I don’t personally feel like this applies to people who know me in real life, even when we’re just chatting over text. If the tone comes off wrong, I know they’re not trying to hurt my feelings. People don’t talk to someone they know the same way they talk to strangers online - and they’re not making wild assumptions about me either, because they already know who I am.
Also, I’m not exactly talking about tone per se. While written text can certainly have a tone, a lot of it is projected by the reader. I’m sure some of my writing might come across as hostile or cold too, but that’s not how it sounds in my head when I’m writing it. What I’m really complaining about - something real people often do and AI doesn’t - is the intentional nastiness. They intend to be mean, snarky, and dismissive. Often, they’re not even really talking to me. They know there’s an audience, and they care more about how that audience reacts. Even when they disagree, they rarely put any real effort into trying to change the other person’s mind. They’re just throwing stones. They consider an argument won when their comment calling the other person a bigot got 25 upvotes.
In my case, the main issue with talking to my friends compared to ChatGPT is that most of them have completely different interests, so there’s just not much to talk about. But with ChatGPT, it doesn’t matter what I want to discuss - it always acts interested and asks follow-up questions.
I can see how people would seek refuge talking to an AI given that a lot of online forums have really inflammatory users; it is one of the biggest downfalls of online interactions. I have had similar thoughts myself - without knowing me strangers could see something I write as hostile or cold, but it’s really more often friends that turn blind to what I’m saying and project a tone that is likely not there to begin with. They used to not do that, but in the past year or so it’s gotten to the point where I frankly just don’t participate in our group chats and really only talk if it’s one-one text or in person. I feel like I’m walking on eggshells, even if I were to show genuine interest in the conversation it is taken the wrong way. That being said, I think we’re coming from opposite ends of a shared experience but are seeing the same thing, we’re just viewing it differently because of what we have experienced individually. This gives me more to think about!
I feel a lot of similarities in your last point, especially with having friends who have wildly different interests. Most of mine don’t care to even reach out to me beyond a few things here and there; they don’t ask follow-up questions and they’re certainly not interested when I do speak. To share what I’m seeing, my friends are using these LLM’s to an extent where if I am not responding in the same manner or structure it’s either ignored or I’m told I’m not providing the appropriate response they wanted. This where the tone comes in where I’m at, because ChatGPT will still have a regarded tone of sorts to the user; that is it’s calm, non-judgmental, and friendly. With that, the people in my friend group that do heavily use it have appeared to become more sensitive to even how others like me in the group talk, to the point where they take it upon themselves to correct my speech because the cadence, tone and/or structure is not fitting a blind expectation I wouldn’t know about. I find it concerning, because regardless of the people who are intentionally mean, and for interpersonal relationships, it’s creating an expectation that can’t be achieved with being human. We have emotions and conversation patterns that vary and we’re not always predictable in what we say, which can suck when you want someone to be interested in you and have meaningful conversations but it doesn’t tend to pan out. And I feel that. A lot unfortunately. AKA I just wish my friends cared sometimes :(
I’m getting the sense here that you’re placing most - if not all - of the blame on LLMs, but that’s probably not what you actually think. I’m sure you’d agree there are other factors at play too, right? One theory that comes to mind is that the people you’re describing probably spend a lot of time debating online and are constantly exposed to bad-faith arguments, personal attacks, people talking past each other, and dunking - basically everything we established is wrong with social media discourse. As a result, they’ve developed a really low tolerance for it, and the moment someone starts making noises sounding even remotely like those negative encounters, they automatically label them as “one of them” and switch into lawyer mode - defending their worldview against claims that aren’t even being made.
That said, since we’re talking about your friends and not just some random person online, I think an even more likely explanation is that you’ve simply grown apart. When people close to you start talking to you in the way you described, it often means they just don’t care the way they used to. Of course, it’s also possible that you’re coming across as kind of a prick and they’re reacting to that - but I’m not sensing any of that here, so I doubt that’s the case.
I don’t know what else you’ve been up to over the past few years, but I’m wondering if you’ve been on some kind of personal development journey - because I definitely have, and I’m not the same person I was when I met my friends either. A lot of the things they may have liked about me back then have since changed, and maybe they like me less now because of it. But guess what? I like me more. If the choice is to either keep moving forward and risk losing some friends, or regress just to keep them around, then I’ll take being alone. Chris Williamson calls this the “Lonely Chapter” - you’re different enough that you no longer fit in with your old group, but not yet far enough along to have found the new one.
I think it has a unique influence that will continue to develop, but I don’t think LLM’s are the only influence to blame. There’s a lot that can influence this behavior, like the theory you’ve described. Off the top of my head, limerence is something that could be an influence. I know that it is common for people to experience limerence for things like video game characters, and sometimes they project expectations onto others to behave like said characters. Other things could be childhood trauma, glass child syndrome, isolation from peers in adolescence, asocial tendencies, the list is long I’d imagine.
For me, self journey started young and never ends. It’s something that’s just apart of the human experience, relationships come and go, then sometimes they come back, etc. I will say though, with what I’m seeing with the people I’m talking about, this is a novel experience to me. It’s something that’s hard to navigate, and as a result I’m finding that it’s actually isolating to experience. Like I mentioned before, I can have one-one chats, and when I see them in person, we do activities and have fun! But if any level of discomfort is detected and the expectation is brought on. By the time I realize what’s happening they’re offering literal formatted templates on how to respond in conversations. Luckily it’s not everyone in our little herd that has this behavior, but the people that do this the most I know for sure utilize ChatGPT heavily for these types of dicussions only because they recommended me to start doing the same not too long ago. Nonetheless, I did like this discussion, it offers a lot of prospect in looking at how different factors influence our behavior with each other.
I don’t personally feel like this applies to people who know me in real life, even when we’re just chatting over text. If the tone comes off wrong, I know they’re not trying to hurt my feelings. People don’t talk to someone they know the same way they talk to strangers online - and they’re not making wild assumptions about me either, because they already know who I am.
Also, I’m not exactly talking about tone per se. While written text can certainly have a tone, a lot of it is projected by the reader. I’m sure some of my writing might come across as hostile or cold too, but that’s not how it sounds in my head when I’m writing it. What I’m really complaining about - something real people often do and AI doesn’t - is the intentional nastiness. They intend to be mean, snarky, and dismissive. Often, they’re not even really talking to me. They know there’s an audience, and they care more about how that audience reacts. Even when they disagree, they rarely put any real effort into trying to change the other person’s mind. They’re just throwing stones. They consider an argument won when their comment calling the other person a bigot got 25 upvotes.
In my case, the main issue with talking to my friends compared to ChatGPT is that most of them have completely different interests, so there’s just not much to talk about. But with ChatGPT, it doesn’t matter what I want to discuss - it always acts interested and asks follow-up questions.
I can see how people would seek refuge talking to an AI given that a lot of online forums have really inflammatory users; it is one of the biggest downfalls of online interactions. I have had similar thoughts myself - without knowing me strangers could see something I write as hostile or cold, but it’s really more often friends that turn blind to what I’m saying and project a tone that is likely not there to begin with. They used to not do that, but in the past year or so it’s gotten to the point where I frankly just don’t participate in our group chats and really only talk if it’s one-one text or in person. I feel like I’m walking on eggshells, even if I were to show genuine interest in the conversation it is taken the wrong way. That being said, I think we’re coming from opposite ends of a shared experience but are seeing the same thing, we’re just viewing it differently because of what we have experienced individually. This gives me more to think about!
I feel a lot of similarities in your last point, especially with having friends who have wildly different interests. Most of mine don’t care to even reach out to me beyond a few things here and there; they don’t ask follow-up questions and they’re certainly not interested when I do speak. To share what I’m seeing, my friends are using these LLM’s to an extent where if I am not responding in the same manner or structure it’s either ignored or I’m told I’m not providing the appropriate response they wanted. This where the tone comes in where I’m at, because ChatGPT will still have a regarded tone of sorts to the user; that is it’s calm, non-judgmental, and friendly. With that, the people in my friend group that do heavily use it have appeared to become more sensitive to even how others like me in the group talk, to the point where they take it upon themselves to correct my speech because the cadence, tone and/or structure is not fitting a blind expectation I wouldn’t know about. I find it concerning, because regardless of the people who are intentionally mean, and for interpersonal relationships, it’s creating an expectation that can’t be achieved with being human. We have emotions and conversation patterns that vary and we’re not always predictable in what we say, which can suck when you want someone to be interested in you and have meaningful conversations but it doesn’t tend to pan out. And I feel that. A lot unfortunately. AKA I just wish my friends cared sometimes :(
I’m getting the sense here that you’re placing most - if not all - of the blame on LLMs, but that’s probably not what you actually think. I’m sure you’d agree there are other factors at play too, right? One theory that comes to mind is that the people you’re describing probably spend a lot of time debating online and are constantly exposed to bad-faith arguments, personal attacks, people talking past each other, and dunking - basically everything we established is wrong with social media discourse. As a result, they’ve developed a really low tolerance for it, and the moment someone starts making noises sounding even remotely like those negative encounters, they automatically label them as “one of them” and switch into lawyer mode - defending their worldview against claims that aren’t even being made.
That said, since we’re talking about your friends and not just some random person online, I think an even more likely explanation is that you’ve simply grown apart. When people close to you start talking to you in the way you described, it often means they just don’t care the way they used to. Of course, it’s also possible that you’re coming across as kind of a prick and they’re reacting to that - but I’m not sensing any of that here, so I doubt that’s the case.
I don’t know what else you’ve been up to over the past few years, but I’m wondering if you’ve been on some kind of personal development journey - because I definitely have, and I’m not the same person I was when I met my friends either. A lot of the things they may have liked about me back then have since changed, and maybe they like me less now because of it. But guess what? I like me more. If the choice is to either keep moving forward and risk losing some friends, or regress just to keep them around, then I’ll take being alone. Chris Williamson calls this the “Lonely Chapter” - you’re different enough that you no longer fit in with your old group, but not yet far enough along to have found the new one.
I think it has a unique influence that will continue to develop, but I don’t think LLM’s are the only influence to blame. There’s a lot that can influence this behavior, like the theory you’ve described. Off the top of my head, limerence is something that could be an influence. I know that it is common for people to experience limerence for things like video game characters, and sometimes they project expectations onto others to behave like said characters. Other things could be childhood trauma, glass child syndrome, isolation from peers in adolescence, asocial tendencies, the list is long I’d imagine.
For me, self journey started young and never ends. It’s something that’s just apart of the human experience, relationships come and go, then sometimes they come back, etc. I will say though, with what I’m seeing with the people I’m talking about, this is a novel experience to me. It’s something that’s hard to navigate, and as a result I’m finding that it’s actually isolating to experience. Like I mentioned before, I can have one-one chats, and when I see them in person, we do activities and have fun! But if any level of discomfort is detected and the expectation is brought on. By the time I realize what’s happening they’re offering literal formatted templates on how to respond in conversations. Luckily it’s not everyone in our little herd that has this behavior, but the people that do this the most I know for sure utilize ChatGPT heavily for these types of dicussions only because they recommended me to start doing the same not too long ago. Nonetheless, I did like this discussion, it offers a lot of prospect in looking at how different factors influence our behavior with each other.