what really comes through in this description is a fear of judgement from other people, which I think is extremely relatable for anyone who's ever posted a question on stack overflow. I don't think it's a coincidence that the popularity of these tools is coinciding with a general atmosphere of low trust and social cohesion in the US and other societies this last decade
On her deathbed, years ago, my beloved mother lamented that she often felt mentally bullied by her three brilliant sons [0], even decades into our adulthoods; embarassed, she would censor her own knowledge-seeking from the people she trusted most [2].
She didn't live long enough to use ChatGPT [1] (she would have been flabbergasted at its ability to understand people/situations), but even with her "normal" intelligence she would have been a master to its perceptions/trainings.
[0] "Beyond just teasing."
[1] We did briefly wordplay with GPT-2 right before she died via thisworddoesnotexist.com exchanges, but nothing conversive.
[2] Relavent example, to the best of my understanding of hers: I would never ask my brilliant engineer programmer hardwarebro for coding help on any personal project, never. Just as I don't ask lawyerbro for personal legal advice.
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About a year later (~2023), my dentist friend experienced a sudden life change (wife sick @35); in his grieving/soul-seeking, I recommended that he share some of his mental chaos with an LLM, even just if to role-play as his sick family member. Dr. Friend later thanked me for recommending the resource — particularly "the entire lack of any judgments" — and shared his own brilliant discoveries using creative prompt structuring.
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Particularly as a big dude, it's nice to not always have to be the tough guy, to even admit weakness. Unfortunately I think the overall societal benefits of generative AI are going to increase anti-social behaviour, but it's nice to have a friendly apprentice that knows something about almost everything... any time... any reason.
