Thanks for bringing that up! I could only think of Futurama and missed Douglas Adams. Though I feel this is not the Electric Monk yet. As far as I remember he was there to "believe in things". Possibly as some kind of outsourcing so humans don't need to bother with that any more. While this AI is more about preaching or talking to people, so it's a different thing.... But I really like the idea of building an auto-worshipper next. Unfortunately it's still bad due to pollution. But the idea is superb.

From a local community of a few thousand to isolated online community of a few hundred to a private discord server of a few to just you and AI.

...Hail Mary and and an Our Father for penance. Really though, you can't be so hard on yourself. Maybe those orphanages needed to burn, have you ever thought that maybe it was God who put that gas can into your hands? Let yourself live in the moment, don't be afraid to share your spark with the world.

I am beginning to think it was a bad idea to prioritize engagement and retention over safety.

Chat GPT doesn't judge you like all your friends/family will.

People are desperate something to talk to that doesn't judge them.

Well, at least this way they know for certain that something is listening to what they say. Most deities are awful when it comes to offering feedback.

Jesus forgives, you but our partners will never forget.

For real, you should be confessing it to your preacher so they can use it to manipulate you.

Well...

From an evolutionary standpoint, we're basically the same collection of mostly-hairless primates that, 20,000 years ago, hadn't yet figured out agriculture and were roaming the land in small groups of maybe 100 or so at most, living off it as best we could.

From that standpoint, I think that we've done pretty well with a brain that evolved to deal with a rather different environment and is having to navigate a terribly-confusing, rather different situation.

I mean, you see any other critters that have been outperforming us on improving their understanding of the world?

Why? Is it somehow better to go to an actual church or pay someone to confide in?

People using technology to fill a need on the company's funds is not the worst thing in the world.

It is. I've cautiously broached it with a lot of skeptical openness and the sycophancy is really going to harm people. It's like going to AITA or relationshipadvice — it's going to tell you that you are completely justified and should get a divorce, stand up to your boss, do the self-righteous thing, etc.

And that's great, sometimes those are the answers. But other times maybe loneliness will be worse than accepting the other person. Maybe you aren't being treated fairly at work but it beats being unemployed. Getting pumped up to storm in and demand satisfaction isn't always the best way to handle things and sometimes we need a little more self-awareness and encouragement to look within ourselves for change.

ChatGPT doesn't get any of that because Reddit never got any of that (certainly not enough). And when folks blow up their lives, it's not ChatGPT that will suffer.

That being said, if you just want a sympathetic ear to listen and you take it like Charlie from work, who has never had a relationship last longer than a case of PBR, telling you to divorce that bitch — it can help people feel heard, help them voice and be aware of their feelings. In some cases it is better than nothing, but I think few people will approach it with the awareness to take the good and leave the bad.

And that doesn't even cover the privacy concerns. I wouldn't want to be in a situation to have my ChatGPT history to be subpoenaed.

The stigma around therapy is shifting to people not trusting therapists to be effective. It doesn't seem like people fault each other for having mental health struggles as much these days but people do not trust that a therapist will be of any help to them. When I talk with other people they say therapy was a waste of money/time even trying upwards of 10+ therapists.

If you're hurting, it isn't necessarily because you're mentally ill. You could have empathy, for example.

CANT WAKE UP

Rejoice because it gives you purpose - to go fix it.

yeah and they're built from crawling reddit and facebook

perusing comments to see if anyone would mention thx.

There isn't such a thing as a non evil religious organization

What convinced you of this?

I don't know if I agree with the notion of a god-hole.

There are different philosohcal approaches to making sense of it all and finding extistential meaning.

One my favourite quotes from Alan Watts (from the 50s no less):

"It's like you took a bottle of ink and you threw it at a wall. Smash! And all that ink spread. And in the middle, it's dense, isn't it? And as it gets out on the edge, the little droplets get finer and finer and make more complicated patterns, see?

So in the same way, there was a big bang at the beginning of things and it spread. And you and I, sitting here in this room, as complicated human beings, are way, way out on the fringe of that bang. We are the complicated little patterns on the end of it. Very interesting. But so we define ourselves as being only that. If you think that you are only inside your skin, you define yourself as one very complicated little curlique, way out on the edge of that explosion. Way out in space, and way out in time.

Billions of years ago, you were a big bang, but now you're a complicated human being. And then we cut ourselves off, and don't feel that we're still the big bang. But you are. You are the big bang, the original force of the universe, coming on as whoever you are."

The gist of it is there is no god and yet paradoxically god is literally everything. How can there even be a "god-hole" with such an approach?

I am not saying this (or any other approach) is the right way for a given individual. Just pointing out an existential view that works for me.

My argument is that we have all these information technologies and we don't really know what to do with them. As things stands they merely enable a group of oligarchs, authoritarians, professional demagogues, fraudulent hustlers.

And deep down no one wants to be in such a position and no amount of money or technological distractions can account for that.

Lots of people are painfully empty, theists or not. It's part of the human condition. Some of us are just more honest about it than others.

Trying to stuff "god" into that hole isn't a solution. It's denial.