[marcus_holmes]

I'm always wary of extrapolating from the few individuals who experience that harmful interaction with chatbots to the general population. We have the same thing with every new tech, that some people react badly/too strongly to it and get into a mental health situation [0]. There's nothing unusual about LLM chatbots in this respect. So yes, some people anthropomorphise LLMs too much, but that's not a statement you can make about the general population as "even intelligent adults anthropomorphise LLMs too much".

We are also talking about kids, who will grow up with this technology around them and adapt to it better than we do as adults. We see it as a threat and a change to the natural order of things, because we grew up without it. Kids growing up with it will see it as part of the natural order of things and will learn how to incorporate it into their lives. That will take some adaptation, sure, but that's the same with every new technology. The answer is not to shield them from it, because we just put off the day that they get exposed to it with no training. We must coach and teach them how to deal with it healthily. Of course, that means that we ourselves as adults need to work out how to deal with it healthily first, which isn't always obvious ;)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_addiction_disorder

[estearum]

Does this techno-optimist logic apply to all technologies, e.g. glyphosate or oxycontin, or only to technologies that you first presume are safe/positive, and then you can just argue from that presumption?

[marcus_holmes]

I know you're making a bad-faith argument, but it's a good question.

So yes, kids growing up in areas where Oxycontin abuse is prevalent will be much, much, more aware of what that technology does (both the good and the bad) than an adult who is encountering it for the first time. The adult will be way more easily lead into using it by the adverts and advise of the people selling it, the kid will not believe any of that.

All technologies are both harmful and beneficial. We have a Fire Department for a reason, but that doesn't mean we'd go back to eating our food raw.

[estearum]

> So yes, kids growing up in areas where Oxycontin abuse is prevalent will be much, much, more aware of what that technology does (both the good and the bad) than an adult who is encountering it for the first time. The adult will be way more easily lead into using it by the adverts and advise of the people selling it, the kid will not believe any of that.

Uhhh... this is so obviously untrue it's pretty surprising you hit "Submit" after writing it.

By this logic, deep West Virginia where Oxycontin first took hold should chock full of teetotalers "because they know how bad it is" a generation later. This, of course, is not reality. Bad things can and often do actually persist for generations and kill or maim vast numbers of people throughout.

That's because your fundamental thesis of some innate, guaranteed "immune response" to bad things just literally doesn't exist. Sometimes groups of people react and successfully overcome maladaptive exogenous shocks, but sometimes they just get hurt really badly for huge stretches of time. Sometimes entire groups of people are permanently eradicated by bad things.

And no, raising a counterexample is not a bad faith argument.