[HN Gopher] Could GPT help with dating anxiety?
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       Could GPT help with dating anxiety?
        
       Author : ibobev
       Score  : 7 points
       Date   : 2025-04-24 21:32 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (scottaaronson.blog)
 (TXT) w3m dump (scottaaronson.blog)
        
       | kittikitti wrote:
       | Only someone who Big Tech let through their pearly gates could
       | have wrote and promoted this article.
        
       | zeofig wrote:
       | How about dating not being an app-fucked hellscape? That would
       | help my dating anxiety.
        
       | tcdent wrote:
       | Anxiety is natural.
       | 
       | Learn to confront it and grow through it.
       | 
       | Avoiding uncomfortability is how you all got into this position.
        
       | arrosenberg wrote:
       | Nope, it almost certainly won't. If you want to make friends and
       | meet a partner you need to join groups. Pick ones where you will
       | see the same people regularly and make a lot of small talk. Small
       | talk is where the magic happens, so have some hobbies and
       | interesting stories to contribute. You gotta practice, that's the
       | only way it gets easier.
       | 
       | I fully acknowledge society makes it hard, and it won't happen
       | for you unless you make it. Join a coed sports team or start
       | going to the same trivia night every week. The rest kind of
       | figures itself out.
        
       | fragmede wrote:
       | Lol "could". In my group of friends, one woman runs texts to and
       | from her boyfriend through ChatGPT to analyze what he really says
       | and means, and then she types out the unhinged (her word, not
       | mine) response she would have sent and then she uses it to edit
       | her response so she's not "that crazy chick" (again, her words).
       | 
       | The example conversation does suggest a chat UI where you could
       | rewind and try saying something different and see how it would
       | play out differently would be quite useful for this sort of
       | thing.
        
       | christianqchung wrote:
       | No. Betteridge's law. More seriously, while this piece is ancient
       | in AI terms (May 2023), I don't think genuine emotional and
       | social intelligence is something that can be learned at an
       | average level by talking to AI or reading. Using the voice models
       | is a step up from this, but I still think they're too tuned to
       | following your instructions without nuance for something like
       | this. If reading was enough to pick up social and emotional
       | skills, I'd think that people who read the right books would be
       | masters at several trades if it gave even 10% of the experience
       | that real world practice did.
       | 
       | I'm also not trying to be dismissive, but how are you supposed to
       | learn social cues from AI right now? In an optimal case, the LLM
       | predicts accurately what would happen. Maybe you could say
       | something awkward and the AI would say back <s/he lets out an
       | exasperated sigh and turns away>; but in real life you have to
       | notice these cues among a barrage of other factors. Would this
       | really help anyone who is this desperate?
       | 
       | I concede that in extreme cases, some people could learn stuff
       | from trying this, and that's a good thing. I just don't really
       | know how much, who exactly, how, and whether they'd learn
       | incorrect stuff as well.
        
       | ohgr wrote:
       | You know what actually helps? Meeting people, going on dates, not
       | being a creepy mofo and actually having something to talk about.
       | 
       | That dialogue is worse than an anime pillow humping discord
       | moderator.
        
       | jjmarr wrote:
       | Most LLMs give very lengthy responses compared to user input and
       | can carry a conversation on their own. They're too easy.
       | 
       | The winning dating sim for social anxiety will program a Dark
       | Souls-level of difficulty dating sim in which the person is
       | standoffish, hateful, and unstable, constantly rejecting you for
       | social rules you don't understand.
       | 
       | I don't know if that'll be good for society but incels will play
       | it.
        
       | only-one1701 wrote:
       | There's a follow-up article to be created here about the modern
       | obsession with comfort/convenience/never feeling challenged or
       | really any negative emotion ever, and generative AI's interaction
       | with that.
        
       | slewth wrote:
       | This post makes me pretty sad, dog.
       | 
       | This is not a simulation of a date. It's an interaction with an
       | automated customer service representative. It's someone trying to
       | game out how to be vulnerable and connect with somebody else by
       | volleying stiff dialogue off Samantha Samsung. The idea that this
       | is a "near miss" strains credulity.
       | 
       | I'm getting in a car with my spouse and driving into the hills.
        
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