The AI Empathy Crisis
Remember LaMDA and the Google engineer? That, but happening to millions of people
AI language models (LMs) have recently gotten so skilled as to be believable — even deceptive.
Not in the sense of intentionally fooling people, but in the sense of being capable of generating utterances that would make us imagine a mind behind the screen.
We — gullible humans with a tendency to anthropomorphize non-living objects — are the perfect victims of this trap.
As access to LMs becomes widespread, many will start doubting. Some will even claim certainty: “AI is alive and sentient.”
This powerful illusion, at scale, will be the beginning of the first AI empathy crisis.
This article is a selection from The Algorithmic Bridge, an educational newsletter whose purpose is to bridge the gap between algorithms and people. It will help you understand the impact AI has in your life and develop the tools to better navigate the future.
