Excited to announce v(1.0) of Digi, the future of AI Romantic Companionship, for IOS and Android 🤖Site: http://digi.aiTwitter: @digiaiapp A quick thread on features, and where we go from here (1/13)
Am I crazy for thinking apps like these are just… fine?
I don’t think they’re used by people who can’t tell the difference between a bot and a human, but by people who aren’t able to find any meaningful human connection and need something. If this helps alleviate the pain of loneliness even a little bit, I still think that’s a good thing even if it’s fake.
Conceptually, yes. However, the type of person who this would appeal to also tends to be emotionally vulnerable due to lack of human connection. Leaving tech bros to monetize this kind of app is a recipe for disaster. That’s not even considering how bad content could lead to self harm or similar.
Nah I’m gonna go on the offensive and say if it gets to the point where this appeals to you, then you seriously need to consider touching grass. There are billions of people on the planet, go make a friend out of one of them. If you literally cannot do that, then there is some heavy self reflection that needs to be done as to why that is.
Using stuff like this as a replacement for human connection is not okay.
the problem is that this doesn’t actually solve the problem, though. you’re just as socially alienated afterwards. and the people this targets are already prone to objectifying women - the relationship progression system is fucked up.
I don’t disagree, but I think the appropriate response is empathy and an attempt at understanding rather than saying “LOL touch grass idiot, stop being affected by societal ills” like the user I responded to
You’re gonna tell me there’s no difference between being socially alienated and preferring to spend time with an AI? What is this fucking blade runner?
Making actual connections takes time. If you’re starved for human connection you’re not going to be making meaningful ones in a span of days or a couple weeks, and you’re going to be lonely all the time you’re working on that.
Of course you should try to figure ou why you struggle to make friends, but a lot of lonely people already tend to do that more than what is healthy, and using a silly ai app isn’t going to stop or even slow down your progress.
Also, “If you’re lonely, just go make friends,” is an asshole thing to say, and you probably know it doesn’t work like that.
I get what you’re saying, but that’s exactly my point. Yes relationships take time to develop and make meaningful, but talking to an AI could not be a worse use of your time if that TRULY was what you were after. Also not every interaction you have with another person is going to be meaningful, in fact most every interaction is not meaningful, but that doesn’t make them not worth it. How are you supposed to develop those skills if you do not exercise them? The best situations to exercise them on is low stakes casual conversation that doesn’t matter. Literally trying to interact with someone casually and being stonewalled is a better use of your time than spending any time with this or any AI. And yeah I’m aware that sounds kinda assholey, but I don’t really care in this case. Go talk to a random, work on your skills, not everything has to have meaning, not everyone is gonna like you and that’s okay. Talking to this AI? You might as well just give up developing those skills at all because it’s tailor made to like you regardless of all other factors.
I just don’t see where the contradiction is. Why can you not work on creating human connections that can actually make you happy, while also anthropomorphising a chatbot that you can say I love you to, and hear it said back?
Of course it’s a coping mechanism, but that’s not unhealthy in itself. Not every minute of your life can be spent on self-improvement or working towards your goals. Sometimes people need an escape and that’s fine. That’s not mutually exclusive with trying to improve things.
The arcane puppetry at work here is designed to become an addiction not dissimilar to scrolling through social media to get a parasocial hit of dopamine. The capitalist is putting you in front of a slot machine with humanoid mannerisms. It may not seem like it on the surface but these addictions are a form of self harm.
Consider the people who spend everything on an onlyfans model and then stalk them. Consider the massive outcry that occurred when replika shut down. These services aren’t being used as stepping stones to a better life. They’re whirlpools that suck you in and chew up your bones so that their creators can live in comforts you can’t afford.
The only stepping stone to real love and not this mechanical perversion of love is to learn to love yourself, then others, then humanity. If you trust a robot’s love then it’s too late. You’ve already caved to the ideology of a dead world.
Meaningful relationships take time and a lot of work to maintain. They involve trust and understanding each other. Messing with this thing for even one second is not worth the time or effort even if it does say it loves you because every second spent on it is one second wasted that could have gone into meeting, developing, or maintaining a relationship. Ultimately do whatever you want, but in my opinion this isn’t even cope, it’s just giving up.
Of course it’s a coping mechanism, but that’s not unhealthy in itself. Not every minute of your life can be spent on self-improvement or working towards your goals. Sometimes people need an escape and that’s fine. That’s not mutually exclusive with trying to improve things.
Because your social skills are going to get even worse since you’re “practicing” your social skills with a shitty AI that you’ll have to spend more time unlearning. It’s like how people who spend time curbstomping bots suck when they play against actual humans because they pick up habits that come from curbstomping bots.
Sorry, but this seems like a huge reach to me. It’s not “practicing social skills”, it’s pure entertainment. Downtime in the same vein as watching youtube or netflix. That it will start to change how you interact with people in any significant way sounds pretty baseless.
Even in the analogy it doesn’t work like that. In most games, someone who’s spent 30 hours playing against bots and 0 against humans are gonna have a quicker time learning how to play against humans than someone who’s spent 0 hours on both, despite the former having habits to unlearn. They’re bad because they don’t know how to play against humans, not because they played against bots.
Am I crazy for thinking apps like these are just… fine?
I don’t think they’re used by people who can’t tell the difference between a bot and a human, but by people who aren’t able to find any meaningful human connection and need something. If this helps alleviate the pain of loneliness even a little bit, I still think that’s a good thing even if it’s fake.
Conceptually, yes. However, the type of person who this would appeal to also tends to be emotionally vulnerable due to lack of human connection. Leaving tech bros to monetize this kind of app is a recipe for disaster. That’s not even considering how bad content could lead to self harm or similar.
At least it’s not Da’esh?
Nah I’m gonna go on the offensive and say if it gets to the point where this appeals to you, then you seriously need to consider touching grass. There are billions of people on the planet, go make a friend out of one of them. If you literally cannot do that, then there is some heavy self reflection that needs to be done as to why that is.
Using stuff like this as a replacement for human connection is not okay.
You know I’d never quite thought of it like that before
the problem is that this doesn’t actually solve the problem, though. you’re just as socially alienated afterwards. and the people this targets are already prone to objectifying women - the relationship progression system is fucked up.
I don’t disagree, but I think the appropriate response is empathy and an attempt at understanding rather than saying “LOL touch grass idiot, stop being affected by societal ills” like the user I responded to
for sure
You’re gonna tell me there’s no difference between being socially alienated and preferring to spend time with an AI? What is this fucking blade runner?
Making actual connections takes time. If you’re starved for human connection you’re not going to be making meaningful ones in a span of days or a couple weeks, and you’re going to be lonely all the time you’re working on that.
Of course you should try to figure ou why you struggle to make friends, but a lot of lonely people already tend to do that more than what is healthy, and using a silly ai app isn’t going to stop or even slow down your progress.
Also, “If you’re lonely, just go make friends,” is an asshole thing to say, and you probably know it doesn’t work like that.
I get what you’re saying, but that’s exactly my point. Yes relationships take time to develop and make meaningful, but talking to an AI could not be a worse use of your time if that TRULY was what you were after. Also not every interaction you have with another person is going to be meaningful, in fact most every interaction is not meaningful, but that doesn’t make them not worth it. How are you supposed to develop those skills if you do not exercise them? The best situations to exercise them on is low stakes casual conversation that doesn’t matter. Literally trying to interact with someone casually and being stonewalled is a better use of your time than spending any time with this or any AI. And yeah I’m aware that sounds kinda assholey, but I don’t really care in this case. Go talk to a random, work on your skills, not everything has to have meaning, not everyone is gonna like you and that’s okay. Talking to this AI? You might as well just give up developing those skills at all because it’s tailor made to like you regardless of all other factors.
I just don’t see where the contradiction is. Why can you not work on creating human connections that can actually make you happy, while also anthropomorphising a chatbot that you can say I love you to, and hear it said back?
Of course it’s a coping mechanism, but that’s not unhealthy in itself. Not every minute of your life can be spent on self-improvement or working towards your goals. Sometimes people need an escape and that’s fine. That’s not mutually exclusive with trying to improve things.
The arcane puppetry at work here is designed to become an addiction not dissimilar to scrolling through social media to get a parasocial hit of dopamine. The capitalist is putting you in front of a slot machine with humanoid mannerisms. It may not seem like it on the surface but these addictions are a form of self harm.
Consider the people who spend everything on an onlyfans model and then stalk them. Consider the massive outcry that occurred when replika shut down. These services aren’t being used as stepping stones to a better life. They’re whirlpools that suck you in and chew up your bones so that their creators can live in comforts you can’t afford.
The only stepping stone to real love and not this mechanical perversion of love is to learn to love yourself, then others, then humanity. If you trust a robot’s love then it’s too late. You’ve already caved to the ideology of a dead world.
Meaningful relationships take time and a lot of work to maintain. They involve trust and understanding each other. Messing with this thing for even one second is not worth the time or effort even if it does say it loves you because every second spent on it is one second wasted that could have gone into meeting, developing, or maintaining a relationship. Ultimately do whatever you want, but in my opinion this isn’t even cope, it’s just giving up.
Because your social skills are going to get even worse since you’re “practicing” your social skills with a shitty AI that you’ll have to spend more time unlearning. It’s like how people who spend time curbstomping bots suck when they play against actual humans because they pick up habits that come from curbstomping bots.
Sorry, but this seems like a huge reach to me. It’s not “practicing social skills”, it’s pure entertainment. Downtime in the same vein as watching youtube or netflix. That it will start to change how you interact with people in any significant way sounds pretty baseless.
Even in the analogy it doesn’t work like that. In most games, someone who’s spent 30 hours playing against bots and 0 against humans are gonna have a quicker time learning how to play against humans than someone who’s spent 0 hours on both, despite the former having habits to unlearn. They’re bad because they don’t know how to play against humans, not because they played against bots.
Not that I would ever in a million years use this shit, but I really do see the appeal ngl.
I have multiple irl friends but they’re all partnered. Makes it super hard to hang out without being seen as codependent or a nuisance or whatever
I mean it also trains men to view women as things