Casual Conversation

Many AI chatbots or chat assists are by default programmed to be saccharine to the point of disingenuousness. Don’t adjust your values to categorically match what they are programmed to praise or condemn. They appear on the surface as people-pleasers but are actually intended to please their distributor’s investors. Additionally and most critically, don’t fall into the trap of thinking of the machines as people.

With the AI tangent aside, with human interactions I definitely do feel the disparity between coddling and general treatment in society. If you’ve ever seen people interact with young kids or people with disabilities, especially mental disabilities, people often express overvaluing of their actions and creations to boost their confidence. While it may be a great achievement for that individual’s standards and capabilities and they do deserve praise for that much, lauding a simple piece of macaroni art as being better than the Mona Lisa, for example, is probably not genuine and can in fact undermine the creator’s confidence if they are aware enough to sense that lack of genuineness. However, for some people maybe they’d rather have that piece of macaroni art over the Mona Lisa because it is made by someone they love and care about and they highly value tokens of that person. Sometimes it can feel as if there is a conspiracy against someone if they notice a mismatch between the level of praise they receive and their presence and level of success in society elsewhere, and I too have experienced that sensation.