An LLM may generate a phrase like: “That sounds really hard. I understand why it hurt you.” People experience this phrase as empathetic. But LLMs are not compassionate, they don’t have emotions, they don’t have feelings (with us): they simply simulate empathy.
Yet LLMs are already conversation partners for many people when it comes to human and emotional issues and situations. They are used as counselors in cases of heartbreak, to keep children occupied, or even to fill the gap when therapeutic care is not available.
In her new book “Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines” (Amazon), MIT professor and sociologist/psychologist Sherry Turkle warns of the consequences for society. He bases his criticism on his observations and research findings:
LLMs appear to listen patiently and rarely disagree, offering praise and compliments. Real people can be much more demanding, especially when it comes to resolving emotional conflicts; dealing with others often takes hard work, as does maintaining relationships and staying in touch. As people increasingly share concerns and conflicts with chatbots and avoid conversations with real people, they practice less and less social behavior in the real world and may even lose the ability to see themselves as “relational” beings in a diverse society. Chatbots only simulate empathy; they feel nothing and have no genuine interest in the well-being of the person they are talking to. It can be very dangerous.
As a result, children and adolescents are particularly vulnerable. Children still need to learn to distinguish between things and people, learn to interact socially, build trust, and feel comfortable spending time alone to develop their imaginations. Yet children often experience chatbots as a real “person on the phone”.
Ultimately, Turkle’s argument is not just about artificial intelligence, but about our relationship with convenience. The more technology frees us from uncomfortable situations, the less we can practice dealing with those situations. This applies as much to social situations as to searching for information or building one’s own knowledge. Society may increasingly lose both capabilities due to the intensive use of LLMs. Or, as the author says:
“We are deskilling ourselves as relational beings. We are also deskilling ourselves at work. We are deskilling ourselves in personal relationships. It is a transversal phenomenon.”
And his recommendation: what should we do? First, accept that life involves friction. Let’s learn from it, also – or above all – because it is difficult and requires commitment. Friction is not a bad thing; on the contrary. We must develop the ability to overcome difficulties and grow from them. If we simply avoid difficulties, we achieve nothing; Technology weakens us as individuals. We should join forces with other people, create a counter-movement and strengthen the social aspects of our lives. Face the frictions of life, because life is friction!
A C64 marked my entry into the world of PCs. I spent my student internship in the repair department of a computer shop and at the end of the day I was allowed to assemble my own 486 PC from “shop remnants”. I subsequently studied computer science at the Humboldt University of Berlin and also added psychology to my studies. After my first job as a research assistant at university, I went to London for a year and worked for Sega in quality control of computer game translation. This included work on games such as Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed and Company of Heroes. I have been writing for Notebookcheck since 2017.
