this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2026
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How does this make someone "feel heard"???? I feel like I'm losing my mind... It's the same to me as if someone went to the front of a McDonald's to talk to the building about their problems. It seems completely insane, and it's making me feel crazy that this is our world now.
It's the same thing as prayer.
Placebo works for simple people.
It's not you. These people aren't mentally well. They can't differentiate between a real person and an LLM. Probably contributes to why they're having woman problems too.
People care about being heard, not listened too. It's one-sided. I'm guessing they just like that the thing responded, and may not even bother reading carefully what it said. Like a friend who says supportive murmurings as you prattle on about whatever, "Really?", "Umm-hmm", "Oh, I know what you mean!", "Right, exactly", and, "It's nice to talk to someone I get along with."
This is definitely true for at least a small number of people.
I've ran across more than I care to remember over the years, people who could just prattle on 24/7 if they had the energy, while not actually really saying anything or conversing in any meaningful way.
It's a living hell for me.
My guess would be the same phenomenon that existed with ELIZA. People want to be heard, especially lonely people, and LLMs are pretty good at that, asking questions and acting supportive, by design.
This whole situation reminds me of that fact that some people hire escorts to just have someone to talk to.
The Eliza creator got his secretary to try it out, and as she got into her conversation she asked if he could leave to give her some privacy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMK9AphfLco
There was a longer video talking about that in the context of how humans engage socially but I can't find it right now.
ed: Oh, it was in the most recent John Oliver segment on AI chatbots
https://youtu.be/Ykvf3MunGf8?t=321
People are very good at humanizing animals and objects. If it talks or has a face, it's subconsciously seen as a person.
Buildings are great listeners though.
reminds me of this old building I used to talk to. Used to listen and give me good advice. I still remember when I told it I was doing drugs again.... Man, it got so upset.... Came down on me like a ton of bricks!
People watch some movies repeatedly. Isn't that similar?
no
Probably similar to anyone having a conversation where they ignore the “red flags” of a potential partner. Someone drinking too much, an offhand remark about bad debt, stuff like that. Except now you ignore the response that might be a non sequitur, repetitive, or just not make sense.
I think that this could be a reaction, human brain is meant to at least consider every human like words
Ai is based on humans, so when you're really out of luck or desperate, this is in my opinion really hard not to fall into the trap
you can feel seen by a picture (webcomic) even though the picture has no eyes.
That's kinship with the artist... it's not the same at all.