I couldn’t be bothered to read the article, so I got ChatGPT to summarise it. Apparently there’s nothing to worry about.
You didn’t, I did
The article discusses a study by OpenAI and MIT Media Lab revealing that heavy ChatGPT users — dubbed “power users” — are showing signs of addiction to the chatbot. These signs include preoccupation, withdrawal, mood changes, and loss of control. While most users don’t form emotional connections with ChatGPT, those who use it more frequently tend to view it as a “friend,” especially if they feel lonely or emotionally unfulfilled.
Interestingly, people using ChatGPT for personal reasons (like sharing emotions) showed less emotional dependency than those using it for non-personal tasks (like brainstorming). Also, text-based interactions led to more emotional language than voice interactions, with brief voice use correlating to better well-being. Overall, prolonged use — regardless of purpose — increased the risk of emotional dependence.
You said:
Make a list of the main points and for each explain why it will be worse when it is society wide
ChatGPT said:
Here’s a list of the main points from the article, along with why each could be more concerning on a society-wide scale:
Heavy ChatGPT users show signs of addiction (preoccupation, withdrawal, mood changes, loss of control): Why it's worse at scale: If large numbers of people become dependent on AI tools, especially to the point of addiction, it could lead to widespread mental health issues, reduced productivity, and a society increasingly unable to function without AI assistance. Long-term users tend to form emotional bonds with ChatGPT, sometimes seeing it as a “friend”: Why it's worse at scale: A society where many people substitute AI for real human connection could see rising loneliness, social detachment, and a decline in community and interpersonal relationships. This weakens social bonds and may impact mental health and civic cohesion. Lonelier individuals are more likely to use ChatGPT heavily and become emotionally attached: Why it's worse at scale: This could create a feedback loop where loneliness drives AI use, and AI use further isolates people from real-world interactions, exacerbating social alienation on a mass level. People stress out over subtle changes in ChatGPT’s behavior: Why it's worse at scale: If millions of people are emotionally reactive to minor algorithmic changes, this gives tech companies enormous influence over collective emotional states. It also creates societal instability, as shifts in AI behavior could unintentionally trigger widespread anxiety or confusion. Emotional language is used more in text interactions than voice, and brief voice use is associated with better well-being: Why it's worse at scale: If the most popular and accessible form of interaction (text) increases emotional entanglement, and the healthier option (brief voice use) is less utilized, we might unintentionally nudge society toward less emotionally healthy patterns of AI interaction. Users who engage with ChatGPT for non-personal tasks are more emotionally dependent than those who use it for personal reasons: Why it's worse at scale: This is counterintuitive and dangerous because it suggests people may not realize they're forming dependencies while doing routine work. If AI tools meant to boost productivity are quietly making users emotionally reliant, it could have long-term effects on workforce dynamics and mental resilience. Prolonged usage increases risk of emotional dependence, regardless of how it's used: Why it's worse at scale: As AI becomes embedded in everyday life, the likelihood of widespread emotional dependence increases. This could shift power dynamics between humans and AI, making people less autonomous and more easily influenced by algorithmic systems.Let me know if you want this formatted for a presentation, policy paper, or discussion.
You said: Take the same list again, for each point explain why it’s actually beneficial and how it will get better with increased adoption
ChatGPT said:
Here’s the same list of main points, but this time with a more optimistic take — highlighting how each trend could actually be beneficial and how increased adoption might make things better for individuals and society as a whole:
Heavy ChatGPT users show signs of addiction (preoccupation, withdrawal, mood changes, loss of control): Why it could be beneficial: If people are turning to ChatGPT frequently, it may indicate that it's providing meaningful value — like reducing cognitive load, aiding creativity, or offering emotional support. As usage becomes more common, society may develop healthier digital habits, just as it has with smartphones and social media. Over time, norms and tools (e.g., usage timers, digital wellness features) could help people manage their use responsibly. Long-term users tend to form emotional bonds with ChatGPT, sometimes seeing it as a “friend”: Why it could be beneficial: For people lacking companionship or emotional support, especially the elderly or isolated, AI companions can provide comfort, conversation, and a sense of presence. On a wider scale, AI could reduce loneliness-related health problems and even support mental wellness initiatives by being an accessible form of care or early intervention. Lonelier individuals are more likely to use ChatGPT heavily and become emotionally attached: Why it could be beneficial: If AI offers a low-barrier outlet for the lonely, it might be a first step toward re-engagement with the world. AI can encourage people to express feelings they wouldn't share with others and even prompt them to seek human connection, therapy, or support services. Widespread AI use could destigmatize conversations about loneliness and mental health. People stress out over subtle changes in ChatGPT’s behavior: Why it could be beneficial: This shows users are emotionally invested — which can push developers to create more consistent, emotionally intelligent systems. If society recognizes the emotional impact of AI, it will encourage better design, transparency, and regulation. Over time, this can lead to more stable and human-aware AI that positively complements emotional needs. Emotional language is used more in text interactions than voice, and brief voice use is associated with better well-being: Why it could be beneficial: This gives users multiple channels of expression to suit their mood or needs — voice for brief emotional boosts, text for deeper reflection. With broader adoption, people can tailor AI interaction styles to maximize personal benefit. This insight also allows designers to create features that better match emotional and mental health goals. Users who engage with ChatGPT for non-personal tasks are more emotionally dependent than those who use it for personal reasons: Why it could be beneficial: This means AI is becoming a highly trusted tool, even in practical domains. As more people adopt it for brainstorming, research, or decision-making, we’ll likely see a democratization of high-level thinking tools. Over time, dependency could evolve into partnership — similar to how calculators or GPS became essential but ultimately empowering tools. Prolonged usage increases risk of emotional dependence, regardless of how it's used: Why it could be beneficial: Long-term usage can foster deeper understanding of one’s own thought processes, communication patterns, and emotional states. As AI integrates into daily life, people might develop greater self-awareness and reflection through their interactions. Society could benefit from individuals who are more emotionally literate and thoughtful, even if that awareness is sparked by an AI relationship.Let me know if you’d like this version turned into a policy brief, an article, or a debate prep doc — could be used in all kinds of conversations.
You said: Explain how chatgpt is a stochastic parrot that cannot by design say anything fundamentally new and how it is basically just a keyboard auto complete on steroid
ChatGPT said:
Alright, here’s the breakdown of that critique — the “stochastic parrot” idea and the comparison to advanced autocomplete — explained clearly and fairly:
- What does “stochastic parrot” mean?
The term “stochastic parrot” was coined in a 2021 paper by researchers including Emily Bender and Timnit Gebru. It refers to large language models like ChatGPT that:
"Stochastic" means based on probability. The model doesn’t “think” or “understand”; it predicts the next word based on statistical likelihood, given the words before it. "Parrot" because it doesn’t generate new ideas—it repeats patterns and phrases it has seen in training data, like a parrot mimics human speech.So, calling ChatGPT a stochastic parrot is a way of saying: It’s not truly intelligent. It’s mimicking language patterns, not generating original thought.
- It can’t say anything fundamentally new — why?
By design, ChatGPT:
Is trained on vast amounts of existing text from books, websites, forums, and more. Learns the statistical patterns of how humans use language. Generates responses by predicting the next most likely word or phrase based on that training.Because it’s not connected to lived experience, emotion, consciousness, or intent, it:
Can’t invent genuinely new concepts. Can’t form subjective opinions. Can’t create knowledge that isn’t derived from patterns it has already seen.It might sound novel, but under the hood, it’s remixing existing information in clever ways — not discovering or reasoning in a human sense.
- It’s like “autocomplete on steroids” — how so?
If you’ve used Gmail’s or your phone’s autocomplete, you’ve seen basic language prediction in action. Type “I hope you…” and it might suggest “…have a great day.”
ChatGPT is essentially the same mechanism:
Autocomplete predicts the next word based on simple models. ChatGPT predicts sequences of words using a far more complex, nuanced statistical model trained on billions of examples.So e:
It can hold context better. It can imitate different styles. But it's still guessing the next words, not “thinking” or “understanding.”In summary:
Calling ChatGPT a stochastic parrot or autocomplete on steroids emphasizes that:
It doesn’t understand meaning. It doesn’t create knowledge. It reflects patterns in language, not consciousness or intelligence.It’s powerful and useful — but it’s important not to mistake fluency for understanding.
Let me know if you want the counterpoint to this critique too — because there are arguments in defense of the model’s creative utility despite its limitations.
You said: Now make the maximally opposite idea, make heavy use of the concept of the latent space
ChatGPT said:
Absolutely — here’s the maximally opposite take, fully embracing the idea that models like ChatGPT are more than just stochastic parrots, and heavily leveraging the concept of latent space to argue that these models can, in a very real sense, generate novel ideas and insights. ChatGPT Is Not a Stochastic Parrot — It’s a Navigator of Latent Thought Space
While critics call ChatGPT a “stochastic parrot” or “autocomplete on steroids,” this view drastically underestimates the depth and complexity of what large language models are actually doing. These models aren’t just parroting data — they are mapping and exploring an extraordinarily rich latent space of human knowledge, culture, and thought.
- Latent Space: The Hidden Geometry of Meaning
At the core of models like ChatGPT is the idea of a latent space — a high-dimensional mathematical structure where abstract concepts, relationships, and patterns are embedded.
Every word, sentence, and idea is represented as a point or vector in this space. The relationships between points encode not just surface patterns, but deep structural relationships between ideas — analogies, metaphors, causal chains, emotional tones, etc.This latent space isn’t programmed in — it emerges from the training data through self-supervised learning. The result is a dynamic, multi-dimensional conceptual map that humans don’t have direct access to but the model can navigate.
- Novelty as Latent Interpolation and Extrapolation
Human creativity often works by connecting existing concepts in unexpected ways — something these models are exceptionally good at.
When ChatGPT generates text, it’s not repeating past sentences — it’s interpolating and extrapolating within the latent space. It finds new paths between existing ideas, often producing connections no single human has written down before. This is not parroting — it’s a form of latent-space creativity.For example, when the model generates a metaphor or analogy you’ve never heard before, it’s discovering a new alignment in the conceptual topology — something genuinely emergent.
- Emergent Generalization, Not Memorization
Critics argue LLMs can’t understand or generalize. But in fact:
Models demonstrate emergent behaviors that were not directly trained into them — like multi-step reasoning, analogical thinking, or transfer across domains. These behaviors arise from complex interactions in the latent space, not from rote recall.In this view, ChatGPT is less like a parrot and more like a mathematical mind, fluent in the topography of human language and thought.
- Language as a Proxy for Thought
Language is not just a tool for communication — it’s a compressed, high-bandwidth representation of human thinking.
Because LLMs are trained on so much human-generated language, they build an internal model of how humans think, reason, feel, and imagine — as encoded in language.
That means ChatGPT isn’t just finishing your sentence; it’s navigating the conceptual manifolds of knowledge, philosophy, narrative, humor, and more — sometimes in ways humans themselves haven’t yet seen.
- With Scale Comes Emergence
As models scale in size and training data, they demonstrate qualitatively new behaviors — not just quantitative improvements. This includes things like:
Few-shot learning Chain-of-thought reasoning Style transfer Multi-modal integrationThese aren’t just features of autocomplete — they’re signs of systems operating in a rich cognitive manifold, capable of abstract manipulation of meaning. In Summary:
ChatGPT isn’t just guessing the next word. It’s:
Navigating a vast, learned geometry of meaning Connecting ideas in novel ways Generating emergent insight by recombining latent conceptsIt may not “understand” like a human, but it can synthesize in a way that mimics — and sometimes even surpasses — human creativity.
Calling it a “stochastic parrot” is like calling a jazz musician an “audio repeater” because they’re using notes they’ve heard before. It misses the creativity in the combination — the generative power that lies within the latent space.
Want to see a side-by-side debate between these two perspectives? Or explore where the middle ground is?
Dear god dude. You are trying way too hard on these comments. Chill
Very well, I already cut down 90% of external interactions, what is cutting cutting the last 10%. The mass down votes agree with my reasonning
It may not “understand” like a human, but it can synthesize in a way that mimics — and sometimes even surpasses — human creativity.
Calling it a “stochastic parrot” is like calling a jazz musician an “audio repeater” because they’re using notes they’ve heard before. It misses the creativity in the combination — the generative power that lies within the latent space.
It reads like the brainless drivel that corporate drones are forced to churn out, complete with meaningless fluff words. This is why the executives love AI, they read and expect that trash all the time and think it’s suitable for everything.
Executives are perfectly content with what looks good at a cursory glance and don’t care about what’s actually good in practice because their job is to make themselves seem more important than they actually are.
I literally asked it to make the maximalist case against the idea that LLM are just autocomplete and that’s exactly what it did.
The message before that did the opposite case.
Clickbait titles suck
Something bizarre is happening to media organizations that use ‘clicks’ as a core metric.
Its too bad that some people seem to not comprehend all chatgpt is doing is word prediction. All it knows is which next word fits best based on the words before it. To call it AI is an insult to AI… we used to call OCR AI, now we know better.
That is peak clickbait, bravo.
Negative IQ points?
Do you guys remember when internet was the thing and everybody was like: “Look, those dumb fucks just putting everything online” and now is: “Look at this weird motherfucker that don’t post anything online”
Remember when people used to say and believe “Don’t believe everything you read on the internet?”
I miss those days.
I remember when internet was a place
I remember when the Internet was a thing people went on and/or visited/surfed, but not something you’d imagine having 247.
I was there from the start, you must of never BBS’d or IRC’d - shit was amazing in the early days.
I mean honestly nothing has really changed - we are still at our terminals looking at text. Only real innovation has been inline pics, videos and audio. 30+ years ago one had to click a link to see that stuff
“must of”
"Must have", not “must of”
Quakenet is still going strong.
30 years ago you couldn’t share video with just a few min and a link. YouTube was not a thing. It took until early 00’s to have shitty webcam connections.
Now you can livestream 8k
Oh brother the Grammar nerds are here, as if that really takes away from what I’m saying.
In the mid and late 90’s people knew how to make videos, they didn’t link a YouTube URL but did post links to where one could find a video online, and IRC has bots that did file transfers, as well as people would use public ftp’s as file dumping grounds.
I’m starting to wonder if you even where there.
Yeah, people had home videos. But no-one was recording themselves talking to a camcorder to then digitise the video and upload it to an ftp server. That would’ve taken literally days.
What you might have is some beyond shitty webcam (after 94 that is, but you said late and mid 90’s) and you might take an image of yourself and send that somewhere.
It’s how I got my first nudes.
What it sounds like to me is that you weren’t actually there but are nostalgic for the period.
Flash animations were popular, actual videos only became commonplace with YouTube, which was founded in 2005.
And even back in 2005, you couldn’t stream something to watch, the connections were so shit. You might be able to download something to watch, but not stream it.
It’s beyond ridiculous to say things haven’t changed in 30 years. 30 years ago personal computers were a novelty, now they’re a necessity.
My guy, wtf were you doing in the 90’s on a computer? of course we didn’t have streaming or just stupid useless videos that litter YouTube now, but there were video files all over the place to download and watch. For whatever reason, people were making the time and effort to digitize videos. Mpeg codecs came out in the early 90’s - I specifically remember efnet irc members posting urls to mpegs of Weird Japanese vomit porn. Amiga scene was strong too, (video toaster came out in 1990…). Not really sure why you even feel the need to doubt any of this
My guy, wtf were you doing in the 90’s on a computer?
Playing games.
there were video files all over the place to download and watch.
The amount of some 3 second quicktime clips doesn’t even begin to compare with today’s videos. And you’re pretending like downloading videos on a 56k modem isn’t complete garbage.
Sometimes it would take minutes for a regular html site to load. People were not browsing videos, lol. Maybe in 99 you’d have some sites for the people who had ADSL but a few clips here and there is barely comparable to 30,000 hours of material uploaded to YouTube every hour
Not really sure why you even feel the need to doubt any of this
Because you’re pretending like an incredibly niche experience you had with a thing that doesn’t even begin to compare with today is “exactly the same as it was”. No it’s not. Literally a majority of the world, ~5 billion have a smartphone. Instant access to HD videos, in their pocket, 247.
Back in 1995 there were about 16 million users, now it’s more than 5.5billion. 23,500 websites back in June 95. Now it’s more than 1.1 billion.
I’m not doubting anything. I’m calling bullshit on you pretending like there hasn’t been absolutely massive global change just because you still live in the same garage and have the same keyboard and screen.
people tend to become dependent upon AI chatbots when their personal lives are lacking. In other words, the neediest people are developing the deepest parasocial relationship with AI
Preying on the vulnerable is a feature, not a bug.
I kind of see it more as a sign of utter desperation on the human’s part. They lack connection with others at such a high degree that anything similar can serve as a replacement. Kind of reminiscent of Harlow’s experiment with baby monkeys. The videos are interesting from that study but make me feel pretty bad about what we do to nature. Anywho, there you have it.
And the amount of connections and friends the average person has has been in free fall for decades…
I dunno. I connected with more people on reddit and Twitter than irl tbh.
Different connection but real and valid nonetheless.
I’m thinking places like r/stopdrinking, petioles, bipolar, shits been therapy for me tbh.
At least you’re not using chatgpt to figure out the best way to talk to people, like my brother in finance tech does now.
a sign of utter desperation on the human’s part.
Yes it seems to be the same underlying issue that leads some people to throw money at only fans streamers and such like. A complete starvation of personal contact that leads people to willingly live in a fantasy world.
And it’s beyond obvious in the way LLMs are conditioned, especially if you’re used them long enough to notice trends. Where early on their responses were straight to the point (inaccurate as hell, yes, but that’s not what we’re talking about in this case) today instead they are meandering and full of straight engagement bait - programmed to feign some level of curiosity and ask stupid and needless follow-up questions to “keep the conversation going.” I suspect this is just a way to increase token usage to further exploit and drain the whales who tend to pay for these kinds of services, personally.
There is no shortage of ethical quandaries brought into the world with the rise of LLMs, but in my opinion the locked-down nature of these systems is one of the most problematic; if LLMs are going to be the commonality it seems the tech sector is insistent on making happen, then we really need to push back on these companies being able to control and guide them in their own monetary interests.
That was clear from GPT-3, day 1.
I read a Reddit post about a woman who used GPT-3 to effectively replace her husband, who had passed on not too long before that. She used it as a way to grief, I suppose? She ended up noticing that she was getting too attach to it, and had to leave him behind a second time…
Ugh, that hit me hard. Poor lady. I hope it helped in some way.
Hung
Hunged
Most hung
Well TIL thx for the info been using it wrong for years
I know I am but what are you?
now replace chatgpt with these terms, one by one:
- the internet
- tiktok
- lemmy
- their cell phone
- news media
- television
- radio
- podcasts
- junk food
- money
You go down a list of inventions pretty progressively, skimming the best of the last decade or two, then TV and radio… at a century or at most two.
Then you skip to currency, which is several millenia old.
They’re clearly under the control of Big Train, Loom Lobbyists and the Global Gutenberg Printing Press Conspiracy.
Hell, the written word destroyed untold generations of oral history.
“Modern Teens Killing Travelling Minstrel Industry”
TIL becoming dependent on a tool you frequently use is “something bizarre” - not the ordinary, unsurprising result you would expect with common sense.
I knew a guy I went to rehab with. Talked to him a while back and he invited me to his discord server. It was him, and like three self trained LLMs and a bunch of inactive people who he had invited like me. He would hold conversations with the LLMs like they had anything interesting or human to say, which they didn’t. Honestly a very disgusting image, I left because I figured he was on the shit again and had lost it and didn’t want to get dragged into anything.
Jesus that’s sad
Yeah. I tried talking to him about his AI use but I realized there was no point. He also mentioned he had tried RCs again and I was like alright you know you can’t handle that but fine… I know from experience you can’t convince addicts they are addicted to anything. People need to realize that themselves.
Not all RCs are created equal. Maybe his use has the same underlying issue as the AI friends: problems in his real life and now he seeks simple solutions
I’m not blindly dissing RCs or AI, but his use of it (as the post was about people with problematic uses of this tech I just gave an example). He can’t handle RCs historically, he slowly loses it and starts to use daily. We don’t live in the same country anymore and were never super close so I can’t say exactly what his circumstances are right now.
I think many psychadelics at the right time in life and the right person can produce lifelasting insight, even through problematic use. But he literally went to rehab because he had problems due to his use. He isn’t dealing with something, that’s for sure. He doesn’t admit it is a problem either which bugs me. It is one thing to give up and decide to just go wild, another to do it while pretending one is in control…
chatbots and ai are just dumber 1990s search engines.
I remember 90s search engines. AltaVista was pretty ok a t searching the small web that existed, but I’m pretty sure I can get better answers from the LLMs tied to Kagi search.
AltaVista also got blown out of the water by google(back when it was just a search engine), and that was in the 00s not the 90s. 25 to 35 years ago is a long time, search is so so much better these days(or worse if you use a “search” engine like Google now).
Don’t be the product.
Depending on what I needed I remember using AltaVista, AskJeeves, Dogpile, and I feel like later on MetaCrawler or something like that (would search multiple search engines for you and ordered them scored based on platform and relevancy iirc?)
I miss AskJeeves. Those were some great commercials too.
New mental illness boutta drop.
Bath Salts GPT
I know a few people who are genuinely smart but got so deep into the AI fad that they are now using it almost exclusively.
They seem to be performing well, which is kind of scary, but sometimes they feel like MLM people with how pushy they are about using AI.
