It's a classic, and the recent rise of AI will hopefully make it a more widely-known one.

A distant relative, no doubt, of Stanislaw Lem's "Automatthew's Friend" (1964). A perfectly rational, indestructible, selfless, well-meaning in-ear AI assistant. In the end, out of nothing but the deepest care for its owner's mental state in a hopeless situation, it advocates efficient and quick suicide.

"The parable of the earring was not about the dangers of using technology that wasn't Truly Part Of You, which would indeed have been the kind of dystopianism I dislike. It was about the dangers of becoming too powerful yourself."

https://web.archive.org/web/20121007235422/http://squid314.l...

Compare/contrast the Whispering earring/LLM chat with The Room from Stalker, each one is terrifying in its aspect: One because it eventually coaxes you to become a shallow shell of yourself, the other by plucking an unexpected wish from the deepest part of your psyche. I wonder what the Earring would advise if one were to ask it if one should enter The Room.

I want someone to try building a variant that just gives you timely cues about generally good mental health practices. Suggestions could be contextually based on a local-only app that listens to you and your environment, and delivered to a wireless earbud. When you're in a situation that might cause you stress, it reminds you to take some deep breaths. When you're in a situation where you might be tempted to react with hostility, it suggests that you pause for a few seconds. When you've been sitting in front of your computer too long it suggests that maybe you'd like to go for a short walk.

If the moral of the story is that having access to magically good advice is dangerous because it shifts us to habitual obedience ... can a similar device shift us to mental habits that are actually good for us?

I would recommend Steely Dan’s “Green Earrings” instead. No whispering required!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wvH1UzhiKk

And the original is fully analog.

Scott Alexander Siskind is a hack and HN should stop obsessing over him and the rest of the EA cult.

I think this ignores the internal conflict in most people’s psyche. The simplest form of this is long term vs short term thinking, but certainly our desires pull us in competing, sometimes opposite, directions.

Am I the me who loves cake or the me who wants to be in shape? Am I the me who wants to watch movies or who wants to write a book?

These are not simply different peaks of a given utility function, they are different utility functions entirely.

Soon after being put on, the whispering earring would go insane.

He warned himself?

This reminds me of another story that I saw posted on HN and has provided lots of fodder for idle conversations: Manna[1]. It's a less mystical version of the whispering earring.

1: https://marshallbrain.com/manna1