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evanbtoday at 7:29 PM2 repliesview on HN

I have always anthropomorphized my computer as me to some extent. "I sent an email." "I browsed the web." Did I? Or did my computer do those things at my behest?


Replies

doesnt_knowtoday at 9:23 PM

I think this is a relatively unique outlook and not one that is shared by most.

If you use a tool to automate sending emails, unrelated to LLMs, in most scenarios the behaviour on the receiver is different.

- If I get a mass email from a company and it's signed off from the CEO, I don't think the CEO personally emailed me. They may glanced over it and approved it, maybe not even that but they didn't "send an email". At best, one might think that "the company" sent an email.

- I randomly send my wife cute stickers on Telegram as a sort of show that I'm thinking of her. If I setup a script to do that at random intervals and she finds out, from her point of view I "didn't send them" and she would be justifiably upset.

I know this might be a difficult concept for many people that browse this forum, but the end product/result is not always the point. There are many parts of our lives and society in general that the act of personally doing something is the entire point.

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baxtrtoday at 8:25 PM

I drove to the supermarket!