Ask HN: Are chatbots good enough now for people to worry less about dying alone? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Are chatbots good enough now for people to worry less about dying alone?

4 pointsamichail10 comments

The recent transcripts from the Google chatbot seem very promising in this regard.

No, of course not. With a chat bot you’re still alone.

But would you feel alone?

Think it depends on if the chatbot can pass the turing test. That would be step one.

A Turing Test is inherently adversarial, whereas an idealised friendship can be constructive and forgiving. Indeed, many people can maintain loving relationships with spouses who suffer from dementia and other mental illnesses, and who might fail a Turing Test if they were one of the candidates.

Most of the email I receive would fail the Turing test.

Are you unfamiliar with loneliness? A full sentiet AI cyborg is still a machine people made. It cannot relate to you. Even animals are better because we know they are flesh and feel pain and pleasures like we do. To have company is not to chat but having proximity to someone that understands you the way you understand yourself.

An elderly friend of my wife's is in a nursing home. My wife talks to her on the phone every day, sometimes twice a day. The friend talks about how she is so lonely all the time, and why can't my wife come and visit more often?

Well, the 200-mile round trip is definitely a factor...

I thought the "worry less about dying alone" bit was a joke.

One avoids dying alone by living with one's family, among friends (real live ones), within a community (again, real live ones, not internet ones).

Much of the Anglo world's ills (emotional and economic) would be alleviated if its inhabitants were interdependent on extended family and friends (which is natural) rather than faceless corporations and technology (unnatural).

This is going to be inherently subjective, but my read is that chatbots aren't 'meant' to alleviate loneliness. They're a different experience. That said I do think the LaMBDA project is exciting. Hope they release it to the public at some stage.

What...

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