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Natalia Ilyin's avatar

Just another blow to sticky, non-conforming real life. People seem to "bond with AI" because it is so much easier than dealing with a person. A world of ease and nothingness beckons.

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David Berreby's avatar

I think it might be more complex than that -- that AI "companions" might be more like a child's stuffy or a lucky charm or a haunted-house skeleton. Something "pretend" that people play with, which is parallel to human-to-human relations, rather than a replacement.

Maybe people in the long term people will appreciate their AI representations without thinking them better than reality, in the same way people enjoy a landscape painting without saying "OK, we've seen that, so no need to go to the park now." This is something I'll be writing more about.

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