Why do people like machines that pretend to be human? (lemmy.world)

submitted 16 hours ago by nile_istic@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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I have a lot of issues with AI in general, but frankly the biggest, most immediate one is that I reeeally hate when tech pretends to be human. Like search engines giving me a seventh grader's essay before the actual one-word answer I was looking for. Or the uncanny valley voice at the drive-thru speaker saying "great choice!" to everything I order. Or the AI on shopping websites saying "I'd recommend this model..." Etc etc.

There's just something so strange and uncomfortable to me about a thing that we all know is not a person pretending to be one; feels like someone telling a lie directly to my face, and I know they're lying, and they know they're lying, but I'm supposed to.. appreciate it? For some reason?

But a lot of people I know actually prefer it. They'll ask ChatGPT something—even something that has a simple, definitive answer that doesn't really need further explanation—rather than just looking it up on a search engine. I'm just curious what the difference in psychology is between us. And I'm wondering if maybe it's actually just a me problem; I mean, I hated Jeeves too, and he seemed pretty well-liked back in the day.

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[-] sbv@sh.itjust.works 1 points 15 hours ago

Or the AI on shopping websites saying "I'd recommend this model..."

We don't have a pronoun for "this non-human unit". LLMs are marketed as conversational, so they need to conform to the limitations of English.

One could argue that "we" or "one" would be more appropriate, but that would sound stilted in many contexts.

I'd prefer linguistic markers to distinguish between people and machines, but we haven't gotten there yet.

this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2026

34 points (88.6% liked)

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