Comment by jraph | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jraph | Hacker News Reader

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> Maybe people will just stop caring about the human touch

I doubt it. We human beings seem intrinsically motivated and enthusiastic about human connections. I believe we are wired like this. I know things changesbut I would need some strong evidence before even playing with the idea that we'll stop caring about the human touch.

Now, as much as I hate AI, that doesn't necessarily mean AI-free. Or even handwritten. It just needs to be some human touch. I would enjoy a handwritten letter but wouldn't mind an email at all. But maybe someone else would find it lazy and tasteless, just as I would find an ai generated text lazy and tasteless.

Maybe the prompt you can guess the person who sent you some ai-generated text used can already be perceived as some human touch. Maybe there is a threshold though.

Now, could it be that your child wanted to impress you with a perfectly written letter, or even with their ai prompt mastering?

Anyway, good anecdote, good perspective, good for you to have had the conversation and let them proceed anyway. Thanks for sharing.

My concern is that people making these technologies do not come across as valuing human connection as they seek to replace it with AI while profiting at the same time. Whether it’s what they really believe or a lie to achieve their financial goals doesn’t really change the outcome.

> I believe we are wired like this

Absolutely, and I think because of this we'll never see the desire go away completely. However, I'm imagining some dystopian future where human touch is so rare that people _forget_ how much it means to them. It's like scrolling through the endless slop of Netflix and then coming to some rare gem of a film where you're reminded what genuine art is.

I don't think that people forget, but it definitely gets normalized. It's disgusting, but many people obviously embrace it, and since to order ChatGPT to do some lame stuff for them is by design orders of magnitude faster than actually create something, the internet is getting filled up by lame stuff every passing minute now.

But it's not like this only happens because of LLMs. If you worked in corporate culture you most definitely received some automated HR emails congratulating you with spending half of your life at the workplace, or something like that. I always felt almost insulted by these, they are literally just spam at best. It's kinda mocking: these are generic depersonalized texts that no one actually wrote for you, yet they always speak about "gratitude", about you being "valued" and such. In fact, it's the only thing they are meant to express: you being valued. It's so cynical.

But, I mean, it's just me. Ostensibly, these folks in HR department do know their job? Maybe most people don't feel like vomiting when they get these emails? Maybe it brings them joy? I never stopped wondering about that. I cannot just ask the closest coworkers, because of course they feel the same as me. But maybe there are other ones? Another social bubble, where this thing is normal, and it is bigger than mine?

Anyway, everyone is kinda used to it. What I am trying to say is that the phenomena is not entirely new, and LLMs don't change the essence of it. Even back when people sent paper mail to each other, I remember these pre-printed birthday/christmas cards, which are ok, because the entire point is that they are not automated and that you remember to send it to someone, yet it was always considered a bit of a poor taste to not add a sentence of yours by hand.

I think it would be more dystopian for HR to scan all your emails, slack messages, and social media to build a personality profile so that they can send customied HR emails, vs canned impersonal emails, but maybe that's just me.

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