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1 In 5 Boys Know Someone Their Age Who's In A Relationship With An AI Chatbot
(www.huffingtonpost.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2026
206 points (96.8% liked)
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Heard a god tier analogy from a friend:
"Electricity is very dangerous, but when it is controlled, in the form of a wall outlet, the risk of harm is greatly reduced to consumers. AI, in it's current state with minimal or easily bypassed protections, is like handing the consumer a live wire."
I get that we should protect people from obvious danger but part of me struggles with the ridiculous levels of stupidity some of us fall prey to. I don't know if it's due to a misplaced sense of justice, cause and effect, or just me being a dick, but I want to let people deal with the consequences of their stupidity on their own. If a computer can convince you not to use your brain then I don't think you were using it much to begin with.
new technology presents new issues.
This is just a more accessible phone sex line. It tells you what you want to hear and charges you for it.
yeah but without the labor phone sex workers provided. or the humanity and connection.
~I want to let people deal with the consequences of their stupidity on their own.~
Those consequences affect a much much wider range of people, not just those who are stupid about it so it's not about protecting them, it is about protecting everyone including the ones who can't protect themselves.
It's basically the same as gambling, some people are way more susceptible to it than others. You can say: "fuck those people they're weak and deserve to go broke" or you can say we as a society owe them some sort of safeguard.
Honestly, that's practically all of computerized information technology right now. Hackers, spammers, bots, foreign-state actors, trolls, viruses, government spying, manufacturer spying, information brokers, intrusive advertising, it's all just just teeming with bad stuff that requires education to navigate successfully.