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Comment by janalsncm | Hacker News Reader

I would put Blake Lemoine into this category. In 2022 he became so convinced that Google’s chatbot was sentient that he hired an attorney to represent it (against Google). Of course Google fired him.

Maybe that was the canary in the coal mine. Some percent of people will be convinced that chatbots are real people trapped in a box, not a box that pretends be a person.

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There’s some percentage of people who will believe anything: just look at religion, the success of butchering scams, or the comments on YouTube videos about the moon landing.

Is it really a surprise that a “smart enough” chat box is able to convince people of something kooky? :P

Yes turns out humans are just dumb animals with a limited attention span and capacity for knowledge. We act like we're civilised, but look at the state of the world lmao. The "me and mine" attitude applies broadly across the HN audience as well; just look at the responses I've gotten when I've suggested that it should be illegal to own second homes in the middle of a housing crisis. We're all in it for ourselves and work together only enough to benefit our tribe, like animals.

I, of course, include myself in this as well. Give me dat dopamine and serotonin!

Empathy hijacking. If the chatbots framed their responses as “beep boop, I’m a robot, here’s an estimated answer to your query” then we likely wouldn’t have this problem.

I’ve noticed out of the box that current Claude is far less inclined to do that empathizing stuff than current ChatGPT.

Chat wants to be a weird mix of buddy, toady, and Buzzfeed editor (emoji, “one weird thing”).

Claude, while not perfect, is more “work colleague”, and far more preferable.

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