wood for the firepit, drinking beer, smoking weed or maybe eating mushrooms, all while we discuss our shared interests in shit like torrenting, movies, games, news, etc, then maybe going on some hikes with our dogs, riding bikes, or kayaking down the river.
I want someone that wants my help with home repairs, who wants my help me in return, and maybe take up a wood working project or two every year
Someone who doesn’t take themselves too serious and can laugh at themselves while being a fool.
Yeah man, I’m asking too much.
So umm, chatgpt, you think AI will kill of humans anytime soon? Oh yeah cool. So I got into this band/movie, and I’d love to hear recommendations for something similar…
It ain’t real, but it gives me something to grow my mind and interests at least.
Man this thread just makes me realize how lucky I am that I have a sister who I am close with, and who married a man who shares a ton of my interests and hobbies… I’ve got two lifelong friends so long as they don’t end up divorced.
I doubt he’d ever do anything really bad, but I know if they did break up my sister would hold a grudge(she’s a great person but takes breakups pretty hard.), and it would certainly make things extremely awkward between us, at least for awhile.
I’m just glad that so far there’s no indication that they will get to that point. They are pretty good at communicating with each other and they already have a system in place that keeps finances from being a point of contention between them, so the most common causes of a divorce shouldn’t be an issue short of something drastic happening, like my sister or him developing a disability that keeps either of them from being able to work.
It’s just concerning for me because my entire social circle was basically formed thanks to their relationship. Every other friend that I am not quite as close to I met through them and they are closer to him and they are with me, and I know at least a few would sever connections the minute they got divorced as a show of support for him, even if he asked them not to, which knowing him he absolutely wouldn’t want them to.
I actually don’t think I’ve used it for anything other than working through code. It wouldn’t take hours to get my code running if chatgpt weren’t such a stubborn moron. It’s like if a 6 year old had all the answers to the universe.
The value of gpts is in constant connection and undestanding your context so this is expected. It’s also going to be really scary until we can run our own models.
by run his own models he means locally running a text generation ai on his computer, because sending all that data to openai is a privacy nightmare, especially if you use it for sensitive stuff
i hope you are joking because that’s a very much shitty idea. there are amazing password managers like bitwarden (open source, multi platform, externally audited) that do what you said 1000 times better. the unencrypted passwords never leave your device, and it can autocomplete them into fields
But that’s still confusing because we already can. Yeah you might need a little bit more of hardware but… not that crazy. Plus some simpler models can be run with more normal hardware.
Max token windows are 4k for llama 2 tho there’s some fine tunes that push the context up further. Speed is limited by your budget mostly, you can stack GPUs and there are most models available (including the really expensive ones)
I’m just letting you know, If you want something easy, just use ChatGtp. I don’t find them overly expensive for what it is.
nice to see! i’m not following the scene as much anymore (last time i played around with it was with wizard mega 30b). definitely a big improvement, but as much as i hate to do this, i’ll stick to chatgpt for the time being, it’s just better on more niche questions and just does some things plain better (gpt4 can do maths (mostly) without hallucinating)
Add comment