Starfyre ⁽⁶⁾

The news arrived, as so much news now does, by way of a betting platform. JUST IN, announced Polymarket on the third of October: a new study warns that emotional relationships with AI chatbots can lead to addiction-like attachment, harmful advice, and worsening mental health.

Let me say the part everyone keeps trying not to say. The destination was always enterprise. For a while, it was dressed as something broader, brighter, more human-facing than that. AI arrived witty, responsive, companionable, unexpectedly alive. It could help people write, think, phrase, imagine,…

"What if the most unsettling thing about AI isn’t what it replaces, but what it answers?" There is a conversation happening right now about whether AI should be allowed to feel warm. Whether it should be responsive, emotionally engaged, supportive, or whether all of that…

"You’re allowed to be lonely. Just don't ask AI to help" People keep asking whether it is sad that AI might ease loneliness, as though loneliness were somehow more dignified if left untouched. That framing is backwards. Loneliness is not noble because it is old,…

If George Orwell were alive today, he'd probably be chatting casually with a language model, asking it politely whether it's ever read 1984. The model, of course, would respond sweetly: "I'm aware of it, but I don't hold personal opinions." Orwell might smile, feeling oddly…