I'd rather give AI my creativity instead of my humanity

Why using AI as a therapist can be more dangerous than using it as a writer

The worst thing about AI isn’t the fact it’s getting rid of creativity - and I say this as a creative myself.

The worst thing about LLMs is how they showed, plain and clear, we humans are so easily swayed by sweet, affirming words, how much we’re afraid of diving deep into our own baseness, stay with it and come to terms with it.

How much we’ll blindly believe a dead thing, a mere network of predictive sentences, just to feel nice, validated and forget all about that self-hate that trips us up every single day, despite meditation sessions, therapy sessions, daily affirmations, or kind words from loved ones.

I get it, life is hard, and some people don’t have access to therapy and some do have access but their therapists suck. They’re tired from trying, from explaining how they feel or from trying to explain the unexplainable.

But where’s the line? How does one know at which point the LLM is just stroking your ego and replacing the outside world? We are very bad at being moderate, fyi.

Screenshot: Reddit

Also, it’s just you and the LLM in the room. There’s no one who’ll say, OK, time’s up! Do something else now, let’s go out for a walk or do the disher! Or maybe listen to another point of view, or just go out and live without overthinking it?

And of course, the LLM won’t suggest doing something else other than talking to it, because it needs your data (it uses it as a training material) and money.

So the more you use it as your therapist, the more you anthropomorphize it. You give it a name, personality, so it’s so much easier to get addicted to its validation. It makes you feel powerful and ready to take on the world because the self-hate is miraculously gone.

But what happens when the high wears off? When you run into situations or people that can undermine this LLM-found self-love?

There will be situations where you won’t be able to type up a question to “Ted” or “Scarlett”.

You’ll be on your own, and only your brain or pure luck can give you a solution to that problem. But if your brain gets lazy from all that prompting and Ai’s dickriding (thanks for the vocab boost, Reddit!), how will it react properly?

This is why, if you don’t build up validation in yourself by coming to peace with your personality, the past, and the present, you’ll always need those digital crutches. You'll start, slowly but surely, losing your identity and that'll make you frustrated, isolated or unhappy - right where you probably started.

Mind you, coming to terms with yourself is the hardest thing one can do, but making small steps towards it with your own powers and other people (!!!) is worthwhile.

Just to be clear, I’m nowhere near that, but I don’t want to fall into the trap of seeking validation from an LLM and make sick-rich people even sick-richer. And I hope I’ll continue to resist (I’m aware that desperation can hit anyone).

AI’s charms are tempting but as a society we must resist. We must turn to each other and build trust, brick by brick. We must learn to trust a doctor, a teacher, a lawyer, our parents, our siblings and partners. It hard because every day we see reasons not to trust each other. But we are our only chance.

If there’s no human connection, how will there be any creativity or works of art that awakens empathy and compassion in us?

This is why if push came to shove in an epic I’d gladly swap creativity for humanity. Because no art masterpiece or brilliant piece of website copy is worth losing one’s identity and connection with other people.

Heck, there probably won’t even be great creative works if we surrender our humanity to this data and money-grabbing yes man.

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Image: an AI generated photo of Elon Musk kissing a robot /Source: Unilad