Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
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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 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.
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