Chatbots as sweethearts

Chatbots seem to be good at giving a superficial imitation of the emotional responses humans want from sweethearts.

The article discusses several potential dangers to society if many people decide to have fake-intelligent sweethearts, but doesn't take that far enough. Society could fragment increasingly into male and female fractions, perhaps more than one of each. As a science fiction fan, I am reminded of A World out of Time by Larry Niven, in which the Boys and the Girls (each immortal) became separate groups and fought a war.

The author, unaware of the issues raised by the free software movement, omits the one we would think of first: each one of these chatbots, if it isn't free software running on the user's own computer, will be controlled by a company. Barring unforeseeable major changes, those companies will profit by emotionally manipulating the users they supposedly serve. They will program the servers, and the apps for interacting with them, to make the customers obey the company and serve its goal.

Calling chatbots "artificial intelligence" helps lull humans into treating them like persons. That is why I decided never to do that, and refer to them instead as "bullshit generators".

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