Posting on behalf on L Ravichandran
I saw this talk organized by a company called Steamship on YouTube.
GPT-4 – How does it work, and how do I build apps with it? – CS50 Tech Talk
One of the key speakers talked about various categories of applications being built using GPT-4. No 1 is the “Companionship Category of applications”.
He further expanded on the Companionship category such as mentor, coach, a friend who will give you the right feedback, a friend who will always empathize with you, etc. People are using these personas to get solace and comfort by “talking” to these companions.
As I was seeing this video, I was really disturbed and at the same time became inquisitive. What do we humans want? Do we want to communicate with GPT Companions or Flesh & Blood real human companions? Are we settling for GPT-Companion as the current society does not support human-to-human contact and communication?
The large family cluster of extended families living nearby is gone as we move away into far suburbs. The number of children per family is reducing fast. Physical games are getting substituted with online virtual games; friends are very few, and even these few friends are happy with virtual communication.
I know this is a question for philosophers, phycologists, and social scientists to answer. I hope they seriously look at this new phenomenon and assess its impact on human society.
I will conclude with the famous Shakespeare dialogue “To Be or Not to Be “. “To be a human or Not to be a human” is the new question.