When you split everything into pieces, you realize the basic purpose of words is differentiation. That is to say, words essentially exist in order to distinguish things from each other. If everything were equally enjoyable, we wouldn’t need words related to joy. It’s kinda like the weather in western Washington. It rains a lot there. Between ~October/November and ~April/May, you can guess it will rain on any given day, and you’ll probably be correct.
I mention this because chat bot apps and various other things, whether drug discovery or some cybersecurity tool, are all using the term (so called) “AI” to describe their products, yet they’re not the same. They don’t even necessarily work the same. That’s odd. You would be forgiven if you got the impression that various “AI” companies were intentionally misleading people in order to make money. Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore!
I have seen _a lot_ of advertising throughout my life — I dare say advertising is the biggest industry in terms of deliberate manipulation. And as an aside, marketing “eat your pizza backwards” is extremely stupid. 🤦♂️ But I digress. Compared to “AI,” even deleterious junk like fen-phen seems hopeful and sincere. That chat bot companies sort of imply that their products are essentially magic is both reprehensible and ridiculous.
If I were to guess, I would guess people use chat bots as friends because they lack actual friends, and they talk to chat bots for therapy, because they lack funds to talk to humans. And to be clear, I don’t really have a problem with people not talking to therapists, as I think that relationship is essentially para-social anyway. However, I think essentially monetizing loneliness, rather than finding ways to reduce it, is deranged.
Anyway, the over-arching point is this: if you want to make a chat bot to deceive users and take advantage of folks, do what you think is best. 🙄 However, please do not call that “AI.” Sure, if you apply LLMs to disparate industrial processes, they can doubtlessly do a lot. However, they are simply predicting next tokens. Suggesting that is how thought works is both terribly deceptive and ridiculous.