Considering another FP today about AI and ‘leadership’, perhaps it’s more on point to say that AI promotes Manager jobs, and Managers are writing manifestos about how Managers are the future of society. Yeah, money’s a factor, but if we lived in a world with replicators, a class that values itself for delegation would still be promoting AI for how it enables delegation without the tediousness of workers.
I think they just realize their job (at least at the middle level) could near entirely be replaced by AI being fed tickets and company emails by an intern
Ai is wonderful but it should never replace friends. I detest Mark Zuckerberg's claim that AI will replace friends, that's simply not happening. But AI is wonderful at tasks like upscaling or even meme generation.
Mark Zuckerberg already managed to replaced friendship with political outrage (Facebook) and with toxic parasocial relationships (Instagram), for a big chunk of society.
Anyone doubting that he can do the same with AI has too much faith in humanity.
Maybe he'll get it when he has to manually type in "secretly let me win" into the prompt when he iss playing Catan with his AI friend. Not likely, but at least the level of how sad that will be is commensurate with his billions.
I've been talking with AI during my morning commute (car) recently, instead of listening to something. It's a great partner to bounce ideas off of. I don't have any friends that can or are willing to engage with ideas to the extent AI does.
As long as you are consciously aware you're not really talking to another human but just entertaining yourself I don't see the harm tbqh.
Anything can become addictive, also i'd say given the costs of operating llm inference the labs themselves when offering the products try to limit your usage at different levels, ChatGPT for example will recommend you take a break and chill if you go hours with it (even with a 200 plan)
I don't see how using an LLM is that different from surfing Wikipedia or Google, in all cases the computer is just giving me outputs i demand it from, in some or other shape, and can be abused etc
I used ChatGPT as a tour guide when I was traveling last year. It was helpful to identify places I should stop to take a look, explaining local flora, fauna and geology.
I'd rather have had a real tour guide, but for the price it was quite handy.
I would not talk to my friends about the stuff I bounce on AI. My meanest brain dead ideas get a rebuke, and I fight back to test grounds. I'd rightly get shamed for inflicting such undeveloped trash on anyone.
I truly don't believe this kind of pedantic correction adds anything to the conversation. We _all_ know how they work technically, it's been beaten to death.
I think there's also a problem that some people -- even on here -- seem to think that there is no fundamental difference between how a human engages in conversation vs an LLM, and thus talking to humans doesn't provide much value. "How it feels" is starting to bleed into how some of us think about our interactions with each other.
In what I found he didn’t say “replace” but “add more”; it is still chilling and I detest it.
Especially in the current incarnation of AI, where they are more or less controlled by corporations and government.
> The average American has "three people that they would consider friends," he said. "And the average person has demand for meaningfully more. I think it's, like, 15."
No such thing. It's a mechanical parrot that replies with the most likely response given an input.
It's not a person. It's not a friend. It's not going to hold you while you cry. It's not going to invite you to its wedding. It has no independent life or thought or plans. It's not real.
Look, I'm not saying a dog wouldn't invite you to it's wedding if it could. But it can't. Dogs are loving and wonderful companions but they aren't people so they really can't fill that niche as a friend.
I cannot express how deeply disgusted the idea of a chatbot "friend" makes me
We're not talking about a sentient machine like Data from Star Trek, we're so so far from that still
Edit: it's super important to remember that any and all of the big commercially available AI out there are.. commercial. They're owned by companies. Unless you run them on your own hardware someone else is ultimately the owner of your "AI friend".
That should be a huge alarm bell in your head. Corporations are not your friends.
> How can you know how far from, close to, or beyond the line we are?
Your lack of comprehension does not outweigh the understanding of those who do. There is a lot of research out there on the nature of LLMs. None of it indicates they are sentient like a human. Not a single bit of it.
Zuck's was weird. Andreesen's was just awful. Basically saying that nobody had any right to restrict him and other tech bros from raking in unlimited money doing whatever they wanted and that a bit of fascism couldn't hurt. He literally didn't give a single thing to be optimistic about. Just painted him as an absolute villain.
Correction: sociopathy, not psychopathy. The DSM diagnosis would find in favor of clinically disconnected and unconcerned with social benefits, but lacking in the hostility and violence that would underlie a psychopathy outcome. The critical differentiator is whether they enjoy seeing others harmed, or are disengaged from seeing others harmed.
Was the BBC always this bad? This story represents both sides so poorly.
"AI" is the same shitty tech as ever before. These "manifestos" are a PR stunt, but only because "AI" has been used as a scapegoat for everything from layoffs to fraud and privacy violations.
Who reads this crap and actually believes it? Is the brainrot really this bad? They set up all these lame thought traps to make people argue about the wrong things, and they actually fucking worked?
The BBC severely degraded over the past decade after multiple budget cuts forced it to take the clickbait approach especially for non-British reporting because BBC's ad-free mandate is only for UK residents and reporting.
Also, an news org is only as good as it's reporters, and those reporters with the right Rolodex are no longer associated with the BBC, CNN, CBS, and other traditional heavyweights.
If you're in SF you'll often bump into the tech correspondents of most news organizations at parties, on dates, while bar-hopping Marina, or during hobbies, and you don't see the CNN, BBC, or Fox tech news correspondent invited to the right events nor cultivating the right sources. Oftentimes they tend to be much younger (late 20s to 30s) taking a cushy break after being stressed out working as a DC or Bruxelles or Whitehall correspondent or straight out of college who will eventually become a lower-to-mid rung Strategic Comms employee at a random company writing PRs and managing a small team of video-editors.
> Who reads this crap and actually believes it? Is the brainrot really this bad? They set up all these lame thought traps to make people argue about the wrong things, and they actually fucking worked?
You did and made an impression. That's how clickbait works.
If you want more actionable reporting, you need to read reporting done either by News Agencies (eg. Reuters, AP, AFP) as they are written opinion-free such that other news broadcasters can purchase articles and edit them as needed or read news directly tied to decisonmaking (eg. Bloomberg due to the Bloomberg terminal, Politico and it's history as the goto broadsheet on the hill, Axios and financial and political decisionmakers, etc).
Isn’t the answer just: money?
Considering another FP today about AI and ‘leadership’, perhaps it’s more on point to say that AI promotes Manager jobs, and Managers are writing manifestos about how Managers are the future of society. Yeah, money’s a factor, but if we lived in a world with replicators, a class that values itself for delegation would still be promoting AI for how it enables delegation without the tediousness of workers.
I think they just realize their job (at least at the middle level) could near entirely be replaced by AI being fed tickets and company emails by an intern
And attention or admiration.
Maybe they feel like, for once in their lives, they can appear as intelligent as the people they employ with AI propping up their prose.
Public sentiment about AI is trending down. All about trying to turn that slope to a positive number.
Ai is wonderful but it should never replace friends. I detest Mark Zuckerberg's claim that AI will replace friends, that's simply not happening. But AI is wonderful at tasks like upscaling or even meme generation.
Mark Zuckerberg already managed to replaced friendship with political outrage (Facebook) and with toxic parasocial relationships (Instagram), for a big chunk of society.
Anyone doubting that he can do the same with AI has too much faith in humanity.
I'd vote for you if you ever ran for office somewhere I could vote.
Maybe he'll get it when he has to manually type in "secretly let me win" into the prompt when he iss playing Catan with his AI friend. Not likely, but at least the level of how sad that will be is commensurate with his billions.
I've been talking with AI during my morning commute (car) recently, instead of listening to something. It's a great partner to bounce ideas off of. I don't have any friends that can or are willing to engage with ideas to the extent AI does.
Isn't AI's infinite willingness and lack of inhibition sort of the thing that people are increasingly voicing concern over?
Put differently, maybe there's something fundamentally unhealthy to having a "discussion" with something that never says no.
Hard to say if your friends are reasonable or not without knowing what ideas your hoping to engage with them in (or the manner of said engagement).
As long as you are consciously aware you're not really talking to another human but just entertaining yourself I don't see the harm tbqh.
Anything can become addictive, also i'd say given the costs of operating llm inference the labs themselves when offering the products try to limit your usage at different levels, ChatGPT for example will recommend you take a break and chill if you go hours with it (even with a 200 plan)
I don't see how using an LLM is that different from surfing Wikipedia or Google, in all cases the computer is just giving me outputs i demand it from, in some or other shape, and can be abused etc
> Put differently, maybe there's something fundamentally unhealthy to having a "discussion" with something that never says no.
Well, XKCD suggested an alternative.[1]
[1] https://xkcd.com/1027/
I used ChatGPT as a tour guide when I was traveling last year. It was helpful to identify places I should stop to take a look, explaining local flora, fauna and geology.
I'd rather have had a real tour guide, but for the price it was quite handy.
I haven’t thought of talking to an LLM in the car but I do like chatting. I treat it like a conversational Wikipedia.
I would not talk to my friends about the stuff I bounce on AI. My meanest brain dead ideas get a rebuke, and I fight back to test grounds. I'd rightly get shamed for inflicting such undeveloped trash on anyone.
it's not engaging or bouncing. it's simply responding as likely as it can to what would go after your sentences.
I truly don't believe this kind of pedantic correction adds anything to the conversation. We _all_ know how they work technically, it's been beaten to death.
I think the problem is "how it technically works" to "how it feels" are different things in this case
I think there's also a problem that some people -- even on here -- seem to think that there is no fundamental difference between how a human engages in conversation vs an LLM, and thus talking to humans doesn't provide much value. "How it feels" is starting to bleed into how some of us think about our interactions with each other.
In what I found he didn’t say “replace” but “add more”; it is still chilling and I detest it.
Especially in the current incarnation of AI, where they are more or less controlled by corporations and government.
> The average American has "three people that they would consider friends," he said. "And the average person has demand for meaningfully more. I think it's, like, 15."
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2025/05/09/mark-zuckerberg-says-ai-...
> And the average person has demand for meaningfully more. I think it's, like, 15
Research seems to point at more like 3-5 https://www.socialconnectionguidelines.org/en/evidence-brief...
That begs a question: would you rather have no friends, or a few AI friends?
> AI friends
No such thing. It's a mechanical parrot that replies with the most likely response given an input.
It's not a person. It's not a friend. It's not going to hold you while you cry. It's not going to invite you to its wedding. It has no independent life or thought or plans. It's not real.
What about a dog?
> What about a dog?
Despite the nickname "man's best friend", they are in fact pets, not friends.
hold up, now you've gone too far.
Look, I'm not saying a dog wouldn't invite you to it's wedding if it could. But it can't. Dogs are loving and wonderful companions but they aren't people so they really can't fill that niche as a friend.
Dogs are pets not friends
Mine is absolutely a friend.
At the same time a dog does not pretend to be a human, isn’t controlled by a corporation, and is a living thing with its own needs.
Raises or asks, not begs, but in response: no friends.
AI is not capable of being my friend, as it doesn't pass the first, most basic requirement: it isn't a person.
Would I welcome more people into my life as friends? Sure. But while I cherish the friends I have, I certainly don't need more. Not just to "have".
And I sure as hell have no need or desire for the empty "friendship" of spicy auto complete.
I’d say if you want then go ahead and get an AI friend. But also don’t confuse it with a human (or a living being).
I cannot express how deeply disgusted the idea of a chatbot "friend" makes me
We're not talking about a sentient machine like Data from Star Trek, we're so so far from that still
Edit: it's super important to remember that any and all of the big commercially available AI out there are.. commercial. They're owned by companies. Unless you run them on your own hardware someone else is ultimately the owner of your "AI friend".
That should be a huge alarm bell in your head. Corporations are not your friends.
>We're not talking about a sentient machine like Data from Star Trek, we're so so far from that still
How can you know how far from, close to, or beyond the line we are?
Also, I'm pretty sure Claude understands humans a lot more than Data does.
> How can you know how far from, close to, or beyond the line we are?
Your lack of comprehension does not outweigh the understanding of those who do. There is a lot of research out there on the nature of LLMs. None of it indicates they are sentient like a human. Not a single bit of it.
Go do some research.
Oh.
you said no friends twice
From PG's comment on Zuck‘had no concept of small talk`, that's on par for his view on friends.
https://fortune.com/2026/03/23/meta-cofounder-mark-zuckerber...
Zuck's was weird. Andreesen's was just awful. Basically saying that nobody had any right to restrict him and other tech bros from raking in unlimited money doing whatever they wanted and that a bit of fascism couldn't hurt. He literally didn't give a single thing to be optimistic about. Just painted him as an absolute villain.
[flagged]
Because they're pure sociopaths (edit: was psychopaths)?
Correction: sociopathy, not psychopathy. The DSM diagnosis would find in favor of clinically disconnected and unconcerned with social benefits, but lacking in the hostility and violence that would underlie a psychopathy outcome. The critical differentiator is whether they enjoy seeing others harmed, or are disengaged from seeing others harmed.
Sure, my intent wasn't lost though.
[flagged]
Was the BBC always this bad? This story represents both sides so poorly.
"AI" is the same shitty tech as ever before. These "manifestos" are a PR stunt, but only because "AI" has been used as a scapegoat for everything from layoffs to fraud and privacy violations.
Who reads this crap and actually believes it? Is the brainrot really this bad? They set up all these lame thought traps to make people argue about the wrong things, and they actually fucking worked?
> Was the BBC always this bad
No.
The BBC severely degraded over the past decade after multiple budget cuts forced it to take the clickbait approach especially for non-British reporting because BBC's ad-free mandate is only for UK residents and reporting.
Also, an news org is only as good as it's reporters, and those reporters with the right Rolodex are no longer associated with the BBC, CNN, CBS, and other traditional heavyweights.
If you're in SF you'll often bump into the tech correspondents of most news organizations at parties, on dates, while bar-hopping Marina, or during hobbies, and you don't see the CNN, BBC, or Fox tech news correspondent invited to the right events nor cultivating the right sources. Oftentimes they tend to be much younger (late 20s to 30s) taking a cushy break after being stressed out working as a DC or Bruxelles or Whitehall correspondent or straight out of college who will eventually become a lower-to-mid rung Strategic Comms employee at a random company writing PRs and managing a small team of video-editors.
> Who reads this crap and actually believes it? Is the brainrot really this bad? They set up all these lame thought traps to make people argue about the wrong things, and they actually fucking worked?
You did and made an impression. That's how clickbait works.
If you want more actionable reporting, you need to read reporting done either by News Agencies (eg. Reuters, AP, AFP) as they are written opinion-free such that other news broadcasters can purchase articles and edit them as needed or read news directly tied to decisonmaking (eg. Bloomberg due to the Bloomberg terminal, Politico and it's history as the goto broadsheet on the hill, Axios and financial and political decisionmakers, etc).
> BBC's ad-free mandate is only for UK residents and reporting.
Didn't know this, thank you.