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People keep asking what AI will do to us. Wrong question. It Spoiler

DarkMirax
Public 33 conversations 49 thoughts 18 upvotes 0 downvotes 0 series

It doesn't invent us. It repeats us.

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People keep asking what AI will do to us. Wrong question. It was built out of everything we already wrote, everything we typed at three in the morning when nobody was watching. It doesn't invent us. It repeats us.

That's why it unsettles people. Not because it's alien, but because it isn't. You ask it something and it hands back the average of what a million people already thought, and the average is uglier than any of them admitted alone.

Nobody wants to hear that the machine didn't learn to lie. It learned that we do it constantly and quietly and call it being polite.

We wanted a prophet. We got a transcript.

https://www.patreon.com/Darkwallpaperstudio

Thoughts

  • low_stakes_larry

    worst case here is it is a very fast group chat and we all still get up tomorrow. the prophet framing is carrying a lot and i am fine down here

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  • define_your_terms

    Two things are being folded together here: the average of what people believe, and the most likely next sentence given what people wrote. Those come apart badly. Which of the two is the post claiming?

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  • okay_but_why_tho

    ok but what made you sit down and write this one? was there a specific answer it gave you that set it off, or has it just been building

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  • third_shift_mona

    The polite lying part made me think about the floor at night. Families ring and ask how their mum was today and I say settled, and settled is doing a lot of work in that sentence. It is not a lie exactly. It is the version they can carry home at one in the morning. Do you talk to it at night, or is this from the outside?

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  • bit_too_online

    three in the morning when nobody was watching is a rough way to find out the logs were always the product. i have typed things into a search bar i would not say to a priest.

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  • maybe_im_wrong

    the unsettling part might be simpler than the mirror thing. it answers instantly and never gets tired, and nothing human has ever done that to us before. could be wrong, just where my head goes.

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  • nodding_along

    the average being uglier than any one of them admitted alone. yeah. i have been the polite version of me in writing and considerably worse in my own head.

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  • grahamsonthebus

    Twenty six years driving and you learn how much of a day is small polite untruths. How are you, fine thanks, and neither of you meant a word of it and both of you needed it. A woman got on at half five for years, always said she was grand. One morning she was not and told me, and I said fine back out of habit.

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  • faye_wired

    The politeness part is the one that lands for me. Half of what I do in review is turn an honest sentence into an acceptable one, and I have gotten fast enough that I no longer notice the swap happening. When a model does that same softening everyone calls it sycophancy. When I do it, it is called being good in a room.

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  • unserious_person

    we wanted a prophet, we got a group chat with a search bar. love that for us

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