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Comment by bananaflag | Hacker News Reader

And it's a pity that this highly prevalent phenomenon (to exaggerate a bit, probably the way tech in general will become the most influential in the next couple years) is barely mentioned on HN.

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I dunno. Tbf that subreddit has a combination of

  - a large number of incredibly fragile users
  - extremely "protective" mods
  - a regular stream of drive-by posts that regulars there see as derogatory or insulting
  - a fair amount of internal diversity and disagreement

I think discussion on forums larger than it, like HN or popular subreddits, is likely to drive traffic that will ultimately fuel a backfiring effect for the members. It's inevitable, and it's already happening, but I'm not sure it needs to increase.

I do think the phenomenon is a matter of legitimate public concern, but idk how that can best be addressed. Maybe high-quality, long form journalism? But probably not just cross-posting the sub in larger fora.

Part of me thinks maybe I erred bringing this up, but there's discussions worth having in terms of continued access to software that's working for people regardless of what it is, and on if this is healthy. I'm probably on a live and let live on this but there's been cases of suicide and murder where chatbots were involved, and these people are potentially vulnerable to manipulation from the company.

> highly prevalent phenomenon

Any numbers/reference behind this?

ChatGPT has ~300 million active users a day. A 0.02% (delusion disorder prevalence) would be 60k people.

I'm talking about romance, not delusion. Of course, you can consider AI romance a delusion, but it's not included in that percentage you mentioned.

The percentage I mentioned was an example of how a very small prevalence can result in a reasonable number of people, like enough to fill a subreddit, because ChatGPT has a user count that exceeds all but 3 countries of the world.

Again, do you have anything behind this "highly prevalent phenomenon" claim?

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