"It's becoming clear that a huge part of what generative AI offers is just helping people avoid feeling uncomfortable feelings.
Don't want to push through the cognitive discomfort of writing your own essay? Let AI write it.
Want a friend who will always validate your ideas and never tell you you're fulla shit? We've got the perfect companion for you.
Don't want to risk being rejected when you ask a girl out? Date this chatbot who will never tell you no.
Don't want to feel the grief of losing a loved one? Here's an app that will create a chatbot replacement for them so you can pretend they never left.
Don't want to go through all the mental and emotional labor of learning a new skill, building a healthy romantic partnership, or creating a work of art? GenAI has got you covered.
It's the next level of services designed to help the denizens of dystopia avoid their feelings and sedate their emotions into a coma while the world goes to shit. It's the same reason they kept alcohol legal while banning psychedelics that puts us in touch with our feelings, and why they feed us all the TV, streaming platforms, and social media scrolling we can stand.
Our rulers want us dumb, distracted, vapid and dissociated. And they definitely don't want us feeling the horror, grief and rage we should all be experiencing in response to this nightmare of a civilization they have designed for us."
This applies to any drug or distraction (including entertainment and consumption fetishism) that is meant to numb your feelings, pacify and tranquilize you, keep you passive and lethargic in the face of the injustice and inhumanity of the capitalist-imperialist system. Feel your feelings, get sad and then get angry, let those feelings drive you, let them motivate you to do something, take action, fight, and never surrender to powerlessness, hopelessness and tacit acceptance.
Seems very holier than thou without any actual experience or understanding of why people use gen AI.
Why shouldn't I use tools that make life easier? I'm fully aware that something like Deepseek isn't a replacement for my therapist, but there are limitations to what my therapist can do. I only see her once a week for roughly 45 minutes, and in that time I have to be selective about what I talk about because I only get that amount of time. Whereas if I'm in the midst of having a meltdown or depressive episode at 3am, I can just talk to Deepseek. I've processed a lot of really tough emotions utilizing this tool and use it to supplement my therapy sessions.
The problem is and will always be the system in which tools are developed under. People are turning to AI to talk to because of alienation by capitalism, and doing this whole "you use AI cause you're lazy and don't want to face feelings" narrative just feels like victim blaming to me.