In this post, I wrote about the sad experience of having a friend use AI to wish me a happy birthday. https://robertkingett.com/posts/6627/ #AI #Blog #Blogging #Blogs @techtakes @fuck_ai
This made my heart hurt bud. I hope it didn’t overshadow the rest of your day!
@o7___o7 Thank you! The audio email from my Dominican friend where he was telling me happy birthday made it all the more epic! There was another person that said, well, don’t be surprised if she writes about you writing about her using AI because that was uncalled for, but I just had such a visceral reaction, I was just like, I need to write about this because I am afraid this is going to get common in Casual settings and not just corporate kind of settings either. Thank you so much for your comment however! It made my night!
appreciate ya!
@weirdwriter @steve @techtakes @fuck_ai ‘LLMs give us ventriloquism in reverse. The mechanical dummy speaks through your mouth.’
https://www.roughtype.com/?p=9271Ugh, good read yet sad content. The irony of complimenting your writing by using the antithesis of word choice and structure to express emotions. If she was looking to make it easier, then she saw your birthday message as a chore. This is the tech way to have your assistant write and sign your birthday card. It’s the exact opposite of consideration, just rude and tacky.
Happy birthday tho! ♥
@inb4_FoundTheVegan Thank you! The truly sad thing is, because I know LLM’s so well, I even think I know the exact prompt she used. There was another person that said, well, she didn’t make it a generic thing. She put in her prompt that you were a writer. It doesn’t make it thoughtful. Thank you though for Yoyr happy Bday wish! I also came across this after someone sent it after reading mine. Very similar https://mrgan.com/ai-email-from-a-friend/
why are so many posters falling over themselves to Dr Phil it up when OP didn’t ask for advice, fucking hell…
@froztbyte My theory is that they feel better giving advice rather than examining their feelings.
@weirdwriter @techtakes @fuck_ai Happy belated birthday! This post struck a nerve with me because in this case, AI took away one of the last bits of humanity left in our digital communication: a personal message from a real human.
Time and effort are valuable commodities. When your friend offloaded that to an AI, it took away from the value of the message. Maybe they spent time crafting the perfect prompt, but saying “it’s easier” negates that idea.
Thank you! Also, someone else thought the audio friend that sent an audio song to me of happy birthday was also an LLM/AI and that was the actual human one! Yikes! But agreed! Thing is, because I know LLM’s super well, I can tell what prompt she used and that just makes me sad because the prompt was something like write a happy birthday email to my writer friend. @mahryekuh @techtakes @fuck_ai
@weirdwriter @techtakes @fuck_ai You can make LLM songs but undoubtedly you would have noticed that; that gift sounds lovely, by the way.
Hopefully you and your “AI friend” can work this out together.
At a point in my life I too would have made this mistake. I have been oblivious to how the things I did would make others feel.
It is easy to want to write what we think the other person wants to hear from us, when the reality is that a single sentence that a person has taken the time and thought to write, is far more valuable than word noise generated from a plagiarism machine.I hope she understands, or you get a chance to explain that to her at some point.
oh and a belated happy birthday to you!
@nigel @techtakes @fuck_ai Oh yes! Thank you! I will explain to her soon, but thank you for commenting! I can’t find it now but someone else was thinking about all the insincere gifts they received from people, but at the moment, even those insincere gifts seem to be more thoughtful, but yes I will explain when it is a propper time.
ah, that sounds like my post over on mastodon
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Happy birthday!
And sorry for your sad experience. Annoying how AI is degrading our supposedly genuine interactions (both by people using it like this, and people interpreting a honest message like AI (I do feel a bit sorry for all the people working in low level customer support who in addition to all the normal bullshit now have to deal with AI accusations for example)).
damn, man, this is a gutpunch :| I’d be similarly dismayed
your friend who sends you audio recordings of them from various places they’re in sounds like a keeper - it’s great of them to share bits of their world with you in that manner :D
@froztbyte An absolute keeper, indeed!
Happy belated birthday!
On the one hand I get why people would use LLMs to write their messages (finding the right words is hard). On the other hand, man is this dystopian. At some point you might as well just send the prompt directly, it has the same amount of information.
I wanted to see a tired typo in her email from a hard days work. I wanted her to mix up my age. I wanted to see the imperfections in the tired as fuck email because the fact she still wrote to me, even though she was tired and would’ve wrote down my incorrect age, the fact that she thought about me enough to craft something personal would have made everything worth it. @MBM
First off I’ll be clear: I wouldn’t like that either. This is a good moment to take a step back emotionally and clearly word out why slopbot birthday wishes suck.
Still I urge you to come from a place of care when you voice your opinion to your friend. LLMs going mainstream is a new thing so social codes relative to them haven’t had time to solidify. Moreover there are plenty of people feeling the pressure to adopt the chatbots lest they become irrelevant, or so they are led to fear. If you appreciate when friends’ imperfections show, they’re still right there.
Your friend has included things she likes about you in her prompt. For decades, people have gone through a similar process picking a birthday card. (I’m personally partial to dorky e-cards.) If I were you I wouldn’t sweat it too much.
“LLMs going mainstream is a new thing so social codes relative to them haven’t had time to solidify.”
Good argument for going max aggro, but I’d still use restraint here, despite the desperate need to establish norms of running people out of town with thrown wasp nests when they use an LLM.
I’m pro-AI, but not pro-AI in the sense of, “turn these bullet-points into a verbose email,” and not pro-AI for personal communication like this. I hope this kind of stuff doesn’t become common. It’s like going in the opposite direction of “SMS language” (which I view favorably).
what, pray tell, was the point of your comment? on this thread? did you have one?
They indicated that they were wondering how pro-AI people would feel:
I really sat there wondering how do pro AI people feel when they get an email/SMS like that.
“I’m for it, y’know? but not like that, and not like that either. but I’m for it, sure, sure”
I feel so informed, thanks for sharing your thoughtful position, so glad you took the time
No problem. Glad you appreciated it. Namaste.
did you come like this off the factory line, or did you have to work at it?
Sometimes you need to be blunt, and just tell the other person how you feel. You don’t need to always understand your friend’s emotions and motivations thoroughly, and you’re allowed to disagree on things.
I’d tell this Karren:
“a happy birthday message, to me, is that you cared to put effort into something special for me. Even if the result is terrible”
It gets the point across, even if it can be difficult to say. That’s just how life is sometimes.
Putting this out there for the world to agree with you on how you dislike what she did? That doesn’t sound kind, nice or a thing a good friend would do. In fact it’s how some little kids fight in front of their parents.
She’ll probably call you back after what you did here
