this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2025
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AI Friend Apps Are Destroying What’s Left of Society (www.currentaffairs.org)
submitted 22 hours ago by Pro@programming.dev to c/Technology@programming.dev
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As they become increasingly isolated, people are treating AI chatbots as friends and even lovers. We have to fix the broken society that made this possible.

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[–] Karjalan@lemmy.world 7 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

It would be interesting to see studies on this, but to me this screams of the next iteration of "drugs/heavy metal/video games/magazines are destroying society" that comes up every 5 to 10 years.

Some people, with a particular disposition, will have it take over their life, and that's still shitty. But it's not like everyone will just be like "guess I don't need friends anymore". Just like places that legalise drugs don't suddenly see everyone doing drugs.

Fwiw I still think AI and these types of apps are terrible... But the title sounds very clickbait sensational

[–] lordnikon@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago

maybe but i think social media is the problem and the slot machine effect of algorithm systems built using physiological techniques to keep people engaged at any cost. Ai chat bots are just an extension of that turned up to 11.

[–] tiramichu@sh.itjust.works 18 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (2 children)

As a software dev who is interested in AI, I've spent a lot of time building a personal AI chat app, and I feel like that gives me a view on things.

I can totally see how people become enamoured by this stuff, because on the surface level it can be very convincing, and very compelling. It feels like a person. But in my position - where I'm writing the code and can see every interaction happening under the hood at the base level - it becomes very clear it's nothing more than a rather competent predictive text. Just a probability engine filling in the blanks. And I'm glad for that, because as much as I might interact with AI, I'm never going to start believing it is sentient, or that it cares about me in any way.

AI is a glorified autocomplete, and nothing more. Please don't believe otherwise.

[–] match@pawb.social 2 points 15 hours ago

I'm in a very similar position (though I'm using koboldcpp) and I feel like it's easy to see how shallow it is after just a few cursory interactions. It honestly makes me pretty concerned about some people's social understanding if they're getting enthralled by the predictive text machine.

[–] BagOfHeavyStones@piefed.social 4 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

It's still Eliza.

[–] paraphrand@lemmy.world 6 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (1 children)

It’s really not. And it will continue to diverge.

One finds the limits of Eliza really fast.

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 2 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Okay so it’s a more complicated Eliza with way, way more pre-programmed statements.

[–] paraphrand@lemmy.world 0 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Yup, infinite, I’d say.

[–] match@pawb.social 2 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

well, 8 to 64 billion

[–] paraphrand@lemmy.world 1 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

Oh? So that’s the max number of combinations of all supported Unicode characters?

Practically infinite is a lame reframing. I’ll admit. But that’s what I want to clarify I mean. And “nearly infinite” makes no sense. Sure.