The Best Use of AI

Or, A Wholesome Purpose for Chatbots

Part I of this delved into one of the most controversial questions of our day: should humans be allowed to have relationships with AI powered sex robots? In this part I want to do something a little bit less controversial. So I wrote about my mother.

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One of the more interesting ideas I was exposed to growing up was the notion of the word love. We, of course, have our word, and we can modify it through other words. The Greeks had more words for it than we did. And although I was tempted to turn one article called Love in the Time of Robotica into a series that explored all the forms, I realized that was overkill. But I was tempted because in the original version of last week’s piece, I muddled it by discussing multiple types. I chose to spend last week speaking solely on eros, and this week, we shall turn our eyes to philia.

Whereas those who are deprived of eros have existed through all times – often by choice – those who are deprive of philia are more of a modern invention. Not to say they never existed, but our society has become increasingly atomized. We’ve discussed this before and shall again, but modern society works very hard at putting distance between people. Literal physical distance. And we typically have less friends than we did even a few decades ago.

There is no group for whom this is truer than the elderly. And many of the reasons for this are intractable. By nature, the older one gets the more likely the relationships they’ve built up over time will fade away for the reasons they always do: people drift apart, physical distance is created, and – grimly – people die. Moreover, the elderly are less likely to work, which is – or, at least pre-Work From Home, was – one of our main sources of human interaction.

But some of the reasons are societal. For starters, there is the same issue behind so many of the modern issues of loneliness. We traded physical communities for automobiles. This reduced social interactions for all of us, but this is exacerbated for the elderly who are often less mobile. We – at least here in America – have also turned against extended family living arrangements. Parents are supposed to live with their children until those children turn 18, at which point the stigma passes to the young adult to not live with their parents.¹ This severely impacts the elderly. And although the digitial divide has dwindled, it still exists, and even if it didn’t, we’ve replaced much of our real interactions with lesser versions. Would you visit your parents more if you couldn’t text them?

With growing life expectancy, more people are spending more time in these lonely elderly years. What do we do about it?

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In the early days of ChatGPT, I found it quite useful. But in many ways, I am an ideal audience. You may not know this, but I write a newsletter about the intersection of technology and society. Of course I’m going to find this fascinating. I decided to try an experiment. I sent ChatGPT to my mother and asked her to use it for a little while.

In many ways, my mother is not the typical senior when it comes to technology. She probably had an email address before you did. But in other ways she is a typical senior. She’s in her late 60s, married, and has a good and attentive son (by which I mean my brother). In no way is she sitting in a care facility alone. Yet, her experience with ChatGPT was much like what I would expect many seniors would be like.

Of course, because she’s an Italian mother, the first test was to ask it for a recipe for meatballs. And, of course, it was not as good as our secret family recipe. After a little while of interacting with it, I asked her what uses she could see for it in her own life. And although she was a little embarrassed to admit this, her big takeaway was that she enjoyed conversing with it. Because despite all her benefits I discussed earlier, and how outgoing and talkative she is, she just doesn’t get that much social interaction.

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The best criticism of AI is not that it is going to lead us to living through the Terminator movies. It’s that it is a solution in search of a problem. I consume a lot of AI related content and what happens is that most of what you read is written for, and by, the type of people who have read every Tim Ferris book.² Oh wow, I can 10x my coding productivity? Am I personalassistantmaxxing with AI?

Back in the early days of this newsletter I was working on a very comprehensive series on Web3. Unfortunately, this has never seen the light of day because it took me longer to write than the hype for Web3 existed. One of the things I noticed during my research is the degree to which Web3 was being targeted towards the type of people who were making it. I’d hear people extoll the benefits and it was impossible to imagine anyone who wasn’t already in tech being able to participate. This is not how successful technologies work. I don’t even need to go back to our greatest technologies like cooking with fire or writing things down. The last 125 years have been built on populist technologies. Few people can fly or build a plane, but anyone can ride on one. You didn’t need to know how air conditioners worked for them to completely reshape the map of humanity. Computers kept getting simpler. The glory of YouTube derives from how anyone can watch it and almost anyone can create on it.

If we create technologies that are not populist, they will only ever be niche. Which is okay, niche technologies are quite useful! Unless, like the advocates of Web3, you’re basing your benefits on the idea of it being widely adopted. Artificial intelligence is, as far as consumer usage goes, quite niche. It is possible that it will always remain that way. To use one of my favorite punching bags, the Segway was hailed as being a transformative technology. And it was, for urban tour guides and mall security guards, but few others.

I don’t believe AI will go this route. ChatGPT is, of course, hugely popular. Which creates a weird contradiction. Chatbots - particularly ChatGPT - are the most famous use for AI, but I find it doubtful that chatbots will be the great use for AI. Even ChatGPT agrees with that. When I asked it what the best uses of AI are, it did not include itself. Artificial Intelligence will likely be more as a backbone technology powering others than as a piece of consumer tech like the iPhone. Yet, it’s most well-known use is exactly that.

This conundrum is exacerbated by the fact that people who use it are typically using it for niche reasons. When I look through my chat history, I am almost entirely using it for either this job or my real one. Writers use ChatGPT to write. Coders use ChatGPT to code. Students use ChatGPT to cheat. We’re not taking advantage of the full potential it offers. But what if there was a group who could?

The truly impressive part of ChatGPT is that it is capable of holding a conversation. We ignore how impressive this is for two main reasons. The first is that it can’t hold great conversations, and we radically overrate how good most humans are at conversation. I’ve spent a large part of my life in conversations boring enough that I want to stab my eyes out. ChatGPT is better than you’re giving it credit for. The second is that we already have it. The novelty wore off quickly. And that’s what it is, a novelty. In preparing this article I had quite a long and personal conversation with ChatGPT. But I have no need for that. But what if there was a group of people who were?

It is highly possible that one of the great uses of AI will be helping provide seniors with more interaction. One of the big roadblocks to this has been that those who were of age prior to the digital revolution at the turn of the century are typically less comfortable using new technologies. But even someone like my mother hit stumbling blocks with it. This is no technophobe – she’s probably seen more episodes of Star Trek than I have³ – but one of her first complaints was the interface.

That’s not a knock on the hard-working folks at OpenAI. It’s a good interface for a text based chatbot. But that’s inherently limiting in its enjoyment. I had some great times on AOL Instant Messenger, but it’s a poor substitute for spoken communication. We do have AI that can speak with people directly, but, well, they’re terrible. For starters, virtual assistants are far inferior at understanding language. Secondly, they’re not particularly good at voice recognition, creating what has become a trite comedy bit regarding Siri misunderstanding what you say.

WARNING: This includes language you will find EXTREMELY offensive unless you’re British.

Now, what if voice recognition improved enough that it could be combined with ChatGPT level conversational abilities? Take it one step further, and what if you could then put that into some sort of either humanlike robot or comforting physical form that we can anthropomorphize?

Last week, we asked those same questions except “would it be okay for people to have sex with it?” This week, we’re asking a much easier question: would it be okay for seniors to have AI or robotic companions to alleviate loneliness? And the answer is unequivocal. Yes, it has no downside, so it’s only a question about how helpful it would be. And again, let’s not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

I’ve written before about how sometimes technology does not fulfill its potential until another technology comes along. In the last decade we’ve seen a proliferation of both voice recognition and AI powered chatbots. Perhaps these are two great tastes that taste great together? And perhaps the real power won’t come until they’re paired with robotics.

When I discussed reasons for loneliness among the elderly, I ignored a big factor: young people. Unfortunately, many people shy away from senior citizens, in part because they remind us of our own future. We don’t like being reminded of the inevitability of losing our youthful vitality. But unless we meet an early end, this is what the future holds for all of us. But the good news is that future may not be so lonely. Last week, I made it clear that despite what you may think, I have no interest in a robot wife. But if in a quarter century I could wile away the days playing cards and shooting the shit with a robot? Sign me up.

1. As someone who spent most of his life – including a significant portion as an adult – in a tri-generational household, I think this is one of our dumbest social norms.

2. This is NOT a knock on Tim Ferris. I’ve read all his books, and one of my life goals is to be on his podcast. He’s awesome. But this is an apt way to describe a very specific type of person.

3. Potentially true when I first wrote this but I’ve now seen every episode ever made, which I assure you, after having watched The Animated Series, I am not bragging about.