I probably didn’t explain well enough. Consuming media (books, TV, film, online content, and video games) is predominantly a passive experience. Obviously video games less so, but all in all, they only “adapt” within the guardrails of gameplay. These AI chatbots however are different in their very formlessness - they’re only programmed to maintain engagement and rely on the LLM training to maintain an illusion of “realness”. And because they were trained on all sorts of human interactions, they’re very good at that.

Humans are unique in how we continually anthropomorphize tons of not only inert, lifeless things (think of someone alternating between swearing at and pleading to a car that won’t start) but abstract ideals (even scientists often speak of evolution “choosing” specific traits). Given all of that, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to be worried about a teen with a still developing prefrontal cortex and who is in the midst of working on understanding social dynamics and peer relationships to embue an AI chatbot with far more “humanity” than is warranted. Humans seem to have an anthropomorphic bias in how we relate to the world - we are the primary yardstick we use to measure and relate everything around us, and things like AI chatbots exploit that to maximum effect. Hell, the whole reason the site mentioned in the article exists is that this approach is extraordinarily effective.

So while I understand that on a cursory look, someone objecting to it comes across as a sad example of yet another moral panic, I truly believe this is different. For one, we’ve never had access to such a lively psychological mirror before and it’s untested waters; and two, this isn’t some objection on some imagined slight against a “moral authority” but based in the scientific understanding of specifically teen brains and their demonstrated fragility in certain areas while still under development.

I understand what you mean about the comparison between AI chatbots and video games (or whatever the moral panic du jour is), but I think they’re very much not the same. To a young teen, no matter how “immersive” the game is, it’s still just a game. They may rage against other players, they may become obsessed with playing, but as I said they’re still going to see it as a game.

An AI chatbot who is a troubled teen’s “best friend” is different and no matter how many warnings are slapped on the interface, it’s going to feel much more “real” to that kid than any game. They’re going to unload every ounce of angst into that thing, and by defaulting to “keep them engaged”, that chatbot is either going to ignore stuff it shouldn’t or encourage them in ways that it shouldn’t. It’s obvious there’s no real guardrails in this instance, as if he was talking about being suicidal, some red flags should’ve popped up.

Yes the parents shouldn’t have allowed him such unfettered access, yes they shouldn’t have had a loaded gun that he had access to, but a simple “This is all for funsies” warning on the interface isn’t enough to stop this from happening again. Some really troubled adults are using these things as defacto therapists and that’s bad too. But I’d be happier if lawmakers were much more worried about kids having access to this stuff than accessing “adult sites”.

That’s certainly where the term originated, but usage has expanded. I’m actually fine with it, as the original idea was about the pattern recognition we use when looking at faces, and I think there’s similar mechanisms for matching other “known” patterns we see. Probably with some sliding scale of emotional response on how well known the pattern is.

Not sure what your point is. The US is incredibly diverse, and that diversity has very modern roots (when compared to many other diverse countries). That’s not exceptionalism, that’s just demographics. It’s not a competition. Combined with large internal migrations over its history and its large size, many Americans live in cities and regions they have no historical family connection to. So when answering a question about why “Americans seem to be very obsessed with their nationality” it seemed relevant.

That’s what happens when almost everyone in the country had ancestors who only came here in the last 200 years. The “American identity” is founded in the idea that either we or our ancestors were born somewhere else and then came here. It’s much different than someplace like the UK where so many are probably within a days walk of where one of their 10th great grandparents lived.

Maybe? But in the article he was talking about his priority being that he wanted to disconnect from his phone but still wanted news. Just seems there’s been a solution for that for a few centuries now. His solution seemed to me at least to be a lemon that wasn’t worth the squeeze as it were.

So, a newspaper with a lot of extra steps? I understand the gee whizness of getting this all to work but not really sure there’s a solid “why” to this.

Nailed it! <fist bump>

Oh I know - as soon as I find a shovel, we’ll complete the funeral service and then it’s time for the wake :)

I guess if I have to explain the joke, I have no one to blame but myself. <sigh>

The redhead in armor is Chappell Roan at this year’s VMAs, and the blonde is Sabrina Carpenter from a performance on SNL. The original photo in the post was making fun of noticing the superficial resemblance of a shot from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to those two looks.

Damn it’s weird being old enough to have been a fan of Buffy, but still knowing and liking new pop music.

Willow (Alyson Hannigan) and Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) from Buffy the Vampire Slayer

For those confused:

It is if you’re old enough to know who the pic is actually of, or young enough to know who Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter actually are?

Never said it didn’t. Doesn’t change the fact that Microsoft is notoriously worse by every metric and because of its position in the market is far more potentially damaging. Almost like if you sell an OS as something that can be trusted to run mission critical applications, you probably shouldn’t phone it in when it comes to securing that OS.

A third party vendor whose entire business model is predicated on the fact that security is such an afterthought at Microsoft that enterprise customers need to resort to this kind of crap for a bare minimum of security.

Wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the studios’ requirement - every big streamer I know of requires certain platforms for HD and higher streams because of the copy protection required.

Wow - while I sympathize with their goals, this represents a fundamental misunderstanding of how the Internet works. They need to restrict and govern corporate entities, not the Internet itself.