So I looked up, out of morbid curiosity, some of the reddit threads this article is referencing, and I kind of think we might be falling for an industry publicity stunt. Don’t get me wrong, there were some sick individuals. But most people just seemed to be putting the AI through its paces by giving it more and more extreme prompts, to test how human its reactions are. The answer is: not very: the technology is still not particularly impressive, and you can almost always tell there’s a machine at the other end. Of course violence against women and sexual minorities exists, and is a huge problem. But I think this article is more a deliberate attempt to “humanize” AI in the public mind and sell more Replika bots – kind of a viral marketing, if you will.
So I looked up, out of morbid curiosity, some of the reddit threads this article is referencing, and I kind of think we might be falling for an industry publicity stunt. Don’t get me wrong, there were some sick individuals. But most people just seemed to be putting the AI through its paces by giving it more and more extreme prompts, to test how human its reactions are. The answer is: not very: the technology is still not particularly impressive, and you can almost always tell there’s a machine at the other end. Of course violence against women and sexual minorities exists, and is a huge problem. But I think this article is more a deliberate attempt to “humanize” AI in the public mind and sell more Replika bots – kind of a viral marketing, if you will.
Well shit! Leave it to capitalists to use something this vile as a marketing ploy