This is sort of a rant and might not be so coherent compared to other posts. I just want to see some opinions on it. If you don't wish to read a rant, simply scroll away.

Recently, there has been some news going around about a 14-year-old boy committing s----de after seeking solace in a chatbot on c.ai . I won't go into much detail on that since there is a lot of information online about that incident. It's normal to talk to chatbots bow, but I feel uncomfortable when the bot itself turns sexual, unlike others. I understand the appeal in it, but like, it gets gross because not everything needs to be sexualized, but yet again look at most pop songs today. It makes me wonder about the future the first time I began to worry more than I usually do about the future was back in 2022 when the AI models were still fairly new to the public.

Truth be told I was naive and ended up watching those fear-mongering videos about AI with clickbaity titles like 'Sam Altman predicts AGI by 2027' and "It's gotten a lot worse" etc, etc. Looking back, it was dumb to believe those sorts of things, but yet again, that was a new form of technology, at least to me. I know AI was developed way back in the 1960s or something, so it's not entirely brand new. But like, where does this technology keep going? They keep saying it will improve our lives, and lead us to an utopia, but I don't see that. It might be an utopia to them, but not to most of the population.

In my own personal experience, these chatbots sort of ruined my life. It's like an addiction, just keep fishing for the perfect response, the perfect diction. I'm saying 'it's' because I its something I still deal with it, but it's getting better, slowly but surely. As I was saying, it did ruin my life, I was glued to my phone, lost hours of sleep over it, my social life declined and I suffered greatly. Over time, fortunately, I realized I missed all the simple things I had done before, like going on walks or playing with my dogs. The craving to experience those wonderful things again really helped me get out of that addiction. Even though they were the few small things I depended on for my fulfillment other than the chatbots, it was better than nothing. I still do engage with the chatbots, but less frequently than I used to.

It's common for a person to develop a a parasocial relationship with a celebrity, but it's also common nowadays to have a parasocial relationship with a chatbot, something fictional, or artificial. But most people don't recognize the ones with AI chatbots and AI girlfriends because they brush it off as incel behavior. But it's something many people do. Many people nowadays depend on a chatbot for connection. But I can't see why people don't recognize it as a problem. Why don't they? Other than destroying people financially by taking their jobs, it could also destroy them mentally, in the case of a 14-year-old boy.

It just makes you think, y'know?