Human connection can be difficult and dangerous, and a lot of people are deeply antisocial or fearful of interaction. Many peoples' primary means of communication was already through the abstraction of the internet before AI came along and a whole generation lost years of potential social development time to lockdowns.

It shouldn't surprise anyone that people connect with AI more deeply than they do to real people. AI is almost perfectly designed to encourage parasocial relationships.

Still, I'm with you on this one: there are at least some real people who seriously feel like that (TFA) about LLMs and it's pretty bonkers.

100-ish upvotes is nothing compared to groups with ideas like flat earth or sovcit.

It does however remind me of all the numbers of novice chess players who would rather play against "AI" or chess bots than face up against humans, for reasons of fear or shame in playing against (anonymous) human opponents, and risk looking "stupid" or being silently judged by someone they'll never meet or interact with.

It's pretty far out there for someone to form that strong of an emotional attachment to a piece of software. I couldn't tell if these people were serious or joking.

At the end of the day, I don't have a problem with it. It does make me sad to think of how lonely someone in these groups must be.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamagotchi_effect

"Write a story how I am sad about gtp-4o loss", ctrl+c ctrl+v.

Looks like they are accurately bringing it back because of it