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My reaction is that depressed people are, for whatever reason you described, more likely to use generative AI. I can think of a bunch of reasons, most tied to executive function in some way, but like, are we really surprised that people who are struggling to find pleasure/accomplishment/meaning in general life find AI appealing? You get to just play with it continuously, it always answers your messages, it always encourages you to keep talking, keep interacting with it, and it will make things for you for no greater cost than the asking. I don't think this is a mark against those users to be clear, I see this as largely the same chicken-egg relationship you find between depressed people and video games. It's also subject to the same kinds of abuses on the part of the merchant, things like in-game purchases that are particularly attractive to people with executive function issues, and why the predominant "whales" of the video game industry and especially the mobile game industry are people who are already struggling. I think AI is going to end up in a similar position because like, again, not trying to be shitty, but if your life kind of broadly sucks, I'm sure playing in an AI chatbox all day where something that sounds vaguely human will validate whatever you say, make stuff for you at request, and never challenge you in the slightest is quite attractive to you. And, thinking through it further, these systems also adapt to their users, learn how to engage with them better, as many products have before them that have trapped the neurodivergent into problematic usage scenarios. I don't judge the people, but I am incredibly suspicious of the businesses behind these and other products that seem almost designed to attract neurodivergent people. If you design a machine that gives dopamine on demand, you can't really be shocked when people who are dopamine‑starved use it a lot. Potentially to a harmful extent. |