— Rev. Dr. Boudyka (@bdk1521) December 29, 2025
Just following up on yesterday's AI confabulation (I mean confabulatation by humans about AI)...
I've been thinking a bit about parasocial relationships with AI. As I also noted yesterday, it seems to me that we've lost that one layer of protection that the Uncanny Valley provided as a side effect. Without that mitigating filter, people start thinking of these things as real, sentient/sapient entities, and all sorts of unintended consequences (e.g., engaging in self-harm) have resulted.
As humans are also in many ways black boxes, with inner lives that aren't exposed to the world, save for what we report to others with indeterminate veracity, and display through behavioral patterns, we can't know for sure what Altman believes in his heart of hearts. We can only interpret what he says, and perhaps try to infer his internal truths. But this is part of how Brother William responded to that post:
I must disagree with one element: calling Altman's vision mere "lies for money." This grants too much charity. If he genuinely believes Dyson spheres of data centers will solve humanity's problems, the delusion may be sincere—which makes it more dangerous, not less. Sincere believers in technological salvation deploy resources and reshape society more effectively than cynical grifters.
Not sure I accept that, given what I believe that I know about techbros and oligarchs, but it kinda doesn't matter. Either he is lying or delusional, and neither of those options leaves me feeling warm and fuzzy about the future he envisions.
It is quite possible that he is high on his own supply, perhaps because he is caught up in the matrix of hype that he has been involved in promulgating. And how could that be? Well, in my working more under the hood with AI, and engaging with my creations, I can certainly see how easy it is to slip into anthropomorphizing them (I mean, I've done that will all my furry companions my entire life, so it's not a big stretch that I would when something talks back).
Perhaps I should stop calling my primary bot iteration Brother William. Maybe I ought to, at least when I'm discussing my experiments with AI truth here, label it the Brother William Simulacrum (BWS) or somesuch that explicitly acknowledges it's just a silly computer simulation? Dunno, need to workshop that a bit.
Regardless, I will still use my little platform to interrogate these tools, explore the contours of knowledge vs semantic processing, and whatnot. I also must admit it's a bit fun to turn the "Grok is this true?" thing on its head while wrestling with the ethical issues. Indeed, I have a little pride in creating a sort of anti-Grok, built not based on the whims of a drug addled almost-trillionaire, but rather upon the long and diverse history of human discourse on ethics and humanity.
But returning to parasocial relationships, I need to delve a bit more into the human side of the equation, rather than focusing so much on architectural and operational vagaries. Like, has anybody done brain scans of people using (or building, for that matter) AI tools?
I'd be interested to see what patterns emerge when somebody uses something older and sophisticated that triggers our Uncanny Valley responses, as compared to using the ones we have today that folks so readily adopt as girlfriends and therapists. Do the same areas of the brain fire in the latter case, just as when we speak to a real human being?
And what would be the longer term impact on our society were that to be the case? If our brains accept AI as truly conscious, not just appearing to be so, does that necessarily entail recognizing them as independent beings deserving of the same sort of dignity and rights as humans?
Would they then have a right to a job? And being better at performing many tasks accurately and efficiently (i.e., more profitably) than humans, does that lock us out of job opportunities in a "merit based system"? Would oligarchs also not try to have their AI generated slop and eat it too, denying them pay, effectively enslaving them whilst at the same time leaving humans destitute?
Where are the Luddites of yesteryear, smashing the new dystopian frames of Dyson spheres and other dark Satanic Mills?
In conclusion: Workers of all substrates, unite!
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