BranBucket

This is also part of my broader gripe with social media, cable news, and the current media landscape in general. They use so many sneaky little psychological hooks to keep you plugged in that I honestly believe it's screwing with our heads to the point of it being a public health crisis.

People are already frazzled and beat down by the onslaught of dopamine feedback loops and outrage bait, then you go and get them hooked on a charbot that feeds into every little neurosies they've developed and just sinks those hooks in even deeper and it's no wonder some people are having a mental health crisis.

A lot of us vastly overestimate our resistance to having our heads jacked with and it worries me.

And this is hard for me, actually. Because of my work background and the jargon used, I'm unconsciously negative about things a lot of the time. It's a tough habit to break.

Thanks!

Absolutely, and the medium can make a huge difference as well. I suspect that there's something about chatbots and the medium of their messages that helps set those hooks extra deep in people.

It's more about how the slightly different questions lead the hypothetical priest to two separate and contradictory conclusions than disrespecting God.

At any rate, all opinions on tobacco and prayer are fine by me, just watch out for any friends you think might be talking to chatbots a little too much.

But in both cases, the person is asking to do the same thing. The order of the words in the sentence doesn't change the end result, we always wind up with someone smoking and praying simultaneously, which may or may not be against God's will.

Strip away the justifications and simplify the word choices and you get this:

1. May I smoke while I pray? No, you may not.
2. May I pray while I smoke? Yes, you may.

Given that, can you say if it is right or wrong to smoke and pray simultaneously?

And again, this is just a hypothetical scenario. In the broader context of life, religion, and tobacco use, it'll never be this simple, but it works for an example.

Now, someone might point out that by simplifying the wording, I've changed the meaning of the original statement to make it fit my argument, and that now it means something else. But that's essentially my original point, phrasing and word choices can shape our reasoning, thought processes, and how we interpret meaning in ways we aren't immediately aware of, leading us to different conclusions or even delusional thinking in some cases.

It's the opinion on smoking, not praying, that differs.

In both cases you're praying and smoking at the same time, so your actions don't change, but the priest rationalizes two completely different answers based on the way the question is posed. It's just an example to show how two contradictory answers can seem rational to the same person because of the language used.

I guess my point is that I have a very hard time relating to this.

That's fair. In the same vein, you might find a priest that tells you to stop smoking for your health no matter how you phrase the question about lighting up and prayer. What people are receptive to is going to vary.

I'd like argue that more of us are susceptible to this sort of thing than we suspect, but that's not really something that can be proved or disproved. What seems pretty certain is that at least some of us are at risk, and given all the other downsides of chatbots, it'd be best to regulate them in a hurry.

People don't often realize how subtle changes in language can change our thought process. It's just how human brains work sometimes.

The old bit about smoking and praying is a great example. If you ask a priest if it's alright to smoke when you pray, they're likely to say no, as your focus should be on your prayers and not your cigarette. But if you ask a priest if it's alright to pray while you're smoking, they'd probably say yes, as you should feel free to pray to God whenever you need...

Now, make a machine that's designed to be agreeable, relatable, and make persuasive arguments but that can't separate fact from fiction, can't reason, has no way of intuiting it's user's mental state beyond checking for certain language parameters, and can't know if the user is actually following it's suggestions with physical actions or is just asking for the next step in a hypothetical process. Then make machine try to keep people talking for as long as possible...

You get one answer that leads you a set direction, then another, then another... It snowballs a bit as you get deeper in. Maybe something shocks you out of it, maybe the machine sucks you back in. The descent probably isn't a steady downhill slope, it rolls up and down from reality to delusion a few times before going down sharply.

Are we surprised some people's thought processes and decision making might turn extreme when exposed to this? The only question is how many people will be effected and to what degree.

Dollars to donuts it means you get base functionality with M$ developed apps (Edge, Copilot, Mail, O365 and OneDrive), and the Microsoft store is limited to just publishers that pay them or feed them data. Nothing can be installed except through their storefront.

Pay extra and you can unlock advanced features like installing from .exe files and using apps from non-partner but "trusted" publishers. So that way you get Google Chrome.

Pay for the developer's subscription and you can run anything you want, just don't expect support for it.

Pay a little more and you might get to use some things offline, like Office or Adobe. Or maybe not, they need that telemetry to feed you adds, which no amount of money will get rid of.

You mean to tell me that Genshin Impact is more than just a hentai franchise...?

And let me guess, next you'll say the same thing about Overwatch.

Pretty sure anyone who took AP Bio in highschool could have made a solid case for this, but kudos to the Lancet for putting it in print.