But doesn’t it matter that the machine isn’t expressing anything? It’s regurgitating words that are a facsimile of emotion. That matters to me. Especially in the long term. Since shorthand and texting became a thing, kids’ writing became way, way worse according to TAs and teachers I know. Which, that was a byproduct of a change in writing styles, so while kinda pathetic, it’s somewhat understandable. But this is just shoving itself between us and our own feelings. Say google gets their wish, everything we write to each other that ever matters more than a simple surface level conversation is expressed via LLMs. Where will that leave us? What does that leave us? We’re closing ourselves off from the world with technology. And we’re cheering for a new tech that will allow us to retreat even further away from human experience. That’s goddamn depressing if you ask me. And to answer my own question, it leaves us work, consumption, and fucking nothin.

This tech isn’t here to free us. From work, from tedium. It’s here to relegate us only to the tedium.

LLMs can also be helpful when your actual feelings should NOT be conveyed. For example, I can have a genuine response to someone along the lines of, "You are dumb for so many reasons, here are just a few of them that show you are out of touch with what our product can do, and frankly with reality itself. {Enumerated list with copious amounts of cursing and belittling}" Ok LLM, rewrite that message using professional office language because I emotionally refuse to.