> We can see the distinction, evidently some people don't.

> This is no different to other hobbies some people may find odd or geeky

It is quite different, and you yourself explained why: some people can’t see the distinction between ChatGPT being a token generator or an intelligent friend. People aren’t talking about the latter being “odd or geeky” but being dangerous and harmful.

I would never get so invested in something I didn’t control.

They may stop making new episodes of a favoured tv show, or writing new books, but the old ones will not suddenly disappear.

How can you shut down cosplay? I guess you could pass a law banning ham radio or owning a horse, but that isn’t sudden in democratic countries, it takes months if not years.

> I would never get so invested in something I didn’t control

Are you saying you're asocial?

I think his point is that an even better close friend is…a close friend

People were saying they'd kill themself if OpenAI didn't immediately undeprecate GPT-4o. I would not have this reaction to a game being shut down.

> People were saying they'd kill themself if OpenAI didn't immediately undeprecate GPT-4o. I would not have this reaction to a game being shut down.

Perhaps you should read this and reconsider your assumptions.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8943245/

I'm kind of in your side but there's definitely people out there who would self harm if they invested a lot of time in an mmo that got shut down

Gamers threaten all kinds of things when features of their favorite games changes. Including depth threats to developers and threats of self harm and suicide.

Not every gaming subculture is healthy one. Plenty are pretty toxic.

Actually I just posted about this. I've experienced it first hand.

Sadly there are people who become over invested in something that goes away. Be it a game, pop band, a job or a family member.

I worked for a big games company. We shut down game servers, we got death threats. Horses for courses.

I'm kind of surprised it got that bad for people, but I think it's a good sign that even if we're far from AGI or luxury fully automated space communism robots, the profound (negative) social impacts of these chat bots are already kind of inflicting on the world are real and very troublesome.

> I think it's a good sign that (…) the profound (negative) social impacts of these chat bots are (…) real and very troublesome.

I’m not sure I understand. You think the negative impacts are a good sign?

I can't english good sometimes. I think the negative impacts get underestimated and ignored at our peril.

probably like it's better getting warnings before the freight train comes.