My guess would be the same phenomenon that existed with ELIZA. People want to be heard, especially lonely people, and LLMs are pretty good at that, asking questions and acting supportive, by design.
This whole situation reminds me of that fact that some people hire escorts to just have someone to talk to.
My guess would be the same phenomenon that existed with ELIZA. People want to be heard, especially lonely people, and LLMs are pretty good at that, asking questions and acting supportive, by design.
This whole situation reminds me of that fact that some people hire escorts to just have someone to talk to.
The Eliza creator got his secretary to try it out, and as she got into her conversation she asked if he could leave to give her some privacy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMK9AphfLco
There was a longer video talking about that in the context of how humans engage socially but I can’t find it right now.