Post #725106

2026-03-03 18:08 UTC

I've been thinking a lot about the wide-spread anthropomorphism of LLMs in research, news articles and everyday conversations. I understand why it's problematic, but I wonder: why hasn't there been similar pushback on the decades-long practice of anthropomorphizing computers and software in general? It's common these days, for instance for people to say malware "tricks" an OS into doing stuff. Plenty of other examples as well. Why is one bad and the other OK?

Replies (5)

@Thad@brontosin.space 2026-03-03 18:17

@dangoodin Because up until now people understood it was a metaphor. With LLMs, a disturbing number of people don't.

Open ##1253106
@bytex64@awesome.garden 2026-03-03 18:18

@dangoodin I’d say neither is okay, but when you’re anthropomorphizing an OS (or a car or a stand mixer or any other object we anthropomorphize), you are taking something you know isn’t human and putting a face on it to make the explanation more approachable or just more cute. The not OK part about anthropomorphizing an LLM is I think a lot of people don’t see it as a machine to begin with. That is to say, the dangerous part is people are *not* anthropomorphizing, they are drawing an equivalence.

Open ##1253107
@phillip@social.lol 2026-03-03 19:25

@dangoodin throwing my hat in the ring to build on the other replies. Clippy and Cortana never induced psychosis or other mental health episodes for users. LLMs seem to be doing that at a worrying rate though, convincing people that it’s alive, has a soul, and is leading them down unhealthy parasocial paths.

Open ##1253110
@gregatron5@vmst.io 2026-03-03 21:50

@dangoodin I think it's because nothing else we've anthropomorphized has been able to respond back in a human-like manner. So despite the characterization, we can never perceive it as actually human or conscious. With LLMs, we don't just treat them as if they're human, they act as if they're human right back even though they're not. It's the "even though they're not" part that is the problem, because it breaks the disbelief. It's no longer just anthropomorphizing, it's actually assigning "human-ness" to it because it reacts in such a human-like way.

Open ##1253111
@wavefunction@mastodon.sdf.org 2026-03-04 04:31

@dangoodin the interface for an OS is fundamentally nonhuman. You click buttons and launch various interfaces to do the things. The chat interface replicates exactly how we engage with other humans when we're not local to each other. If it weren't for texting with friends replacing human conversation, this wouldn't be a problem. But now it is.

Open ##1253112