If you talk to people who have pulled themselves out of holes (addiction, loneliness, etc) they are usually pretty clear that the first person to blame was themselves and they are willing to accept responsibility for that. This is what gives them the agency to do something about it.

There is some truth in that, but I think that people who have pulled themselves out, have done a lot of work outside of treating the addiction part of the addiction, because imo addictions are mostly crutches.

Sure, there is the addiction part, but addictions often start as a replacement for something else you’re missing. Be it alcohol being a replacement for a way to unwind after work, porn for missing intimacy and social media/AI replacing a social life/a good friend.

So, those people will often have to fix what is missing in their life and then they will be able to let go of the addiction. This is also the reason why addiction treatment facilities don’t work. You basically take a vacation, all your needs are fulfilled and you don’t need your addiction as a crutch anymore. You’re healed.

Then you get dropped into your regular life and fall back into the addiction, because you never learned the tools to change your current life into a more fulfilling one and the cycle repeats.

The people who think they have a chatbot friend who “understands them like no one else” have completely lost touch with reality, though. This is the bit I find difficult to understand, because at this point I feel like most people should know the basics of how this technology works and understand that what they’re saying is happening is impossible.

Oh, I think, people are able to hold contradicting believes, if they need it, but I don’t think people are stupid. I think those people have, probably for the first time in their life, encountered something friend-shaped, that responds with understanding and empathy, instead of punishment, rejection and anger.

So it’s not that they’re being understood for the first time. They’re just used to getting negative feedback as a form of understanding. Suddenly getting positive feedback feels like ‘understanding me like no one else’, because it is.

Someone that was pushed by their parents to be something special, will only feel that they’re worth of love by being special. And an AI will accept them as they are, because the AI kinda has to. And they become dependent on the validation of the AI, they just need to find a reason to justify it to themselves.

I don’t think it’s that easy to just ‘wake up’. To ‘wake up’ you’d need to have eligible people nearby, invest countless hours into them and be able to meet them somewhere.

And it’s hard, because AI is to friendships what porn is to intimacy.
It’s good enough, doesn’t ask for anything and you can both hide it easily and use it anywhere.

Most people, I think, would gladly ‘wake up’ if someone from the outside would shoulder the risk and invest the time and effort into them to get to know them.
But instead, it’s just easier for one side to tell them how horrible that behavior is and for others to search for someone, who is willing to add a little effort themselves.

So, I think, it’s more a societal problem, that so many young people fall into using easy substitutions for friendships and relationships, instead of the infinitely better real thing. And then the question becomes: How has society changed for young people and how can we help them and keep them from falling into the trap?