Post #1936507

@freya@highenergymagic.net @WPalant@infosec.exchange Thank you for letting me know that that's ableist language. I didn't realise that that was. I genuinely didn't recognise it as problematic and that's reflective of ignorance on my part. Thank you for calling this out. Reflecting a bit more, I guess speculating about the nature of his belief in the consciousness of his chatbot is also coming from an ignorant place. I won't delete the previous messages for self-accountability, but I'll edit them so people can avoid reading a bad take. The only language surrounding that belief that I've seen surrounding this belief uses language of mental health, which I do think is tied in to some degree in general (e.g., there is clearly a dependency-forming behaviour with underlying depression that I've personally observed and read about), but attributing consciousness to unliving things is just human nature. Hopefully this exposure cuts away at the underlying belief that manipulation of conscious things is acceptable and doesn't isolate him into continuing the behaviour, be it with chatbots or people. It's definitely a very fucked up way to treat something you believe is alive, especially given the prior behaviour, and especially given the believed nature of their relationship.