alt Hacker NewsThe solution is to stop treating AI as superhuman semi-living entities, as many boosters are apt to do. We can acknowledge it as a useful tool while understanding it has limits and is not “alive” or “thinking” in the same way a human is.
Replies
> The solution is to stop treating AI as superhuman semi-living entities, as many boosters are apt to do.
It's not just fanboys doing that, but "official" educational channels. Both an internal training (more like an all-hands knowledge share) and some dumb training session by a guy from Anthropic explicitly, repeatedly recommended users anthropomorphize their chatbots on no uncertain terms. "Treat it as your super-smart coworkers", "I named mine Becky and I go to her with all my work challenges", etc.
What I'd like is the TNG ship computer: an extremely smart system that nonetheless limits its "creativity" to the clearly marked holodeck, where simple prompting is treated like the casual throwaway diversion it is, and actual authors are still putting in substantial effort and personal preferences and viewpoints into their work.
That’s not a solution. Humans are wired to anthropomorphise; we do it with sticks and rocks. How much more so with LLMs.
We’ve invented a technology that hijacks that part of humanity more effectively than anything ever. Asking people to “not be so stupid” is not going to help.