Wait…waaaait. There are people that actually take offense at the word clanker?
i don’t love that clanker has been gaining traction because i have friends (plural) who identify as robots (or similar) and i feel like clanker as a perjorative is much more likely to affect them than a generative AI
This is satire, right? Right??
no. you’ve heard of furries, right? it’s not really that much of a leap from there to think a person would identify with mechanical things or robots
and like i said, clanker is not going to affect an LLM, but it could affect these sorts of people
me being nitpicky, feel free to ignore
no. you’ve heard of furries, right?
as a furry, i identify with anthropomorphic animals, not as one. the term you’re looking for is therian, or perhaps otherkin. identifying with mechanical things or robots is different as identifying as one.
So, what value does AI boyfriend/girlfriend have? It has the value a person attaches to it.
Lets say someone is self-hosting a LLM and falls in love with it. I then come over and delete this model. What was lost? A file that can easily be recreated was deleted or an object of immense sentimental value that cannot be easily recreated was destroyed? I think court/jury might easily side with the AI lover here. After all it’s easy to understand his attachment and loss, even if it sounds crazy.
As this progresses we will see more and more people become attached to some LLM (because those will become better at imitating people) and the idea that those should be legally protected will become normalized. When LLMs can form memories and be affected by how people interact with them even calling them names will be considered a crime. It doesn’t mater LLMs are not sentient. All that matters is that people will like to think they are.
I think it’s worthwhile to create a distinction though. An LLM girlfriend is about as worthwhile to society as a picture of a deceased relative. It’s an object that might cause inconsolable harm if lost in a fire, but it’s not an object that someone should get the death penalty for destroying.
