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I understand what you're saying, but isn't there value in the notion of being able to chat with a historical figure that one would otherwise never be able to do? Stepping away from the obvious like Socrates, I'd love to be able to chat economics with David Hume. What I'd really like to do is chat with friends all of whom are familiar with Hume, but the problem is that I don't have any friends who have any knowledge at all about him, that's if they've ever heard of him at all.

What is it about David Hume specifically that you’d want to talk with him? His intelligence?

I don’t know if there is value for others, but, for me, there is probably negative value in doing what you described. I’d much rather not talk with anyone about Hume or equivalent, than talk to an AI mimicking them.

I'm sorry to break it to you, but you can't chat with a historical figure. They are dead. The best you can get is a simulation. In this case, a pretty bad one.

Is it possible that we'll eventually develop AGI such that we can make a really good simulation of Hume? My Magic 8 Ball says, "ASK AGAIN LATER". The Magic 8 Ball being somewhat better, in that everybody can easily tell that nobody's home, and so they won't mistake it for something they can have a real conversation with.

This is a Black Mirror episode, if anyone's wondering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be_Right_Back

But the dead "speak" to us with productive effect all the time. Through books, adoption of their methods, their original perspectives applied to many problems they faced, and other means.

When a friend uses the Socratic method to talk to you, they are channelling an approach for examining thinking inspired by Socrates. It doesn't matter that Socrates is dead. There is still utility in using his, or a similar, approach.

Likewise for the conversational, or analytical, styles of other living or dead people, famous for having a distinct and useful approach to ideas or problems.

I can't wait to put Richard Feynman in my pocket! And no, I am surely not joking!

I think using "speak" as a metaphor is fine. I think it is bad to confuse it with a synthetic pseudo-conversation along the way to confusing it with an actual conversation.

Ouija boards are neat, but let's please keep straight what's going on when somebody uses them.

Well, of course it is a metaphor.

> Through books, [...] methods, [...] perspectives [...], and other means.

People are used to metaphors, and this is an extremely common one!

People also pervasively use the synecdoche of talking about the creative output of human beings as if it were the person themselves. Refer to "Bach", when we mean his music. Say "Einstein tells us" to refer to an implication of one of his equations that Einstein himself might never have addressed directly, etc.

Common figures of speech are unlikely to put us on the precipice of a mass delusion regarding literal communication with the dead or resurrection.

Thanks, yes, I understand what a metaphor is. Did I give some indication I don't?

Mass delusion is not my concern here. It's confusing an important conversation about potential benefits and harms of a new technology. A process I think requires more patience and care most discussions here.

> Thanks, yes, I understand what a metaphor is. Did I give some indication I don't?

I assumed you understood them. But so does everyone here.

But, I am sure you are right about other potential harms, in addition to many obvious and non-obvious benefits.

All the replies, so far, seem to be negative and remind me of how one would react to Star Trek's holo-addiction (https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Holo-addiction): "a psychological disorder in which a person preferred the fictional world of the holodeck to the real world."

On the other hand, there's the therapeutic benefit of talking to yourself, which I think has been well established (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=therapeutic+value+of+talking+to+yo...). We also tend to have conflict resolving inner monologues all the time, in addition to conflict resolving dreams that sometimes create entire worlds for us.

So... with those two things in play - I like the idea of an AI creating a neural net mimicking (or approximating) the knowledge and (public) personality of past/current people. It could be fun in the same way an immersive film is fun and sometimes insightful. As long as we never lose sight of the fictional nature of the interaction.

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sidenote: Our minds, are in a sense, original materials and assets. It can be argued that they are our intellectual property. It does beg the question if mimicking a person can be protected from any and all pursuits - commercial or otherwise.

> It could be fun in the same way an immersive film is fun and sometimes insightful. As long as we never lose sight of the fictional nature of the interaction.

A good example, but perhaps not in the way you think. Historical films have people who make at least attempt to hew to the historical truth. But despite that, historians have a raft of complaints about movies being fonts of enduring myths. GPT models, at least, don't have any idea about truth at all, and the individual, on-the-fly nature of the content makes it very difficult to catch errors as one would for film.

People are making the technical argument about it not really being them, and I think that's important. But more important to me is the moral one: it is wrong to put the words of the living in the mouths of the dead.

We should not distance ourselves from the reality of death, or construct for ourselves any illusions about its finality or completeness.

The dead are dead, we cannot change that, we should not even try. And so it will be for us, and any true engagement with life is in contrast to that inevitable truth.

Ooh, that's very interesting. Our culture has such a problem with acknowledging death anyhow. We don't need to dig the hole deeper.

Understandable position. But I've come to an alternate perspective after studying hypnotherapy and working with therapists over the past year. In a sense, all conversations are with ourselves. We create a mental model of the other person in our minds when conversing. A tool that helps people explore their own mind by facilitating these anthropomorphic models could prove immensely valuable for personal growth. As long as people understand they're talking to a bot, it could potentially allow for deeper introspection without the fear of judgement. A lot of the initial friction in therapy is getting people comfortable in sharing the deeper truth vs saying what they think they are expected to say to another human.

As for the need for the bot to act as a human, I think this is actually important to the efficacy. Our minds are evolved to anthropomorphize everything. A well trained bot will help people feel like they are talking directly to specific personas within their own mind.

I don't think it will replace therapists, but I do think it will significantly aid in two ways: 1) helping more people get started with therapy, 2) as a companion tool for work between sessions with a live human.

In a sense, anything is anything. RealDolls are, in a sense, romantic partners. But that doesn't mean that it is healthy or wise to encourage widespread adoption of them as substitutes, at least without further study as to the long-term risks. Are there possibilities here? Sure. And we should investigate them. But we should not get high on our own supply of technoutopianism.

"people are using it to cheapen something valuable."

What about something more sensitive like veteran suicidal ideations where the options are more commonly experienced by the afflicted as (NOT saying the reality, but the seeming): a) Say nothing, keep it in; or b) Say something, often times with unintended consequences (involuntary admission);

It sounds like journaling might be something you consider more akin to either an art or a skill to develop, but what about when the point is just to say SOMETHING and whether there's any benefits to that?

Give it time, and they'll probably be required to wire chat bots up as mandatory reporters :/

Good question, but I think we have to keep going. What about veterans who use it for a while? Are they helped or harmed? Does it make them more or less likely to talk to a real person? Does it make them more or less likely to kill themselves? Is it psychologically helpful or harmful when they see through the illusion that they're having a real conversation and realize this is just Eliza on steroids and that they're just as alone as they were before? Is this better or worse than just giving them a workbook or a deck of prompts written by actual psychologists who treat veterans?

I'm all for experimentation. What I'm questioning is the thoughtless application of shiny new technologies without any consideration of what the downside costs and risks might be.

There is considerable research on this already, of less sophisticated models. The research as it stands now, seems to be really positive. So I'm not quite sure its as thoughtless as you state.

Is there? On the specific points I raised? I don't see any cited here. Perhaps you could share some?

ill try to look later today, it was a big part of the keynote at the ICRA conference last year

I do not think that a person suffering from suicidal thoughts and ideations should ever be given to a chat bot. They need to have access to professional help. If society and the system makes this difficult, harmful, or otherwise unwanted, then it is society that should change.

>>> "people are using it to cheapen something valuable."

Since Socrates was mentioned in the article it made me think how he thought that written information was not an effective way of education.

He's was not wrong in that tutoring will beat books every day, but the benefits they brought when massively produced may have not been even in their imaginations at the time.

Is it that different from substituting television for relationships? At least it's a little more interactive.

This is hardly a choice between two evils.

But it's also less obviously a problem. People have a vocabulary around binge-watching and goblin mode. Or we've come to learn how Facebook, touted as a beneficial alternative to one-way entertainment, can cause psychological harm.

Is this different? Worse? Better? Probably all three. Maybe we should find out.

Thank you for this thoughtful and articulate reply.