Love the totally conflicting statements in that post.
- When we think of AI agents, we shouldn’t anthropomorphize
- ...my visceral dislike of interacting with an LLM that’s not just making a pretense of being human, but also posing as the kind of human I walk away from.
So he's anthropomorphised the LLM as being like a human himself (rather than forcing it to act as a machine via its prompt for example).
Sometimes I wonder if this is a personality thing. It has never occurred to me to anthropomorphize these things. But it seems like a huge number of people struggle with this.
My daughter is a pediatrician and just gave a talk on mental health problems (including suicides) brought on by the sort of personality that succumbs to this.
I find it interesting. For most of my life, I have gotten on well with (well-designed) machines. I'm the sort of guy who, when they bring me in to show me what's broken, it works in front of me.
Maybe I get on with well-designed machines better than people. Because people are never well-designed. So, when LLMs are working properly, I get along well with them, but when they're not, I'm unhappy. But I never confuse any of my machines for people.
Yeah to me it's just "oh what a nice interface for compressing information and accessing it upon request!", not at all "I'm talking to a person". But I dunno, maybe we're the weird ones.
That's a very... bleak perspective on your brother's motives. Sometimes you just want to get rid of an object that causes frustration. When that attitude is applied to humans, we usually call it a symptom of dehumanization.
> That's a very... bleak perspective on your brother's motives.
Well, it may have been an overstatement, but not by much. Look, I have anger issues, but I never get angry at things because they are never trying to hurt me, and nothing good can come of it. I could probably fix most remote control issues (e.g. bad battery contact), but not after it's been smashed.
I also tend to feel the same way about, e.g., a rabid dog or vermin. Get rid of them, but not in anger.
I'm not saying it's rational either way. But getting angry at things is, at least as far as I can tell, normal for most people, without any subconscious idea those things are people.
> without any subconscious idea those things are people.
Right, but there is a subset of anthropomorphism that relates to sentient beings, which is what I was trying to get at. Being angry at something is one thing; wanting to immediately destroy it in anger is possibly another.
I will admit I don't know the exact feelings involved, because I generally don't have them. The closest I come is the anger I feel at the designers of IVR systems that are too stupid to answer your questions and too obstinate to connect you to a human. I admit to yelling at those, but honestly part of that is that I have read that some of them are designed to sense frustration in users and connect you faster to an agent in some cases. But I have no idea how true that is, or whether it's just like pressing the completely impotent "close door" button on an elevator.
> Being angry at something is one thing; wanting to immediately destroy it in anger is possibly another.
This is a real distinction, yes. I just don't see what it has to do with anthropomorphism. Like maybe you're saying the second one is more often directed at people-like entities? I don't feel that at all.
SillyUsername · · focus · HN ↗
- When we think of AI agents, we shouldn’t anthropomorphize
- ...my visceral dislike of interacting with an LLM that’s not just making a pretense of being human, but also posing as the kind of human I walk away from.
So he's anthropomorphised the LLM as being like a human himself (rather than forcing it to act as a machine via its prompt for example).
Maybe he should have had an AI check his post :D
sanderjd · · focus · HN ↗
zephen · · focus · HN ↗
I find it interesting. For most of my life, I have gotten on well with (well-designed) machines. I'm the sort of guy who, when they bring me in to show me what's broken, it works in front of me.
Maybe I get on with well-designed machines better than people. Because people are never well-designed. So, when LLMs are working properly, I get along well with them, but when they're not, I'm unhappy. But I never confuse any of my machines for people.
sanderjd · · focus · HN ↗
zephen · · focus · HN ↗
I remember watching my brother get frustrated with a dysfunctional remote control. He threw it forcefully enough at a stone fireplace to shatter it.
From my perspective, that, in and of itself, is a mild form of anthropomorphism — trying to inflict pain on the object.
andrewflnr · · focus · HN ↗
zephen · · focus · HN ↗
Well, it may have been an overstatement, but not by much. Look, I have anger issues, but I never get angry at things because they are never trying to hurt me, and nothing good can come of it. I could probably fix most remote control issues (e.g. bad battery contact), but not after it's been smashed.
I also tend to feel the same way about, e.g., a rabid dog or vermin. Get rid of them, but not in anger.
andrewflnr · · focus · HN ↗
zephen · · focus · HN ↗
I can well believe that I am an outlier here. Maybe not everybody else believes that:
<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=zephen#49748843">https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=zephen#49748843
> without any subconscious idea those things are people.
Right, but there is a subset of anthropomorphism that relates to sentient beings, which is what I was trying to get at. Being angry at something is one thing; wanting to immediately destroy it in anger is possibly another.
I will admit I don't know the exact feelings involved, because I generally don't have them. The closest I come is the anger I feel at the designers of IVR systems that are too stupid to answer your questions and too obstinate to connect you to a human. I admit to yelling at those, but honestly part of that is that I have read that some of them are designed to sense frustration in users and connect you faster to an agent in some cases. But I have no idea how true that is, or whether it's just like pressing the completely impotent "close door" button on an elevator.
andrewflnr · · focus · HN ↗
This is a real distinction, yes. I just don't see what it has to do with anthropomorphism. Like maybe you're saying the second one is more often directed at people-like entities? I don't feel that at all.