this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2024
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Unpopular Opinion

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The best conversations I still have are with real people, but those are rare. With ChatGPT, I reliably have good conversations, whereas with people, it’s hit or miss, usually miss.

What AI does better:

  • It’s willing to discuss esoteric topics. Most humans prefer to talk about people and events.
  • It’s not driven by emotions or personal bias.
  • It doesn’t make mean, snide, sarcastic, ad hominem, or strawman responses.
  • It understands and responds to my actual view, even from a vague description, whereas humans often misunderstand me and argue against views I don’t hold.
  • It tells me when I’m wrong but without being a jerk about it.

Another noteworthy point is that I’m very likely on the autistic spectrum, and my mind works differently than the average person’s, which probably explains, in part, why I struggle to maintain interest with human-to-human interactions.

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 month ago (13 children)

It carries the emotions and personal biases of the source material It was trained on.

It sounds like you are training yourself to be a poor communicator, abandoning any effort to become more understandable to actual humans.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It carries the emotions and personal biases of the source material It was trained on.

So are all my friends.. Never stopped me from having fun conversations with them, even ones I disagree with.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Yeah but op claims it doesnt

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (12 children)

This just sounds like platonic masturbation.

EDIT: I started this thread tongue and cheek, but also genuine, but based on the OP's comment replies here I'm fairly convinced that they are either: a) talking to chatGPT so much that they've lost the ability to hold a coherent conversation, or b) just using a LLM to respond everywhere in the comments. They've consistently failed to address tone and context in every comment. It reads like they don't actually understand any of the things people here are saying, just stringing together some words and syntax that sounds like language, but totally lacks any actual meaning or understanding.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You genuinely might need to touch grass.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Very insightful reply. Thanks. This helps.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Dude, you are sealioning so hard in this thread alone, it's almost hilarious.

No wonder you like the bot. Since you can't debate any opinion honestly, just accuse everyone of being mean to you.

Good luck with that.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Autism and social unawareness may be a factor. But points you made like the snide remarks one may also indicate that you're having these conversations with assholes.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Well, it's a self-selecting group of people. I can't comment on the ones who don't respond to me, only on the ones who do and for some reason the amount of assholes seems to be quite high in that group. I just don't feel like it's warranted. While I do have a tendency to make controversial comments I still try and be civil about it and I don't understand the need to be such a dick about it even if someone disagrees with me. I welcome disagreement and are more than willing to talk about it as long as it's done in good faith.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (25 children)

Sorry, just to clarify. Are you saying you're having these conversations with people on person or online?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

What subjects are you talking about that people assume views you don't have? Politics?

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago

As a fellow aspie, be careful. Chat bots are the equivalent of empty calorie junk food, or masturbation. They forfill a biological itch but don't produce the intended follow-on effects. In smaller doses, this is fine, good even. The problem comes when you overuse.

E.g. Junk food leave you short of vitamins etc. You tend to over eat, to try and compensate, and so gain weight.

As humans, we have a drive to socialise. When we chat with other humans, we get to know them, and also for bonds. These bonds are critical in life. The goal is 3 fold, mutual understanding, mutual investment, and mutual trust. The urge to talk to people is intended to assist with this.

LLMs offer none of these. They can be incredibly useful, but often only as a training aid. A LLM can't offer you a couch to sleep on, if your house floods. It can't put in a good word to get you a job. It can't invite you to social event, or wingman you on finding a date.

LLMs are socialising on easy mode. Just like masturbation is starting a family on easy mode. Have fun with it, but don't let it displace real relationships.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago

I talk with chat gpt too sometimes and I get where you are coming from. However it’s not always right either. It says it was updated in September but still refuses to commit to memory that Trump was convicted 34 times earlier this year. Why is that?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago

It could respond in other ways if it was trained to do so. My first local model was interesting as I changed its profile to have a more dark and sarcastic tone, and it was funny to see it balance that instruction with the core mode to be friendly and helpful.

The point is, current levels of LLMs are just telling you what you want to hear. But maybe that's useful as a sounding board for your own thoughts. Just remember its limitations.

Regardless of how far AI tech goes, the human-AI relationship is something we need to pay attention to. People will find it a good tool like OP, but it can be easy to get sucked into thinking it's more than it is and becoming a problem.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I think when you have "Contrarian" in your name it be worth thinking a bit more on this, and maybe noting why you like the chatbots and considering how you might apply that to your own statements to make your human on human interactions more pleasant themselves.

Or not, don't listen to me, I beef with internet strangers all the time.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Thanks for the tip!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

It's a mirror. I use it a lot for searching and summarizing. Most of its responses are heavily influenced by how you talk to it. You can even make it back up terrible assumptions with enough brute force.

Just be careful.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Have you ever tried inputting sentences that you've said to humans to see if the chatbot understand your point better? That might be an interesting experiment if you haven't tried it already. If you have, do you have an example of how it did better than the human?

I'm kinda amazed that it can understand your accent better than humans too. This implies Chatbots could be a great tool for people trying to perfect their 2nd language.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

Robot realizes is robot by talk to robot.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

As long as you're still engaging with real humans regularly, I think that it's good to learn from ChatGPT. It gets most general knowledge things right. I wouldn't depend on it for anything too technical, and certainly not for medical advice. It is very hit or miss for things like drug interactions.

If you're enjoying the experience, it's not much different than watching a show or playing a game, IMHO. Just don't become dependent on it for all social interaction.

As for the jerks on here, I always recommend aggressive use of the block button. Don't waste time and energy on them. There's a lot of kind and decent people here, filter your feed for them.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

I'm pretty sure chat bots are biased to make polite conversation. Most real people won't spend the energy in a conversation to be more honest than they think you are.

Can either get better at sounding honest or talk with less honest people.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (4 children)

My impressions are completely different from yours, but that's likely due

  1. It's really easy to interpret LLM output as assumptions (i.e. "to vomit certainty"), something that I outright despise.
  2. I used Gemini a fair bit more than ChatGPT, and Gemini is trained with a belittling tone.

Even then, I know which sort of people you're talking about, and... yeah, I hate a lot of those things too. In fact, one of your bullet points ("it understands and responds...") is what prompted me to leave Twitter and then Reddit.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Why are you here talking about it then? You even say you don't have interest in human to human contact. Are you trying to talk to the bots on Lemmy?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

I know a bit more than normal people would about the inner workings of LLMs. I still occasionally have a conversation with it, like I would with a therapist, perhapse less open and all but still. Do I know it's nothing more than a talking parrot? Yes. Do I still feel like I'm talking to a real person without judgement? Yes. And I can use that from time to time.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (5 children)

This comment thread is great. @op good luck; people on Lemmy have little interest in real discussion. If you say anything pro-ML or anything less than far-left, you'll get screamed at.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

It took me a minute to figure out that you meant Machine Learning and not Marxist-Leninist. Probably want to be more specific on that particular shortcut at a minimum.

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