One problem is AI interactions moving the goalposts of what folks may perceive as ‘douchebag’.
An AI providing sycophantic reinforcement at max makes someone being vaguely skeptical of you feel, by comparison, like they are being a ‘douchebag’.
Sometimes, it’s best if people in your life aren’t always acting in a way that seems supportive and positive in the moment. For example if you are having a paranoid delusion, you need a reality check rather than what feels like external validation.
Talking to yourself keeps the perspective hopefully grounded, you know who you are talking to and how full of shit they can be. The magic of AI seems to peel that grounded perspective away for some folks.
pelican476@discuss.online 2 days ago
Come on man, you’ve been outside, presumably. You know that the douchebaggery out there isn’t limited to people just not being very flattering towards each other.
jj4211@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Of course that’s true, the issue is that when folks are surrounded by “yes men” (or AI equivalents), they lose perspective and suddenly a lack of flattery is enough to be in the “douchebag” category. Some reasonable social friction is important to keep people from going way off the rails.
pelican476@discuss.online 2 days ago
So… people are * born using AI*, then?
If lack of flattery due to using AI is making people think everyone is mean to them and causing them to turn to AI rather than people… then…what??? I’m sorry but you’re breaking my brain here. Can you make it make sense so I can understand?
antitomi@sopuli.xyz 2 days ago
AI reflects our innate human drive to communicate, express ourselves, be heard and evaluated by others. Sorry for butting in on your conversation with @pelican476, I think it’s an interesting topic.
jj4211@lemmy.world 1 day ago
No, saying that folks who get going with AI can get into a feedback loop. Wow, this seems like a person except it likes every idea I have and never ever challenges me. Then they recalibrate to a more lower friction world.
Already happens in online communities where folks tend to get ban-happy over anything that doesn’t perfectly fit a community’s vibe. People got a bit more insufferable when they could find the most like-minded communities to endlessly reinforce their own views. AI takes it a step further by always being able to be that like-minded peer, no matter what your views are.
It’s even worse if people get hit with this a lot during their formative years, but people stay a bit malleable after growing up. Certainly some upbringings bring you closer to going all in on AI flattery than others and having a further “starting point” makes things more likely and faster, but even fairly reasonable people can go a bit nuts.
You also see it with power and wealth. I’ve known folks that at least seemed fairly grounded with a healthy relationship with being wrong or losing turn into quite unlikeable, self-centered folks after having a bit of success and excessive external validation from sycophants.