Now the council official just needs to run ChatGPT on their side to decide whether to accept or deny requests, and we'll have automated the entire process.
I think this sort of thing is going to creep up, accidentally or otherwise.... fucking everywhere. As these get built into email clients and such, we're going to end up with a lot of instances where two people corresponding turns out to be two autocomplete.
From memory I think this takes place in Schild's Ladder by Greg Egan, but in real time. People have personal AI’s wired into their brains that can be asked to converse with others.
I'm always interested by the relationship between science fiction ideas, how the idea changes as it becomes near-term... and how the idea manifests in real life.
AIs wired into brains is a complex endpoint. It's a plausible nexus of technologies or culture, a fit premise for a plausible fiction. Fold space, spice monopoly and galactic aristocracy. As sf approaches near term, the nexus tends to simplicity. Once we get to imminent, the nexus can get downright subtle. At this point, the agents of technological change might be a catalyst or process... not necessarily a breakthrough. The breakthroughs may have already happened. It's just a little hard to know, until after the affect.
The point we're at now, plausibly, has us on the precipice of "AI avatars having a discussion for us." That path from here to there, is relatively banal. Autocomplete, autoreply. It could happen with or without moments of decision "I hereby decide to devolve such-and-such powers to my ai avatar because Y." Consequences can be profound, but decision making rarely is. The banality of will.
FWIW, I can really see this happening quick and hard. In fact, now is the first time I've had non-abstract or distant concerns about ai. The proliferation of a gpt enhanced software keyboard has some unpredictable potentialities.
There's also Phoenix Exultant by John C Wright, where there are AIs that are basically clones of you that are empowered to make all sorts of decisions for you. IMO it's more approachable sci-fi, but that's not always what folks are looking for.
This is basically what people wishing happy birthday on Facebook has become, along with the customary expressions of thanks. Automated to be able to do it for all your 3000 “friends”.
I have a friend who passed away many years ago. We are still Facebook friends. Many of her Facebook friends still wish her happy birthday every year. I just cannot think how sad that must be for the husband.
I've removed my birthday from Facebook for this reason. I know people have the best of intentions but I really do not want to reply to a bunch of messages wishing me well. It is just plain awkward and an unpleasant activity.
I can never understand the FB “friend” bugbear. It’s just a name for a relation. It has no implied connection to how people relate elsewhere. Calling it “acquaintance” would be more accurate if you really insist on such a connection. But that isn’t exactly catchy: “I sent you an acquaint request on FB”; “let me just post this question to my FB acquaintances”
I think the thought experiment that this naturally leads to is if we could simulate the outcome of say a trial like this would it be useful and allow us to skip actually doing it?
