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I'm glad I've lived long enough to be vindicated. The man who is a step ahead is lauded as a genius, the man who is two is externally indistinguishable from the insane.
I remember, about a year and a half back, maybe two, showing off AI voice mode (Chatgpt and Gemini) to my dad and his surgeon colleagues. They'd been meh about AI in general, and when they heard it composing poetry in their native language on the fly, in real time? And when they asked it medical/surgical questions and got the right answers right away?
They were blown away. I installed the relevant apps on several phones that evening.
Now, some might complain that introducing the elderly to AI is bad. They have a multitude of reasons, some of them reasonable, for holding that objection. I don't particularly see the harm in what you're doing - many people are lonely, and as long as they're not talking to old GPT 4o? If it works, it works. The alternative is a conversation with a harried Filipina carer, in many cases.
I can see how it might work for an older person who is too enfeebled to really get out. But that person is also at tremendous risk for being taken advantage of and if I were evil I would be salivating at how easy it would be to get these old folks to bury me in gift cards.
But for other lonely people? If my gen zer kid is spending time with chatgpt instead of figuring out real relationships, I am worried.
If I decide a solitary widowhood isn't my jam and start using chatgpt to fill a void instead of joining a social org, I am worried.
Heck, if my geriatric mother spends her walks chatting with her ai friend rather than her neighbor, I am worried.
In the absence of any better options, ok. Better to have a fake friend than no friend, maybe - I am not convinced fake friends solve for loneliness. But if the fake friend is impeding actually finding real interaction? I'm suggesting against it.
I try not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good, or the good be the enemy of merely better.
In an ideal world, this old lady would have companions to... play bingo with, I guess. I'm not sure what else old women do. Dote on their grandkids? The point is that merely wishing for it won't make it true.
Is it a good thing that she has to settle for an AI companion, one that may or may not have a memory, and which is largely unable to affect the physical world? I'd prefer otherwise. My preference does not make it so. At least it's not going to ask for gift cards. It might bring a dying person comfort in their last days, and will only get better at doing so.
My mom is in her 80s. She does normal human things. She makes her meals, cleans her house, volunteers in her church. She goes on regular walks around her neighborhood, acts as surrogate mother/grandmother to her neighbor & neighbor's kids... She and her sisters recently got home from their yearly sister trip. Vacation bible school just finished and my mom planned the activities and pinch hit for the toddler teachers as usual. Though she is slowing down - she set herself up to be a baby wrangler more of the time. Once summer is over she will resume teaching her regular (adult) Sunday school class. Since COVID I call her weekly and last week she told me about a radio interview with a Swedish Heavy Metal band and how surprised she was to enjoy their music; I gave her some tips for how she could find more of their music.
Replace my weekly phone call with chatgpt. Maybe. Have her train it to basically meal plan and prep grocery lists for her. Fine. Replace her church and social interactions? To her detriment. Take the place of her biblical research for the classes she teaches? Not if I want her brain to continue functioning optimally.
I am lucky she is well integrated in her neighborhood and her church. If she weren't I think we would need to figure out how to do that rather than try to replace it with an ai friend. If she were bed bound I might think differently. But most older folks are just older and a bit slower. They still have plenty to offer the world and a lot of reasons to participate in it.
(Exploiting ai is a thing. If your parent is at risk from kidnapped grandchild scams over the phone, consider them at risk from ai scammers as well.)
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I hope it does scratch that itch and that you or she are able to figure out how to help her get more human connection.
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I have no right to judge you, and I don't care to. May she find some reprieve from the loneliness that does more good than it harms.
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You replied to a filtered comment.
From Astral Codex Ten's most recent link roundup comes a study indicating that, among USAians of ages 18–30 in romantic relationships, a whopping 15 percent are two-timing their romantic partners with LLMs on the side. Even people who probably should be considered non-lonely are turning to LLMs for additional companionship.
This raises an interesting question: What does it even mean to cheat on someone with AI? Or to put it another way, what exactly is a romantic relationship?
AI has no body, it cannot share resources, it cannot start a family, and it cannot confer status (because AI relationships have no scarcity they will always be neutral status at best). So presumably "cheating" would mean forming a deep emotional connection. But other forms of emotional connection are seen as non-threatening: best friends, close siblings, maybe a therapist.
I see AI relationships becoming ubiquitous in the future. That's because they're not merely a simulacrum of a relationship. They're a super-stimulus. They are always available, never judgemental, fully empathetic, asking for nothing in return. I expect them to be as ubiquitous as junk food and porn.
I also expect it to become normalized that these relationships exist along side human romantic relationships. I predict there won't but much issues with jealousy to the extent that it doesn't compete for sex or resource commitment. I hesitate to even call these AI relationships "romantic" even though there may be clear overlap in the role it plays with a romantic partner.
I think what we'll see is a shift in what we consider to be the role of a romantic partner. I think we will see the role of AI and human in relationships to become increasingly specialized. Modern relationships put a lot of emphasis on emotional connection, but AI may simply out-complete humans in this role. The purpose of a human relationship may emphasize other things like physical attraction, sharing finances, and conferring social status.
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