I’m personally not and I never will be, but I keep seeing on the news that a lot of people are actually becoming friends with their AI bots, trying to use them as substitutes to replace real human interaction. Kinda scary, kinda absurd. What is your take on this? And are you friends with a bot?

  • JandroDelSol@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    2 days ago

    they aren’t sentient so they’re just as incapable of being your friend as your favorite coffee mug or perfume

  • QubaXR@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    3 days ago

    Once you realize LLMs are nothing much but very advanced auto-complete, behavior of AI fanatics becomes no different than any other cult.

  • EvilFonzy@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    2 days ago

    AI characters do nothing but spew meaningless platitudes and generic advice dressed up as a personality. That’s like considering the horoscope section on a random website to be your sister.

  • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    3 days ago

    I’ve used local LLMs as sounding boards.

    I… Don’t really have friends to do that with at the moment, and I can bounce thoughts off them I wouldn’t even tell family or a therapist, as much as I want. Not gonna lie, it’s pretty intimate, and I got some insights I never would’ve arrived at in my own head.

    But to emphasize:

    • This is totally within my own desktop.

    • I am perfectly aware I am talking to a tool. “Friend” isn’t even in the same universe.

    The general public’s “LLM literacy” is incredibly poor though, which is by design since online services like chatGPT hide all the knobs that would reveal the machine behind the curtain. Hence I can see how emotionally vulnerable people sink into this, talking to what OpenAI presents as a magic genie.

    • infinitevalence@discuss.online
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      3 days ago

      how many tokens can you get to with your current system? I find that some of the models are so verbose that I only get 3-5 questions in before I run out of tokens.

      I have one system with 128gb system ram, 16gb vram, and one system with configurable vram up to 48gb out of a total of 64gb.

      • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        3 days ago

        I’m in a 24GB 3090 + 128GB RAM.

        With full 300B GLM 4.6, I typically run 12K-28K context with different settings. I could do more than 28K, but the higher quantization starts to become a problem (as 128GB is right on the edge of fitting an IQ3_KT). And I get 5-6 tokens/s text-generation doing that.

        With GLM Air? I can get a lot more, closer to 64K.

        With smaller models that’s no issue.

        I only get 3-5 questions in before I run out of tokens.

        IDK how you’re prompting it, but you should clear the thinking block after every question, and that should leave plenty of tokens.

        What model are you running, and what are your inference server settings?

          • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            2 days ago

            I mean, it depends on your hardware and the model’s size/intelligence.

            Worst case for me is many seconds of preprocessing followed by 4-5 words a second.

            But you can get almost instant responses + way faster than you can read too.

    • kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      3 days ago

      Not a modern program, but I don’t see anything that makes me think that programs will never be capable of metacognition. LLMs won’t, but they aren’t the be-all end-all.

    • catwoman@lemmy.worldOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      arrow-down
      6
      ·
      3 days ago

      No shit Sherlock I’m not saying you can become friends with a program I’m saying a lot of people are using it as a substitute for real human interaction aka friends you dolt

      • remon@ani.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        3 days ago

        I’m not saying you can become friends

        But you’re literally asking people if they are friends with AI… that implies that you believe you can become friends with it.

          • remon@ani.social
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            3 days ago

            I did. And there is nothing in there that implies that you don’t believe it. In fact it kind of confirm it an additional 3 times.

  • Twongo [she/her]@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    3 days ago

    No. And I don’t know anyone.

    I hooope it’s not a huge issue? We all know the media treats 30 tweets about a topic as “the next new thing”. I totally understand the psychology behind (ab)using AI as a Friend substitute though - which makes this phenomenon feel very real and widespread.

  • birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    2 days ago

    It’s dumb and doesn’t tackle the root of loneliness. If they’re lonely, they need support to find new friends.

    If they have trouble making friends, and it’s not due to their own personality being toxic (like being an incel, creep, borderline, or generally an asshole), then they also need support in learning how to socialise. And even if they had those toxic behaviour issues, having help to overcome those would still be useful for everyone in the long end.

    But that said. It doesn’t mean they’d have to socialise, just that they learn how to do so, and so have a way out of their vicious circle. Best way to make friends as an adult (so, no school/college/uni), is to go to the circles where you have mutual interests.

    So, to such people I say: go take up a calming team sport. Take up an hobby that’s relaxing and doesn’t make conflicts. Schedule IRL meetups with the people you like and know online. Go to a concert, or a bar. Or go to a lecture, you can then discuss with people afterward.

    Or, a “search friends” app (like for dating?, but I don’t recommend those because they work on profit, so they often recommend the ones that barely just don’t work out, to keep you hooked.

    Talking to people is scary, but try and experiment using normal, calm lines. Weather is a great topic, the relevant event to discuss about also is, to start discussions. Even if you “fail” one of thos social interactions, so what? You can apologise, explain that you find it difficult socialising, or you wouldn’t see them again. So you can just start afresh with other people and learn.

  • zxqwas@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    3 days ago

    I’ve not tried any paid ones. The free ones I’ve tried have forgot what I said after a few back and forths.

      • zxqwas@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        2 days ago

        Same thing that makes me try everything new. Boredom and an afternoon to spare. Was fun for a while but lost interest once I’ve noticed the patterns.