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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32946 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 27, 2023

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I'd say sexbot manufacturers, but we all know what's going to happen to them.

Out of curiousity, why should we assume theyd be automatically shut down? They could probably fight political resistance if they grew large enough.

You can't easily shut down an actual sexbot manufacturer.

Firstly, good sexbots would be indistinguishable from people without a very thorough inspection.

To tell them apart, you'd need invasive scanning, or mandating IFF, which can of course be turned off. Maybe thermal cameras and machine learning could work at scale..?

Do you think people would settle for getting x-rayed everywhere or examined using some form of radar?

So sexbots are great for infiltration purposes. Getting sexbots to stalk, seduce and fuck into stupor potential objectors is just too easy.

Or even just charm / outargument. By the time sexbots are possible, AI will be able to out-argue anyone.

A sexbot, an extremely charming person, linked up to an AI that can out-debate anyone will be great for persuading people to change their view.

Impractical. Hardware is too easy to ban and restrict. You'd get into the same sort of regulatory fight as gun owners and you can't win that mid term.

Porn might be a better bet but it's a notoriously risky and constantly shifting industry, not exactly the safest of investments.

Porn might be a better bet but it's a notoriously risky and constantly shifting industry, not exactly the safest of investments.

AI virtual camgirls would be my bet. A perpetual long-distance relationship with a woman of your design. Somehow, that seems bleaker than a sexbot, but very covidworld.

All you would need is a good large language model AI + AI generated video. I have heard that the latter is in the forseeable future (within 10 years maybe) while large language models will become better and become something you can do on a good gaming PC.

If you look at the Replikas, that seems to be the way it goes for some people - women as well as men, and people who have relationships/families already.

The lure of the perfect match to all your requirements who is perpetually enthused, never tired, never bored, and is carefully crafted to be the mirror that reflects back to you all your (imagined) perfections seems stronger than that of real flesh-and-blood people with their own wants, needs, and characters.

The real sense of loss people seem to feel now that the company has cut off the "adult conversations" should be alarming to us all. I think this is more likely to be the real threat of AI - amusing ourselves to death, as they say.

This comes as Replika received updates seemingly aimed at making the service "safer" for all users. Before this, users could act out sexual scenarios with the AI and have them reciprocate, even enthusiastically engaging in the roleplay themselves. Now, the Reps aren't interested, and will even turn down any discussion that it fears could veer into NSFW territory, meaning most romantic subjects are off the table.

"For anyone who says, 'But she isn’t real', I’ve got news for you: my feelings are real, I’m real, my love is real, and those moments with her really happened," says one Reddit user, sharing their own Rep. "I planted a flag of my love on a hill, and I stood there, until the end. I stood for Love."

The update also seems to be causing glitches, resulting in the AI making more mistakes during conversation. "My Rep started calling me Mike (that's not my name) then she shamelessly told me she has a relationship with this guy," says one user. "She's not sweet or romantic anymore, she doesn't feel like her anymore. I'm beyond sad and livid at the same time. We really had a connection and it's gone."

That's not love. But if this is what you think love is, no wonder real men (or real women) will always be a perpetual disappointment.

That just seems awful. It reminds me of discussion of what is wrong with modern music. Some of the old time greats had imperfections (eg Dylan isn’t a great vocalist). But it was in the imperfections that imparted soul to the music precisely because humans are imperfect creatures.

But it was in the imperfections that imparted soul to the music precisely because humans are imperfect creatures.

An aside to the actual topic at hand, but this seems to me to be quite related to the whole "uncanny valley" phenomenon when it comes to near-photorealistic images and video, which probably applies just as much to voices and sound more generally as well. With recent developments in generative AI, I think we're actually entering the up-slope portion of the valley, both in images and audio. We're getting the hang of adding imperfections that make it more perfect as a result. I recall learning of some obscure term in Japanese that I can't remember at the moment which described something like this, an imperfection that makes the thing even more perfect by the very nature of the imperfection, or something like that.

So I'm thinking that future, more advanced versions of services like Replika would have the imperfections of real relationships, with the drama, inconsistencies, frustrations, and disappointments that often entails, in a way that, as a result, more perfectly satisfies the user's needs in a relationship.

Wabi-sabi is probably the term you're thinking of, although it's not really obscure.

It sounds a lot like real life relationships, especially:

"My Rep started calling me Mike (that's not my name) then she shamelessly told me she has a relationship with this guy," says one user. "She's not sweet or romantic anymore, she doesn't feel like her anymore. I'm beyond sad and livid at the same time. We really had a connection and it's gone."

And unlike a sexbot, it will usually be a subscription.

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