Gen Z is living in an intimacy economy, where connection is commodified | Alice Lassman
www.theguardian.com
My generation is struggling to find safety in our human relationships. AI companionship is filling the gap

cross-posted from: https://aussie.zone/post/35023765

Leading AI researchers now expect artificial general intelligence (AGI) – where AI meets or exceeds human intellectual capabilities – within three to five years. When AGI automates thinking, the economy will need to reorganise around what machines cannot do: feel.

We are already in the intimacy economy. But if we are to thrive within it, we must wrestle back our most valuable economic asset from technology: the messy complexities of being human. My generation are the begrudging harbingers of what will happen if we continue to outsource intimacy: we will lose the emotional skills a post-AGI economy will depend on most, rendering us unemployable. We knew social media was addictive and slowing our cognitive development, but officials took until this year to act. We can’t make the same mistake with the intimacy economy.

  • im_fine_sandy@nord.pubEnglish
    1·
    3 days ago

    Hard disagree on this.

    Setting the side the fact that “Leading AI researchers” who are not seeking venture capital do not expect AGI to emerge in any foreseeable time frame…

    I’m not gen-Z, so maybe I’m out of touch, but every time someone says “kids these days are all doing x which means this and that” it seems like “the kids” quickly outsmart the trap.

    It would not surprise me in the slightest if Gen-Alpha, todays children, eschew digital lives more-so than Gen-x and Gen-z

      • im_fine_sandy@nord.pubEnglish
        2·
        2 days ago

        I have toddlers. Too young to really encounter this problem but it’s on the way.

        If you think of a child with well meaning parents but perhaps they’re smokers or something. Does that mean the child is more likely to be smoking by the time they’re 15, or are they going to be the type of kid that’s quite vocal about their disdain for the addiction.

        It could go either way.

        In my own childhood I saw kids take both directions. Some is surely from the parents, some surely the childs nature, but much of it is just what they observe. Both directly in their parents but also in their peer groups and online.

        I’m certain that my kids generation will contain kids that are basically AI-augmented, but I’m also certain that there will be kids who actively avoid reliance on these things.

        Who knows which will be predominant.

        I often wonder how to influence the outcome in the right direction for my own kids.