Grok’s companion feature is undeniably sketchy, but other than that, I haven’t heard any AI developers saying or hinting that they would want their users to develop their most significant relationships with AIs rather than humans.
Except that there also is Meta with Zuckerberg’s AI vision. Fortunately, OpenAI, Anthropic and GDM didn’t hint on planning to create AI companions.
@geoffreymiller: as for AIs destroying marriage, I see a different mechanism for this. Nick Bostrom’s Deep Utopia has the AIs destroy all instrumental goals that humans once had. This arguably means that humans have no way to help each other with anything or to teach anyone anything, they can only somehow form bonds over something and will even have a hard time expressing those bonds. And that’s ignoring the possibilities like the one proposed in this scenario:
Many ambitious young women see socialising as the only way to wealth and status; if they start without the backing of a prominent family or peer group, this often means sex work (sic! -- S.K.) pandering to spoiled millionaires and billionaires.
Thanks for the link, I hadn’t followed what Zuckerberg is up to and also wasn’t counting Meta as one of the major AI players, though probably I should. Apparently, he does also claim that he intends AIs to be complements rather than substitutes, but I do agree with Zvi that his revealed preferences with promoting AI-generated content over human content point the other way. So I guess there’s two big AI companies that geoffrey’s characterization kinda applies to.
Except that there also is Meta with Zuckerberg’s AI vision. Fortunately, OpenAI, Anthropic and GDM didn’t hint on planning to create AI companions.
@geoffreymiller: as for AIs destroying marriage, I see a different mechanism for this. Nick Bostrom’s Deep Utopia has the AIs destroy all instrumental goals that humans once had. This arguably means that humans have no way to help each other with anything or to teach anyone anything, they can only somehow form bonds over something and will even have a hard time expressing those bonds. And that’s ignoring the possibilities like the one proposed in this scenario:
Thanks for the link, I hadn’t followed what Zuckerberg is up to and also wasn’t counting Meta as one of the major AI players, though probably I should. Apparently, he does also claim that he intends AIs to be complements rather than substitutes, but I do agree with Zvi that his revealed preferences with promoting AI-generated content over human content point the other way. So I guess there’s two big AI companies that geoffrey’s characterization kinda applies to.