That Thread Written by ChatGPT

[emjay]

 social aspects that would usually influence me

This seems like it could end up being a very important part of it. 

I remember reading about a really early computer program developed by a psychologist. It was programmed to respond with non-committal but relevant replies to what the user typed in. So if you typed in "I hate my mother," the machine would respond, "Oh, tell me more about your mother." Sort of like the way Bob Newhart, in the show where he played a psychologist, only ever said "How do you feel about that?"

The story is that he was just setting it up in his office and running tests, but he discovered that his secretary had access to it and was engaged in serious discussions. She asked him to leave the room so she could talk with the computer.

Yep, I can understand that. And I've experimented with this sort of thing before, not chatbots, but just my own little programs, so it's very easy to anthropomorhize a computer program even without AI, at least to some limited extent. For instance there's this party game/prank I heard of where a single player has to solve a puzzle by asking questions of the other participants, who can only answer yes or no. But unbenownst to the player, the other player's responses are entirely determined by the number of letters in the question, ie something like YES for an odd number, NO for an even. So in asking these questions, the player builds up their own personal narrative, for instance of 'whodunnit' if the game is a murder mystery. I thought that would make an interesting program, and using it, yeah it's clear how you can create a realistic feeling narrative based entirely on your own biases and responding to these ultimately meaningless prompts. Not quite anthropomorphization but the same sort of psychological ball park I'd say. 

Introverts, shy people, people who have trouble focussing in class, hikikomori -- they might get a lot out of this.[...]

Yeah, that's pretty much me, though I had to look up the last one. I wouldn't say I'm severely socially withdrawn but I am to some degree, certainly a lot of social anxiety... put it this way, I miss lockdown But anyway, I'd rather not talk about that thanks, I'll leave that for the AI But on that score I didn't mean I want to use it as a therapist directly, in any specific sense, but just a general sense of collating useful perspectives on things.