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Recovering from AI Addiction

https://internetaddictsanonymous.org/internet-and-technology-addiction/signs-of-an-addiction-to-ai/
196•pera•6h ago

Comments

intellectronica•5h ago
The addiction label is a useful trick. Before criticising it, consider how labelling behaviours as "addiction" and constructing the 12-step infrastructure and community around them, makes it possible for people who suffer to find support and start improving their lives. Most of them will eventually come to understand that it wasn't "addiction" but a symptom of suffering from complex mental health problems. But without that gateway they might have suffered even more, for longer, and potentially with disastrous results.
n4r9•5h ago
Gabor Maté - a physician who worked with people with serious substance abuse disorders for many years - talks about how addiction is usually a symptom of some other underlying suffering; often trauma. The addictive behaviours act as a way to avoid confronting that pain.
VladVladikoff•4h ago
I’ve heard this take a lot in my life. And I definitely struggle with substance abuse addiction. However I’ve looked inside myself many times to find said trauma or suffering and I just don’t really see anything of note. Perhaps the only way to discover this is through some very expensive therapy sessions, or maybe vaping some 5-Meo-DMT.
lompad•4h ago
Trauma only appearing in super-deep going therapy sessions can often be False Memory Syndrome, which is an entirely different can of worms and extremely problematic. If you search really really deeply, you're going to find it, wether it exists or not.

Generally: While suppressed memory of trauma exists, the vast majority of people are aware of trauma and there is no evidence suggesting otherwise. And there is clear evidence that lots of mentally well people get addicted as well, so just claiming "it's always some underlying condition" is probably not a great idea. It can, often even, be, sure. But that doesn't make it mandatory and especially doesn't allow the "I struggle with addiction, so there _must_ have been a problem beforehand" conclusion.

So honestly, I'd just not search any deeper to not risk inducing any false memories.

Aurornis•2h ago
The idea of repressed memories is very popular with untrained general public, but it’s not a substantiated research topic.

Like the comment above said, many “repressed memories” are actually false memories or, in rare cases, false stories that get constructed and encouraged by a misleading therapist who is convinced that some repressed memory exists and pushes too hard to get the patient to “remember” something. When the only way to satisfy the other party is to come up with a story, many people will eventually come up with a story and even believe it themselves.

The same thing happens with false confessions.

shkkmo•2h ago
> Trauma only appearing in super-deep going therapy sessions can often be False Memory Syndrome, which is an entirely different can of worms and extremely problematic

It is problematic, but not in the way that you think. While memories can be suggestively altered or created by questioning, the evidence for doing so for traumatic childhood sexual abuse is anecdotal and those anecdotes were pretty heavily cherry picked by the clearly biased FMSF, which was run as a support and advocacy group for parents accused of abuse.

That said, my understanding is that in general, dwelling on traumatizing experiences isn't beneficial to recovery. There are times they may need to be confronted and processed, but generally if it isn't causing a problem, don't go digging it up and spending a lot of time thinking about it unnecessarily.

jxjnskkzxxhx•3h ago
Exactly. This reeks of snake oil.

I'm addicted to sugar. I have some trauma now? What trauma? My life has been relatively smooth sailing. You're right, this is just a way of creating the "need" for "therapy".

barbazoo•3h ago
The therapy industrial complex at it again /s
bregma•3h ago
It's all because of Big Help.
Aurornis•2h ago
You joke, but trauma influencers are a big deal. That’s how they get their followers and their podcast appearances.
dylan604•2h ago
Alex Jones, is that you? That's a very poignant insight from you that I'm surprised you're willing to admit. /s
dylan604•2h ago
Man, you're being disingenuous as can be. Not all addiction is the same, and some are much easier to break than others. However, sugar addiction can lead to some very traumatic experiences at the dentist.
barbazoo•3h ago
I’ve tried counselling multiple times and I never got that eye opening clarity of what’s wrong with me. Maybe one has to do psychotherapy for that, which is unavailable to most.
gh0stcat•3h ago
For me it’s not necessarily trauma or suffering, not beyond the normal expected human “suffering” of doing boring, mundane tasks or feeling sad/frustrated/insecure, but rather feeling these generally uncomfortable feelings and having a habit of detaching from them and developing a low tolerance for handling it in general.

I generally engage more in my own flavor of addictions (caffeine, social media, workaholism) when I am more overwhelmed, understanding that I do this and why… was helpful.

lelanthran•2h ago
> However I’ve looked inside myself many times to find said trauma or suffering and I just don’t really see anything of note.

Don't worry about it. The trauma diagnosis has been ludicrously poor at treating addiction.

From what I've read, it performs worse than placebos, random chance, etc.

For treatment of substance abuse, therapy is literally at the bottom of the performance chart, below things like hypnotism, alternative medicines and plain old prayer.

everdrive•4h ago
Trauma is far too vague and far too appealing to be as useful as people believe. Everyone thinks they have some sort of trauma, and that everything can be boiled down to trauma. Some people are more inclined to addiction and this is not necessarily related to trauma.
sharifhsn•4h ago
Yes, but trauma is a useful framework to help an individual recover from addiction. While some individuals will struggle more than others, everyone has a path to avoiding addiction, and one of the best ways to do this is to build an environment for people that compensates for trauma. It’s much easier to confront things that were done to you, than to mistakes that you yourself committed.
vintermann•4h ago
I don't think it's a good framework, because trauma is about the past. Whereas for addiction or other avoidant or self-destructive behavior, the tigers are often still around.
butlike•3h ago
But what if the addiction isn't rooted in trauma? My mom smoked a few cigs when she was pregnant, which probably caused some mild ADHD symptoms, so when high school rolled around and I began experimenting with drugs to quell those symptoms, the ADHD medication felt best. If that medication felt good, I wondered what the others would feel like, so it started me down the path of addictive behavior during my formative years.

Where is the trauma in that scenario? The brain damage from the cigs? I can hardly get over that 'trauma' since I've never known a world without it. The trauma of repeatedly getting addicted to things? I DON'T hold that against myself, I just like how they feel. Where is the trauma in that scenario?

some_random•3h ago
This tends to be a really frustrating conversation because it's different for different people. Some find the trauma framework as useful in recovering, other find it useful because it allows them to blame other people and sink deeper into addiction. Others yet find that it doesn't really apply to them.
Aurornis•2h ago
It’s actually not very helpful, because it entirely externalizes the problem.

It can get people started on therapy because it uses therapy speak and therefore feels like therapy is an obvious solution. However, it also makes the person into a victim of external trauma while minimizing their own role in the choices that led to the addiction.

It’s really appealing for people who need something external to blame, but it’s less helpful in getting at the root of behavioral issues that aren’t really external.

For the narrow slice of patients who actually have severe trauma response issues, it can be helpful. For everyone else it’s becoming a big distraction.

micromacrofoot•4h ago
Most people probably do have some sort of trauma, whether or not it causes ongoing problems is a different story
rwyinuse•4h ago
That may apply to things like serious substance abuse, but what about things like smartphone, social media addiction? I seriously doubt everyone glued to their phone has a trauma. Some things are simply engineered to be addictive.

I guess one could argue that modern life in industrialized world is deeply understimulating, and the phones just provide an escape from that, but that's just living conditions, not a trauma.

keiferski•4h ago
I think the reality is that no matter how manipulative these devices are, they really aren’t comparable to addictions in the sense of drug or alcohol addiction. They are essentially just learned behaviors which are reinforced constantly by peers and society.
vintermann•4h ago
Yes, I think "trauma" is a little too specific and gives the wrong associations. The point is, there was something about our situation that made it appealing to escape into the "addiction" for a moment. And depending on what the "addiction" is, it could more or less self-reinforcing.
n4r9•3h ago
You're right. For substance additions the cause could be something like a toxic relationship or job stress.

As soon as I put my smartphone away I realise I'm confronted with challenging feelings: the fear of engaging with the people around me, worrying what they're thinking, looking stupid if I'm not doing anything, or just plain boredom. So it's "avoiding psychological difficulty" that is the fundamental factor.

hollerith•4h ago
I was addicted for years (to the flow state, to which by the way I've never seen or heard a report of anyone else's being addicted).

I also wasted too much time, thousands of hours, reading and writing on the newsgroups and on the web.

There are similarities between these 2 things. For example, both reduce the amount of motivation and drive available in a life. But they feel very different, and in my experience, avoiding the former is extremely important whereas avoiding the latter is merely one more important thing in a life full of important considerations.

In an ideal world, there would be a word or short phrase for the second thing so that "addiction" could be reserved for the first thing. "Insufficient vigilance against superstimuli" is the shortest phrase I can think of right now. (I'm sad that I cannot use the word "vices" without provoking an immediate negative reaction: "vices" is shorter than "superstimuli".)

blamestross•3h ago
You are not alone! I used programming flow state as pain management for a decade.

Its one of those "paid for your mental disorder" situations that are a lot more common than people realize.

gausswho•3h ago
Whoa. I've never heard anyone put the flow state in this category.

On the one hand, it sounds preposterous - a bit like saying you're addicted to consciousness, or meditation. On the other, I can relate to how my enjoyment and pursuit of it strains my relationships with others.

It's a fascinating suggestion. I'd like to hear more about why you feel that way.

hollerith•2h ago
Most things that are highly pleasurable or that provide relief can become the focus of an addiction.

I had chronically-high cortisol. The flow state provided a profound but temporary relief from the cortisol. There are better responses to high cortisol.

DHEA (which is available over-the-counter in the US) is a better response because it allows me to dispense with the hour or 2 of intense concentration necessary to get into the flow state (freeing up the time and the mental energy for more productive uses).

Starting a friendship with a person who gets me and doesn't trigger my trauma triggers was a better response because the cortisol-lowering effect of such a friendship has lasted for years whereas the effect of being in the flow state ends as soon as the flow state ends.

datpuz•2h ago
Are you rich at least?
hollerith•2h ago
Not at all. But I'm no longer addicted to anything, which is more important.
127•3h ago
I think it's a bit of both. The worse ones mental health, the harder it is to stop addictions from forming.
exe34•3h ago
I don't think it's the glued-to-the-phone that indicates trauma/addiction - it's when they have the option not to be and still choose to stay. E.g. if I'm spending time with my friends, I have no interest in my phone. When I'm on my own, it's easy to spend hours on it.
Aurornis•3h ago
> I seriously doubt everyone glued to their phone has a trauma.

The “trauma explains everything” meme has become more of a way to get people to accept therapy than a real explanation.

It transforms the problem from a personal failing (I can’t control my addiction) to a situation where the person is a victim of something external (Trauma inflicted on me has forced me to become addicted). People find it easier to accept treatment when they think they’re a victim of something external.

Gabor Mate (the trauma influencer mentioned in the comment above) uses trauma as the basis of his therapy, so he finds a “trauma” for everyone. If he can’t find something with the patient, he believes being born is their trauma, because the childbirth process is painful. Everyone was born, so he has a fallback trauma to assign to everyone.

lelanthran•2h ago
That sounds like basic woo-science.
datpuz•2h ago
Okay, but the therapy industry is also a total grift. So I guess the trick is to reinforce your external locus of control by blaming your trauma, so that you go to a pseudoscience practitioner who will fix the problems that were created for you? That way they've got a lifelong customer!
intellectronica•1h ago
People who suffer from mental health difficulties tend to be psychologically inflexible. And it is that inflexibility, which can manifest in so many different ways, that is preventing them from growing and healing.

For some it can be consuming the same psychoactive substance over and over again. For others it may be compulsion to repeat a limited set of rituals and behaviours.

The first thing they need help with is accepting that they will not be able to exercise control over everything. There are many ways to get there, but for many, labelling this pattern as "addiction" and getting help and support in this context, is easier than other options.

jamal-kumar•3h ago
I distinctly remember english speakers being less annoying before this guy filled everyone full of relating absolutely everything to trauma. It just seems like a massively reductionist point of view in a world of people more complex than that
Synaesthesia•3h ago
My initial.reactiom to his book on ADHD was similar, I couldn't believe that it could all be reduced to trauma.

I've really come around to that theory though and I think he's very wise.

We need to take a close look at the way we are living our lives under capitalism, the decisions we're forced to.make, and the way we treat our children.

Aurornis•3h ago
Gabor Maté is popular, but he’s an example of an influencer who has one tool (trauma treatment) and applies it to everything. His approach is extremely reductive. Many people get addicted to drugs simply because they like taking the drugs and have poor self control, not because they’re avoiding trauma.

It’s another example of something that isn’t really correct for everyone but can be useful to get people to go to a therapist and get treatment.

spjt•2h ago
As someone with an incredibly "addictive personality", I've always seen it much more simply. I become addicted to things when there's nothing else I'd rather be doing that is incompatible with the addictive behavior. Like if I'm sitting on the couch scrolling on my phone, if there was something else I'd rather do (not something that I'd "ought to" rather be doing but don't actually want to) then I would be doing that instead.
n4r9•2h ago
When I sit and observe my thoughts and feelings I find a complex mix of desires. Some that are immediate/basic/short-term vs some that are conceptual/nuanced/long-term. The eventual course of action is a delicate compromise. A lot of the time I'd rather just veg out than - say - go for a run or do some writing. But I might do the latter anyway because I recognise that it'll usually help me feel much better in 2 hours time.

I guess the upshot is that "I'd rather be doing..." is not actually very simple at all IMO.

Willingham•4h ago
It’s important to understand that all 12 step programs(all of which are based on AA) approach addiction as a spiritual disease, and the program offers a spiritual solution. 12 step programs also teach that addiction is a progressive disease, and there is no permanent ‘fix’, but rather a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of one’s spiritual condition. Here is a concise summarization of the 12 step design for living: ‘reverse selfishness, get out and help others’. According to 12 step programs, if you stop working the program, addiction will come back in full force.
TechDebtDevin•3h ago
Its also important to understand the most of the successes sang by 12 step evangalists are coming from the <5% it works on.

Im not against it but it simply is not the only cure for addiction. In fact its provenly a very bad program for the 95% that cant hang.

Much better CBT and medical interventions out there and millions of people are told every year to ignore them because of 12 step evangalist.

If the west had the answer to addiction in the form of 12 step, we probably wouldnt have the highest rates of addiction in the world and is probably a sign of societal trauma that no amount of meetings is going to help.

butlike•3h ago
The only thing that worked for me is 'trying to do better than I did the previous day' with the understanding it's not a linear curve, but a spiky graph that trends upwards.
TechDebtDevin•2h ago
That's awesome, just please don't tell other people that its the only way. Which has been my experience with 12 step people.

Its the most unscientific method of treating addiction we have, one of the least effective, yet the government literally uses it as its ONLY tool (in a lot towns) to fight addiction in their communities, partly because propagandists of the 12 step methods have ingrained the idea that its the only thing that works into society (USA), when in fact, it is the opposite. My guess is, they like or don't care about recidivism also.

I think the decentralized community-based nature of 12 steps programs is cool though, and we do need more stuff like that.

ants_everywhere•3h ago
It leaves a bad taste in my mouth when people "lie" about psychological terms because they feel it enables a greater good.

I see the point you're making. But we as a society do this a lot, and it hasn't always historically been good for the people who are actually affected by the disorders.

Historically, this has been done by therapists who aren't well connected to the research world. They think they find a framework that works for their patients and promote it. Sometimes it becomes a fad despite not being backed by evidence. It's not always clear what the consequences are, but a common consequence is that many people miss out on actually figuring out what's going on with them and getting evidence-based treatment.

I'm not saying that there is no AI addiction. I'll leave that to the professionals. But I do want to gently push back on the idea that we should raise something to the level of pathology because it seems useful.

And as the parent of kids, there are a lot of habits that become compulsions and where you experience withdrawal if you stop. Reading is one in my family. Exercise is something that's rewarding and you feel bad if you stop. But exercise addiction is a very specific disorder. Just some stuff to keep in mind.

IlikeKitties•3h ago
Let's not forget that the "12-step-infrastructure" is a VERY American thing based around mostly christian religious nonsense and is by design completely inaccessible for people without a belief in fairy tales. It's obvious that the modern society requires addiction counseling and rehabilitation facilities, what we don't need is even more outlets for cults of all color to pray on people in dire situations.

Just the very 12 Steps themselves are enough to show you that[0]:

> We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.

> Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

> Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood Him

> Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

> Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

> Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

> Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

> Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

> Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

> Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.

> Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

> Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve-step_program

kingkawn•3h ago
folks doing their best with what they've got, a huge portion of the population this language speaks to, your contempt is not helpful to them
tayo42•3h ago
What do alcoholics do for recovery outside the US?
IlikeKitties•3h ago
In civilized countries? Get support from Doctors, licensed psychologist and addiction counselors. In less civilized countries? Die.
Aurornis•3h ago
> In civilized countries? Get support from Doctors, licensed psychologist and addiction counselors

All of these are available and common in the US.

12-step programs and AA are available in many countries outside of the US.

IlikeKitties•2h ago
There wouldn't be any evidence that these groups, specifically AA have embedded themselves into the government and law system of the united states in particular and have used their influence to force non-religious people to join their little cult meetings, right? It's all optional of course!

Anyway, here's a list of court cases/news articles where it wasn't:

https://www.courthousenews.com/atheist-fights-court-ordered-...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/08/alcoholics-ano...

https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/1995/jul/15/aa-probatio...

https://aaagnostica.org/2014/10/17/atheist-punished-for-reje...

I'm sure you can find 20 more easily. Glad i'm not american.

genewitch•14m ago
you really got an axe to grind, huh?
stronglikedan•11m ago
> specifically AA have embedded themselves into the government and law system of the united states in particular

You could literally say the same about any special interest group in any country.

> Glad i'm not american.

Me too, but the difference is that you don't see me thinking I know anything about UK politics or special interest groups.

I'd even wager that you've never even set foot in a meeting in an attempt to alleviate your naivety.

cturner•2h ago
You seem to have a chip on your shoulder about Christianity, and that's your right. But in the course of that you may overlook that faith-based treatment of problems is a powerful tool that serves some people well. Consider the culture of people taking a break from alcohol over Lent for several weeks each year.
tea-lover•3h ago
I'm in the former USSR; this thing is very popular among alcoholics I know personally or have heard of from friends and relatives:

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Кодирование_от_алкоголизма

The article in Russian is much more thorough than the English one, run it through Google Translate or something.

There are various ways it's practiced in my area, all of them can be summarized as follows: a medical professional performs some procedure (sometimes just hypnosis, but it can get more physical), which either "cures" your alcoholism, or convinces you that you're going to die horribly if you have even a drop of alcohol. The process depends on who is doing it.

It's basically just placebo and is pretty useless in practice (most alcoholics I know haven't stopped drinking for more than a couple of months), which doesn't prevent it from being widely used.

IlikeKitties•3h ago
That seems insanely dangerous. As far as I know, once you are physically addicted to alcohol, you can't even go cold turkey without risk of literally dying.
tea-lover•3h ago
If you get DTs after drinking for months, you will get proper medical treatment as in any other country. The "coding" is usually performed after you have been sober for some time and "stabilized", so to say.
Yizahi•2h ago
Proper (most) of the facilities which do this require people to stop drinking for at least few days before procedure, and some offer paid service isolating patient for a few days under supervision, and then do a block. In cases when patient is already delirious from intoxication these facilities can force one to go cold turkey, but at the same time put patient on the IV with some supplements and issue anti-psychotics (by doctors of course).

So in general the system is well equipped to not allow patients die from abstaining.

Yizahi•2h ago
This is why ex-USSR countries have so many programmers - we did a lot of coding :)
graemep•1h ago
As Alcoholics Anonymous operates in 180 countries quite often people outside the US do go there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoholics_Anonymous#Internati...
moffkalast•43m ago
Die by drinking and driving, mainly.
singpolyma3•37m ago
Get proper treatment by professionals.
bloqs•3h ago
>pray on people

bravo

IlikeKitties•3h ago
I'm gonna leave that in.
Aurornis•3h ago
> Let's not forget that the "12-step-infrastructure" is a VERY American thing based around mostly christian religious nonsense and is by design completely inaccessible for people without a belief in fairy tales.

One of my old friends was a staunch atheist since middle school. He joined AA after some struggles.

He said it was no problem at all. They told him his “higher power” could be anything he chose, such as nature or the universe. The prayer part was just meditation. Nobody tried to push religion on anyone.

I don’t know if his experience was typical or not, but he didn’t think it was a problem at all.

I haven’t kept up with him for a while but last we talked he was still doing well, many years later.

Drew_•3h ago
Yup. The steps are definitely rooted in Christianity, but you can exercise them however you want. As you might imagine, most people suffering with addiction are not that religious (if at all) and the same thing goes in those groups.
Craighead•2h ago
the vast majority of the law systems surrounding the global west are rooted in Christianity. you need to pause for a moment and stop equating religion with evil.
imtringued•2h ago
A lot of people don't see religion as a self replicating cultural program that benefits its biological host. It provides answers for the unanswerable. It is like L_2 norm based regularization in machine learning. You need an answer and there are many solutions, so you have to have a criteria for picking one.

Turns out in the last few centuries a lot of unanswerable questions have found answers rooted in scientific progress and the new answers conflict with the previous answers, which by their very function as placeholders could not have been correct.

Drew_•1h ago
You read these comments incorrectly
lelanthran•3h ago
> I don’t know if his experience was typical or not, but he didn’t think it was a problem at all.

His experience is typical. I know have someone very close to me in AA+12-step. There is no pressure to have your higher power named "God". It could be anything; the point is to have a power higher than the one over you (the addiction).

IlikeKitties•2h ago
> There is no pressure to have your higher power named "God". It could be anything; the point is to have a power higher than the one over you (the addiction).

The rejection of any "higher power" is precisely what being an atheist is for a lot of us. Accepting that we are just the result of random thermodynamic processes in a cold and uncaring universe that provides no evidence that there is any form of "higher power" than uncaring entropy could very well be the definition of modern atheism.

lelanthran•2h ago
> The rejection of any "higher power" is precisely what being an atheist is for a lot of us.

The person I am talking about chose their child's well-being and safety as their "higher power".

The higher power has nothing at all to do with religion unless you want it to.

IlikeKitties•2h ago
I looked it up, there's not a dictionary I can find that would define "higher power" as your friend did. Words have meaning, you know?

Sources:

https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/higher-power https://www.dictionary.com/browse/higher-power https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/higher%20power

And it's beside the point anyways because again, look at the 12 Steps, quoted directly from their website, as a canonical source [0]:

> 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

> 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

> 7. Humbly asked Him [God] to remove our shortcomings.

> 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

If your argument is that to stop alcohol addiction you need to stop using alcohol and most of the 12 Step Program is irrelevant nonsense, than we are in agreement. But they don't talk about "higher power" they literally talk about God (And they obviously don't mean Xenu here) in the majority of their steps. [0]https://www.aa.org/the-twelve-steps

Aurornis•2h ago
> I looked it up, there's not a dictionary I can find that would define "higher power" as your friend did. Words have meaning, you know?

Meaning has context. If you're searching dictionaries for multi-word phrases that are specific to a certain context, you're not going to find the right answer.

IlikeKitties•2h ago
You are conveniently ignoring the "God" part or the "prayer" part or the "spiritual awakening" part.

Why?

There's lot's of places around the world that do evidence based addiction counseling and unsurprisingly none of them require you to believe in any made up entities and spiritual nonsense.

ta8645•52m ago
You are a very small part of an unimaginably large universe; so you are not the ultimate power, ergo there is a higher power than you. Some people choose to call that higher power "God", but there's no reason to get hung up on that for yourself; it's easy to translate into your own terms without raising an objection.

"Prayer" has no universally accepted procedure, and can just be your own calm reflective contemplation. "Spiritual awakening" can be that moment when you as an atheist accept your non-central role in the universe, when you come to peace with the fact that there is a higher power than yourself, and you aren't the central character in its unfolding.

There are only "made up entities" when you demand that everything be understood in literally minded cartoonish definitions, rather than a more nuanced understanding of the world around us, and our place in it.

antonvs•28m ago
> You are a very small part of an unimaginably large universe; so you are not the ultimate power, ergo there is a higher power than you.

This is incoherent. It assumes some sort of hierarchy of "power" - what does that even mean? Is the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy a higher power because it has more mass/energy than I do?

> there's no reason to get hung up on that for yourself; it's easy to translate into your own terms without raising an objection.

The reason is critical thought and a dislike of incoherent nonsense.

ta8645•9m ago
The supermassive black hole is also just a small part of an unimaginably large universe. But if you got too close to it, you would indeed find it is a higher power than yourself, lol.

But the higher power in the AA context is a deep recognition that we are subordinate to the laws of nature. Which is indeed a kind of higher power; we are subordinate to the laws of nature, and can not exert our own will to overcome them. It is that recognition and submission to reality that can engender a humility and peace essential to recovery from addiction.

It only represents incoherent nonsense to someone who is very literally minded and can not integrate relatively simple concepts into their own rigid mental framework.

phrotoma•2h ago
There is no need to look it up. The site addresses this specific question.

https://internetaddictsanonymous.org/for-atheists-and-agnost...

IlikeKitties•2h ago
Literally a different side.
davidmurdoch•2h ago
Sounds like those thermodynamics processes are your higher power then? You're overthinking it.
0xdeadbeefbabe•2h ago
Overthinking is the higher power.
dfee•2h ago
> Accepting that we are just the result of random thermodynamic processes in a cold and uncaring universe that provides no evidence that there is any form of "higher power" than uncaring entropy could very well be the definition of modern atheism.

and then your further rejection of the response:

> The person I am talking about chose their child's well-being and safety as their "higher power".

i understand you see the universe as uncaring, but there is care right in front of you. i hope the sunshine breaks through and you find it, too.

antonvs•32m ago
Equating "care" with "higher power" is a strange hoop to jump through. And if we ask why you want to do that, the answer is religion.

Some of us would like to move on from these primitive superstitions. We can have care, empathy, and "sunshine" without it being contaminated by nonsense.

haswell•2h ago
> The rejection of any "higher power" is precisely what being an atheist is for a lot of us. Accepting that we are just the result of random thermodynamic processes in a cold and uncaring universe

I’m somewhere between atheist and agnostic. My mental model is a bit different. While I don’t believe there is a god or some “divine entity”, I do see “the stuff of primordial existence” as some kind of “higher power” to the extent that I’m a product of it, and its laws — discovered and yet to be discovered — govern my existence. Not some anthropomorphic entity.

Put another way, those thermodynamic processes and whatever factors of existence that enable/govern them are the “higher power”, and I don’t think that is incompatible with atheism.

tomnipotent•1h ago
> between atheist and agnostic

Sounds like you're both. They're complimentary labels. It's also possible to be an agnostic theist.

peab•2h ago
the rejection of a higher power is insane - how do you rationalize anything coming into being? How do you rationalize there being a world at all in the first place?

A higher power isn't a man in the sky building the world in 7 days. A higher power is admitting that you do not know reality, that we are barely more intelligent than a monkey, and that the universe is much vaster and more mystical than what can be defined in a physics textbook.

IlikeKitties•2h ago
> the rejection of a higher power is insane - how do you rationalize anything coming into being? How do you rationalize there being a world at all in the first place?

How do you rationalize the high power coming to being? How do you rationalize there being a higher power at all in the first place?

thewebguyd•25m ago
> how do you rationalize anything coming into being?

Why does it need to be rationalized at all? I don't need a rationalization for existing - beings arise, exist, change, and then they cease. The world's current existence isn't something that requires external justification, it just simply is.

I guess you could say the higher power to me would just be the continuous process that leads to existence and ceasing to exist - but to me it has no meaning, and no "power" other than simply being the way things are as I experience them.

datpuz•2h ago
It seems strange that one of the steps is admitting you have no control over your addiction. I feel like the first step should be deciding that you do. But that kind of self assuredness doesn't really align well with whole surrendering to Jeebus thing.
lelanthran•2h ago
> It seems strange that one of the steps is admitting you have no control over your addiction. I feel like the first step should be deciding that you do.

If you do, you wouldn't be addicted, now would you?

datpuz•2h ago
I dunno, but I'm pretty sure Jesus is not controlling my addiction, either.
antonvs•26m ago
There are people who quit addictions under their own power. So as the parent pointed out, it seems strange to exclude that option from the start.
genewitch•18m ago
in AA they call those people "dry drunks" instead of "recovering alcoholics".

if you're in treatment or AA for alcoholism - just as a single example - you're recovering. If you're merely "not drinking" then you're not recovering, you're just "not drinking."

i don't even understand why this is an issue, there are a lot of people where a 12 step program helps them recover; there are in-patient and outpatient care facilities that also can facilitate recovery.

and yes, some small segment of the population can be a "dry drunk" for the rest of their lives, but thinking you can overcome addiction by yourself is one of the reasons that addiction is prevalent.

dijksterhuis•6m ago
[delayed]
samtheprogram•2h ago
Admitting you have no control is how you stop having “just 1 drink”… because you don’t have control.

You are taking the “no control” thing too literally.

card_zero•40m ago
Right, so this all makes sense so long as you don't take it literally, don't think about it too much, and don't pay attention to the words and the things they say. It should be understood more as dadaist sound poetry.
antonvs•26m ago
I love this comment, thank you.

/thread

madog•1h ago
I agree.

Seems like the first step should be understanding that you CAN have control over it, even if you don't currently; and that you have the agency and strength to do that without appeal to some higher power.

The admitting you have no control sounds fatalistic to me and robs you of agency/responsibility. Then you're reliant on some externality or higher power instead of finding it within yourself.

Even those who go for the higher power are ultimately doing it themselves, they've just kidded themselves something else is involved, and if that helps you find that you can have some control over it, then great, I guess?

IlikeKitties•1h ago
I think this is arguing semantics at this point but a charitable interpretation could be that one does not have control over the addiction and must therefore abstain from taking a particular substance, the abstinence being within the sphere of control of the individual.

It's the difference between someone who can just drink a beer once in a while and an alcoholic that must abstain completly.

Volundr•1h ago
Part of taking control is first admitting that you are not currently in control. Believing you are in control leads to the classic "I can stop anytime I want to" or "just one drink won't hurt". Recognizing that you can't control it is how you recognize that yes, that one drink will hurt.
dijksterhuis•1h ago
“just one more”

“after this one i definitely need to stop”

“i can handle another”

“i’m fine, i can go for a bit longer”

“i can stop after this one”

“the next one will make me feel better”

^ the illusion/delusion of being in control. even when all evidence points to the opposite conclusion — that one more i had yesterday, and all the previous days, was never the last one.

when your in this shit it’s basically impossible to think your way out of it because most thoughts become “a drink will solve this” or some such. that right there is the core problem. the thinking process has become completely twisted and warped into “more is the solution”.

the powerlessness is over the compulsion, obsession and delusions in our own minds around <insert X here>.

-

i appreciate HN is often a more technical / scientific / rational / whatever audience who can maybe sometimes value their own thinking as paramount (coding etc. takes a lot of thinking after all). that’s not a bad thing. it just means it’ll be quite an understandably large leap for some folks to understand what it’s like at the bottom of a bottle.

-

edit - i’m not into the whole jeebus thing FYI

datpuz•2h ago
Yep that was a deal-breaker for me going to AA. I eventually just quit drinking on my own after a few years, but AA being the only option for addiction support groups in many places is a bummer.
mock-possum•1h ago
What’s interesting to me about all this is it sounds like people are defending appropriating religious practices but de-mystifying them. Even though belief in god is explicitly mentioned in the 12 steps, people claim to have had success by just ignoring the god parts -

But at that point, why is The Twelve Steps as an institution still pedaling belief in the supernatural, when it’s ostensibly just as effective with the Christian mythology removed?

Why not make the atheist version the baseline, and allow members to mix in religion if they find it to be useful - as opposed to making religious belief the default, and allowing users to substitute other things for religion if they find that to be useful?

I think the thing that most atheists are objecting to, with ‘religion as default’ situations like this, is the way religious belief is treated as the norm. I remember growing up and going to church, hearing about how “everyone had a god-shaped hole in their heart” - and each person would inevitably find a way to fill that hole, but nothing would ever quite fit, because that hole was god-shaped and could only properly be filled by god.

So when you run up against this kind of language in a system that’s supposed to be helping people free themselves from addiction, it’s off-putting to run into language that coerces them into making themselves beholden to magical thinking and supernatural beliefs, in gods and higher powers. “It can be whatever you want” feels like a cop out - it’s merely a softened stance on what I described above - “everyone has a god-shaped hole in their heart, and it’s okay if you fill that hole with love for your daughter or pride in your work.”

It’s still a turn-off for people like me, for better or for worse - maybe it’s a filter, maybe I’m not the kind of person who would need or would do well in that kind of program.

wkat4242•1m ago
No but it's kinda passive aggressive isn't it? It's built on the belief that having religion is the standard.

Also, many of these staps make no sense.

I don't believe in higher powers and I don't want to humbly beg them to remove my character flaws. If I want those removed I have to do it myself.

Some of the steps make some sense but there's way too much senseless groveling in there.

timacles•3h ago
I mean listen. If humans have to abstract a belief into something to get them through tough times then so be it.

It does not help anyone to pretend that the universe is some sort of pure logic and reasoning machine and that a human can operate that way, because we are governed by and a slave to our emotions.

Religion and God exist for a reason, and that reason is that the world is inconceivably complicated and if you dont create a mental and emotional reasoning system that helps see beyond the complexity then you are going to have a really tough time.

Now, churches and cults and all that preying on vulnerable people is a whole other subject. But God and religion is a powerful tool humans have turned to for millennia.

rubicon33•2h ago
“Religious nonsense” is such an engineer minded thing to say.

I’m with you for sure, but the truth is systems like religion, art, design, etc all serve a functional purpose to trick the mind, calm the mind, etc.

colechristensen•2h ago
Plenty of non-engineering types are also atheists with a dismissive attitude. Putting art and religion in the same bucket like they belong to the same thought process is a ... very engineer minded thing to say.
IlikeKitties•2h ago
I would invite you to look into how modern cults started. Jonestown, Scientology, Children of God, Haven's Gate, Branch Davidians, Mormonism, etc.

It's really, really fascinating and there's tons of resources out there how they get started, how they function and why. Once you understand the functional purpose of them, you'll never look at other religions the same.

93po•2h ago
I would recommend Refuge Recovery over AA any day. It's still buddhist inspired but it doesn't ask you to believe in a deity and basically just sticks to principles of buddhism like "be nice, be compassionate, to both yourself and others"
graemep•1h ago
> to principles of buddhism like "be nice, be compassionate, to both yourself and others"

Principles shared with most religions and most non-religious people are hardly a mrk of Buddhism.

Buddhism is not a theistic religion, but it still requires a lot of religious beliefs (reincarnation, enlightenment, nirvana) and a lot of concepts such as detachment.

There is a BIG difference between "not monotheistic" and "not religious".

moffkalast•41m ago
Self compassion is a major part of any kind of recovery really, life is really dark when you hate yourself for being who you are.
intellectronica•2h ago
I'm as rational atheist as they come, and was nevertheless helped, for a while, by a 12-step program. You don't need to believe anything other than that not everything in life is under your control.
peab•1h ago
>It's obvious that the modern society requires addiction counseling and rehabilitation facilities is it? or is that your opinion? Why don't we look at actual evidence:

"There is high quality evidence that manualized AA/TSF interventions are more effective than other established treatments, such as CBT, for increasing abstinence. Non-manualized AA/TSF may perform as well as these other established treatments. AA/TSF interventions, both manualized and non-manualized, may be at least as effective as other treatments for other alcohol-related outcomes. AA/TSF probably produces substantial healthcare cost savings among people with alcohol use disorder."[0]

[0]https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32159228/

IlikeKitties•1h ago
That's a great resource because it's a meta study collecting data from other studies, thank you i was searching for something like that! Unfortunately your quote is misleading as it leaves out some serious issues with the evidence and studies used. I recommend reading the "Main results" parts in your link in full.
stronglikedan•15m ago
You are mistaken if you think AA has anything to do with religion. Methinks you're just parroting what you've read without actually verifying anything. Amplifying this nonsense just causes people in need to reconsider getting help.
afpx•4m ago
But, it works, right? 12-step type programs are also widely-available and low-cost.

Practicing religion yields a lot of net-positive effects, particularly mental anguish and internal turmoil. Otherwise, people wouldn't practice them. With moderate practice, you can easily achieve a state of 100% internal peace.

belter•2h ago
I will ask AI to come up with the 12-step plan....
benreesman•1h ago
We could also stop gerrymandering the use/abuse line and just make a call as a society: we use drugs (most people most places most of history) or we don't fuck with drugs (most of the Islamic world, certain subcultures).

America is a Puritan origin society with a temperance faction that has been everything from writing the Constitution to largely ignored, standards for alcohol, cannabis, scripts fluctuate like hemlines: a typical adulthood will see multiple incompatible regimes of acceptable use vs unacceptable abuse.

None of that is anything to do with compassionate provision of high-quality medical care to vulnerable people (a strict ethical and practical good). Compassionate provision of high quality support is both expensive and leaves no room for insider/outsider lizard brain shit, i.e. not a very American thing to do in the 21st century.

Our society needs to get its shit together on this, not further weaponize it.

diggan•5h ago
> ITAA is a Twelve-Step fellowship of individuals who support each other in recovering from internet and technology addiction. This includes social media addiction, phone addiction, video addiction, television addiction, gaming addiction, news addiction, pornography addiction, dating apps, online research, online shopping, or any other digital activity that becomes compulsive and problematic.

Seems to be about general IT/computing addiction (too), which seems even better than a group focusing only on "AI Addiction". Seems like a very active effort (online calendar has multiple events per day), across multiple countries and languages.

I haven't participated (or even seen this before) myself, but as far as I can tell, it's basically a fork of AA and their methodology, but I've also not participated in AA so maybe they're different in some major way? Otherwise it seems like a good approach, take something that is somewhat working, make it more specific and hopefully people into that specific thing can get the help they need.

FearNotDaniel•5h ago
I've taken part in 12 Step programmes and even occasionally attended AA meetings. After browsing the site for a while I can confirm it seems pretty faithful to the AA methodology, except for the addition of the "top/middle/bottom line" classification of behaviours - because in AA sobriety is universally defined as "abstaining from all alcohol" whereas this fellowship is not proposing that members should never use the internet, so the members need to define for themselves which specific patterns of behaviour qualify as "relapse" and which are risky.

This addition is not new or unique to ITAA, as I understand it was pioneered as the "three circles" model by Sex Addicts Anonymous and has been adopted by other recovery fellowships where the definition of clean/sober is not so binary or universal.

thaumasiotes•5h ago
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2014-03-21
stpedgwdgfhgdd•5h ago
I asked Chatgpt whether this was a joke. And asked Claude and Le chat for confirmation.
cout•5h ago
As a long-time compulsive Internet user, I am aware of the emotional and psychological risks of this new technology. For now, the ability to find information faster (with certain caveats) means I actually spend less time on the internet than before.

But chatgpt for example showers the user with compliments. I'm sure this encourages user engagement, but it is eerily similar to the "love bombing" of cults from the 70s and 80s. I don't know how to reconcile the long-term risks with the huge short-term gains in productivity.

Are there any technologies or apps that are worse than others, particularly for people with obsessive/compulsive tendencies?

mythrwy•4h ago
The machine flattery is a big turn off for me.

No, my simple and obvious statement was not "a deep and insightful point". No I am not "in the top 1% of people who can recognize this".

The other thing that drives me crazy is the constant positive re-framing with bold letters. "You aren't lazy, you are just *re-calibrating*! A wise move on your part!".

I don't find it ego stroking at all. It's obviously fake and patently stupid and that verbiage just mucks up the conversation.

rixed•4h ago
I feel exactly the same, but I believe this is not universal. I see a similarity with the repulsion I feel when someone is being nice to me because of a job (or more generally, when someone address me "as a customer"). Not everyone react the same, and many people, despite of being perfectly aware that the attention they get is purely calculated, are totally fine with that. It's just fare game to them. I would not be surprised if the same applied to IA obsequiosity: "yes of course it's flattery, would you prefer to be insulted?" would probably be their answer to that dilemna.
recursive•3h ago
There is something between flattery and insults. Just stick to the facts.
esperent•3h ago
> in the top 1% of people who can recognize this

I've never had an AI respond to me with this kind of phrasing. General psychophancy, sure, but nothing that obnoxious. I haven't used ChatGPT much in the last year though, does it speak that way?

MyOutfitIsVague•3h ago
> psychophancy

Sycophancy. I don't usually correct misspellings, but this one is pretty unique.

dylan604•2h ago
But I like it as GP used it. It's like a portmanteau of psychotic sycophancy
gh0stcat•2h ago
The sycophancy is noticeably worse with 4o, the default model when you are not subscribed. My theory is that is on purpose to lure emotionally vulnerable users into paid subscriptions.
thfuran•3h ago
It (and the rest of the blather in responses) is one of the two biggest factors keeping me from using ChatGPT more. But I assume they have numbers showing that people for some reason want it.
marcellus23•2h ago
I've had custom instructions for ChatGPT for a couple years now to respond in as short and straightforward a way as possible (including quite a few more guidelines, like no exclamation points etc.). I recommend setting up something like that, it helps a lot to avoid blathering and sycophancy.
dylan604•2h ago
It's funny how pendulum-like life situations can be. On one extreme of the pendulum pulled to its highest point on one side is abuse and constant berating. Once you let the pendulum go, it has to swing all the way to the highest point on the other side with the 70s/80s cult of everything is love, man. At some point, the pendulum eventually settles back to a point of equilibrium in the middle. Unless someone manipulates it again, which seems to always happen.
skybrian•5m ago
A long time ago I added "be brief" to ChatGPT's custom instructions and I seem to get less blather. Haven't tried it without for a while, though.
oc1•5h ago
''' Do I ever use AI applications to quickly check something and then discover that hours have passed? Do I ever swear off or set limits around my use of AI, and then break my commitments? Do I have binges on AI applications that last all day or late into the night? Do I turn to AI whenever I have a free moment? Does my use of AI lead me to neglect my personal hygiene, nutritional needs, or physical health? Do I feel isolated, emotionally absent, distracted, or anxious when I’m not using my AI applications? Does my use of AI contribute to conflict or avoidance in personal relationships? Have my digital behaviors jeopardized my studies, finances, or career? Do I hide or lie about the amount of time I spend using AI or the kinds of AI-generated content I consume? Do I feel guilt or shame around my use of AI? '''

Hmm i answered almost all of them with Yes, but i'm also a developer using AI and developing AI apps. So not sure what to make out of it.

fhd2•5h ago
"Don't get high on your own supply" comes to mind :P
moffkalast•58m ago
Tbf, is getting high on someone else's supply a better option?
im3w1l•4h ago
I think you know exactly what to make of it.
imdsm•4h ago
We label everything as an addiction if we do it too much and enjoy it.

But what if the thing we do is good?

Addicted to eating vegetables, addicted to healthy living, etc.

If a developer is using AI for example and they spend a lot of time doing it, and they're feeling fulfilled and happy, then that's fine.

And that's what it has to come down to: does it have a net benefit or net detriment?

JW_00000•4h ago
But look at the questions:

"Does my use of AI lead me to neglect my personal hygiene, nutritional needs, or physical health?"

(compare with: "Does my eating of vegetables lead me to neglect my personal hygiene, nutritional needs, or physical health?")

"Have my digital behaviors jeopardized my studies, finances, or career?"

(compare with: "Have my healthy living behaviors jeopardized my studies, finances, or career?")

All questions are about negative impact on your life. To me it doesn't matter whether you label it "addiction". If you answer yes to most of these questions, whatever the subject, it is severely affecting your life.

esperent•3h ago
> Have my healthy living behaviors jeopardized my studies, finances, or career?

I have met people who are so deep into healthy living that it becomes unhealthy, and their hyper focus on what is healthy - often, these days, fed by TikTok influencers, but when I was younger, fed just as much by books - leads to obsessing over what they can eat to the point of malnourishment.

So the answer to this question very much can be "yes". Humans can get addicted to all kinds of things. Healthy eating is only a few steps away from an eating disorder, in the same way that going out for drinks with friends is only a few steps away from alcoholism. Most people will never take those few steps, but for those who do, it can become a serious problem.

_se•4h ago
Addiction is addiction. You see this a lot in endurance sports (triathlon etc.): people can get addicted to training and racing, and despite these being "healthy" things in general, their families, relationships, and lives outside of the sport are damaged, often irreversible.

Doing anything "too much" is bad for you.

JW_00000•4h ago
I would say all questions except maybe the first one, are about impact on your personal life: "late into the night", "whenever I have a free moment", "personal hygiene", "personal relationships", etc. So if you answer yes to them, I don't think you can use work as excuse; it is affecting your life outside work.
bilsbie•4h ago
> Do I ever use AI applications to quickly check something and then discover that hours have passed?

This used to happen on Wikipedia all the time back in the day. It was called going down a rabbit hole. Actually a cool phenomenon IMO.

thewebguyd•17m ago
Used to love going down wikipedia rabbit holes.

With AI usage I actually find I spend less time on the internet or going down rabbit holes than I used to without it.

samsolomon•5h ago
As an aside—my therapist encouraged me to go pretty deep into twelve step literature. The core of it is dealing with fears and resentments. So many damaging behaviors start as coping mechanisms for dealing with these issues.

I was pretty skeptical initially, but it turns out I also have a ton of fear and resentment that I never thought existed. My stubbornness strikes again! But if you're able to deal with and process your fears and resentments and then switch bad coping mechanisms to good ones—that will improve your life substantially.

A lot of it has been surprisingly eye-opening to me.

thibaultamartin•5h ago
Do you have specific books to recommend?
norome•5h ago
i always recommend Addictive Thinking: Understanding Self-Deception [Twerski M.D., Abraham J] on the topic. A short and insightful read that goes one level deeper than looking at any particular substance. He focuses on the contradictory thinking that addicts use to avoid seeing reality.
samsolomon•4h ago
The AA big book, as it is known. It's actually a small, but very thick book. It's the basis for all twelve step programs.

The main exercises related to my comment are writing out resentments as they occur—who/what wronged you, why that hurt and what part we may have played. Same with fears—what they are, how do they affect us.

Honestly, a lot of it is so simple, but it really forces you to think about these things.

kilroy123•3h ago
What about reading about Stoicism? I have a couple of close family members who are deep into recovery.

The more they talk about it, the more it just sounds like repacked Stoicism.

Trasmatta•3h ago
I'm not a fan of stoicism, because I see it often used as a way to bypass actual emotional processing. Sometimes we need to actually fully feel and process the "negative" emotions, otherwise they get stuck in our system.
timacles•3h ago
Very few people have the internal discipline for Stoicism. Sure its great and wise and reasonable, but its basically life on hard mode.

To be a stoic you have to be minimalist, have intense will power, and high tolerance for pain. How many people do you know that fall into that criteria?

spacemadness•1h ago
The rebranded modern stoicism, otherwise known as broicism? Or actual stoicism? Influencers normally push the broicism version which focuses on stifling emotions to be more “successful” and focused on self interest. Not unlike what the west did to buddhism and mindfulness.
moffkalast•1h ago
Stoicism only talks about logic and ignores the rest, that's basically the default for male engineers. It results in decisions that make logical sense but no emotional sense and a complete detachment to yourself as a human. Removing all emotions is not happiness, it's just the absence of pain.
_joel•5h ago
I must be an addict, I read 12 step as 12 factor
bilsbie•4h ago
Does Anyone else actually want more AI addiction? I really forget to use it when it could be a useful resource.
zb3•4h ago
Addiction? I keep hearing "get the most of AI or become irrelevant", so I guess this should be tackled too.
recursive•3h ago
I can't wait to be irrelevant so AI will leave me alone.
vouaobrasil•2h ago
If not using AI means becoming irrelevant, I am happy to be irrelevant. Because that's a value of the modern technological system, and it seems to me that any trait negative for that system is actually a positive these days.
mark_l_watson•4h ago
Interesting article! My take is that AI Addiction is a subset of Digital Addiction. A few weeks ago, I was with extended family and everyone but me was staring ‘lovingly’ at their phones. I tend towards Digital Addiction myself, and I fight back by not carrying my phone when I run errands and try to spend at least a little time every day in nature.

The Apple Watch is a good compromise: some ability to get calls and text messages, but not a very ‘addictive device.’

oc1•3h ago
Probably why i end up always returning the watch.
deadbabe•3h ago
Please avoid starting your comments with flattering statements, respond directly. Thanks.
dylan604•2h ago
Does that prompt work? Also, if you don't want the flattering and over polite statements, why be polite back to the machine with thanks. Why does it need your thanks? It is a computer. It was made to do what you told it to do. It has no emotions. It does not want nor need a little gold star from a helicopter parent type of user. Just give it instructions.
deadbabe•3h ago
Tell a student or software engineer they cannot use LLMs to do their work anymore. They will clutch their LLM tightly, like an alcoholic clutches his bottle.
k8sToGo•3h ago
How can you say that LLM is the same as alcohol? If I use something that is useful a lot, it does not mean I am addicted...
deadbabe•3h ago
Alcohol helps people get through their day and social situations.
butlike•3h ago
On that same line of thinking, why not tell the contractor they can't use hammers to build their buildings anymore? They will clutch their hammers tightly. They're all tools, useful in certain situations and not others. Yes, including alcohol.
booleandilemma•3h ago
I'm so glad I don't use AI - at all.
jeffhuys•3h ago
If you see this as purely LLM-related, read again:

> AI addiction is the compulsive and harmful use of AI-powered applications. It can involve AI-powered chatbots like ChatGPT, video or image generation apps, algorithm-driven social media platforms, AI-powered gaming, AI companions, AI roleplaying, AI-generated pornography, or any other

The youth is not ready. Infinite pictures of whatever you want to see. Downloaded models have _no_ restrictions.

Make of that what you want.

vouaobrasil•2h ago
> The youth is not ready.

Nobody is ready, and ever will be. Like it or not, we thrive on the scarcity of information. But our instinct to collect it has overpowered that scarcity in a big way, and that will lead to a high degree of neurosis no matter who you are.

shahbaby•2h ago
Personally, I think the addiction aspect of AI is not worse than what's already out there, it only gets attention right now because it's new.
snowstormsun•1h ago
Somehow this text looks suspiciously clean, as if it was generated ;)
ChrisMarshallNY•1h ago
Looks useful. Hope it works out.

The issue with discussion of 12-Step programs, is that folks that are members, are explicitly enjoined from getting involved with these types of public discussions, so almost everything that you hear and read, doesn't reflect what the actual deal is.

low_tech_punk•1h ago
On a tangent, does anyone feel bad about their HN addiction?

Top DNS domains seen on the Quad9 recursive resolver array each day

https://github.com/Quad9DNS/quad9-domains-top500
104•speckx•2h ago•61 comments

Bill Atkinson's psychedelic user interface

https://patternproject.substack.com/p/from-the-mac-to-the-mystical-bill
245•cainxinth•6h ago•126 comments

Astronomers race to study interstellar interloper

https://www.science.org/content/article/astronomers-race-study-interstellar-interloper
24•bikenaga•2h ago•5 comments

Upgrading an M4 Pro Mac mini's storage for half the price

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2025/upgrading-m4-pro-mac-minis-storage-half-price
126•speckx•3h ago•91 comments

Repaste Your MacBook

https://christianselig.com/2025/07/repaste-macbook/
69•speckx•4h ago•47 comments

Turmeric is the culprit in a global lead poisoning mystery (2024)

https://www.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2024/09/23/nx-s1-5011028/detectives-mystery-lead-poisoning-new-york-bangladesh
96•perihelions•2h ago•49 comments

Show HN: Vibe Kanban – Kanban board to manage your AI coding agents

https://github.com/BloopAI/vibe-kanban
85•louiskw•2h ago•47 comments

At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/10/world/europe/uk-post-office-scandal-report.html
377•xbryanx•5h ago•332 comments

Andrew Ng: Building Faster with AI [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNJCfif1dPY
17•sandslash•1d ago•3 comments

Pa. House passes 'click-to-cancel' subscription bills

https://www.pennlive.com/news/2025/07/pa-house-passes-click-to-cancel-subscription-bills-as-court-throws-out-federal-rule.html
49•bikenaga•1h ago•6 comments

In a First, Solar Was Europe's Biggest Source of Power Last Month

https://e360.yale.edu/digest/solar-biggest-power-source-europe-june-2025
34•Brajeshwar•1h ago•10 comments

Overtourism in Japan, and how it hurts small businesses

https://craigmod.com/ridgeline/210/
118•speckx•4h ago•233 comments

Show HN: Pangolin – Open source alternative to Cloudflare Tunnels

https://github.com/fosrl/pangolin
385•miloschwartz•19h ago•89 comments

AI agent benchmarks are broken

https://ddkang.substack.com/p/ai-agent-benchmarks-are-broken
130•neehao•4h ago•57 comments

Kimi K2

https://twitter.com/Kimi_Moonshot/status/1943687594560332025
51•c4pt0r•2h ago•12 comments

OpenFront: Realtime Risk-like multiplayer game in the browser

https://openfront.io/
154•thombles•11h ago•39 comments

Recovering from AI Addiction

https://internetaddictsanonymous.org/internet-and-technology-addiction/signs-of-an-addiction-to-ai/
196•pera•6h ago•198 comments

The day someone created 184 billion Bitcoin (2020)

https://decrypt.co/39750/184-billion-bitcoin-anonymous-creator
58•lawrenceyan•12h ago•58 comments

LLM Inference Handbook

https://bentoml.com/llm/
227•djhu9•15h ago•10 comments

The ChompSaw: A benchtop power tool that's safe for kids to use

https://www.core77.com/posts/137602/The-ChompSaw-A-Benchtop-Power-Tool-Thats-Safe-for-Kids-to-Use
246•surprisetalk•4d ago•177 comments

I'm done with social media – Or: why I have a blog now

https://www.carolinecrampton.com/im-done-with-social-media/
197•anarbadalov•2h ago•179 comments

Postgres LISTEN/NOTIFY does not scale

https://www.recall.ai/blog/postgres-listen-notify-does-not-scale
523•davidgu•4d ago•261 comments

Some arguments against a land value tax (2024)

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/CCuJotfcaoXf8FYcy/some-arguments-against-a-land-value-tax
33•danny00•4h ago•77 comments

FP8 is ~100 tflops faster when the kernel name has "cutlass" in it

https://twitter.com/cis_female/status/1943069934332055912
190•limoce•7h ago•78 comments

Batch Mode in the Gemini API: Process More for Less

https://developers.googleblog.com/en/scale-your-ai-workloads-batch-mode-gemini-api/
143•xnx•4d ago•50 comments

Show HN: Interactive pinout for the Raspberry Pi Pico 2

https://pico2.pinout.xyz
104•gadgetoid•4d ago•25 comments

Things I learned from 5 years at Vercel

https://leerob.com/vercel
93•gk1•4h ago•21 comments

Btrfs Allocator Hints

https://lwn.net/ml/all/cover.1747070147.git.anand.jain@oracle.com/
46•forza_user•2d ago•15 comments

Underwater turbine spinning for 6 years off Scotland's coast is a breakthrough

https://apnews.com/article/tidal-energy-turbine-marine-meygen-scotland-ffff3a7082205b33b612a1417e1ec6d6
240•djoldman•1d ago•207 comments

What is Realtalk’s relationship to AI? (2024)

https://dynamicland.org/2024/FAQ/#What_is_Realtalks_relationship_to_AI
273•prathyvsh•1d ago•86 comments