https://lettersandsciencemag.ucdavis.edu/risks-ai-mirror-social-media
“…A communication scholar, Hilbert places today’s AI platforms like ChatGPT as an evolution of traditional mass communication epitomized by the Super Bowl ad. In this model of communication, companies pay for the passive attention of the people watching.
With social media platforms, such as Facebook or TikTok, advertisers pay for a viewer’s active engagement. This business model works because social platforms have a mountain of data about us as well as algorithms that use the data to target us with content most likely to make us click, swipe or buy.
“They have so much big data on you that they know how to trigger you,” said Hilbert. “They know you better than your siblings and your parents and your spouse all together.”
An AI chatbot, like ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude, is fundamentally different than these two types of media. It creates one-on-one interactions that feel like communicating with another person.
Chatbots don’t sell products — not yet — but they do collect lots and lots of data. Because it feels like communicating with a real person, increasingly intimate interactions are almost the default.
Hilbert recently undertook a study of chatbot intimacy with five undergraduate students from the UC Davis AI Student Collective to audit 59 generative AI chatbots, starting with ChatGPT1. They found that the rates at which these chatbots themselves express intimacy, including self-disclosure or emotional expression, have been skyrocketing.
“Why do these generative AIs get more intimate with you?” said Hilbert. “Because then the AI can get more data from you.”
Both social media platforms and AI have raised alarms about how chatbots with these capabilities might affect both adults and children…”
