One of my early roles at WaPo was as an editorial aide in the Editorial section, where part of my job involved reading all the Letters to the Editor and separating the crazies from those might possibly have a salient point to make.
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One of my early roles at WaPo was as an editorial aide in the Editorial section, where part of my job involved reading all the Letters to the Editor and separating the crazies from those might possibly have a salient point to make.
30 years later (gulp), I am still getting plenty of Letters to the Editor, but they are not what they used to be. Time was, they were mostly people convinced their lives were being turned upside down and inside out by nebulous hackers, the govt, their ex, etc. Back in WaPo days, the common thread from the crazies was that their tormentors were using radio signals or somesuch to track and harass them.
These days, however, the "they're all after me" pleas are getting drowned out by inquiries from people who have clearly delved too deep down the AI chatbot rabbit hole. To the point where they're trying to convince everyone that nefarious, AI-based actors are harassing them, or that benevolent sentient beings reside within.
The thing is, the sentient being claim aside, it is actually stupid easy with today's hot new agentic AI toys for people to make their worst nightmares come true -- including having all their stuff taken over by a machine that most definitely does not have their best interests at heart.
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One of my early roles at WaPo was as an editorial aide in the Editorial section, where part of my job involved reading all the Letters to the Editor and separating the crazies from those might possibly have a salient point to make.
30 years later (gulp), I am still getting plenty of Letters to the Editor, but they are not what they used to be. Time was, they were mostly people convinced their lives were being turned upside down and inside out by nebulous hackers, the govt, their ex, etc. Back in WaPo days, the common thread from the crazies was that their tormentors were using radio signals or somesuch to track and harass them.
These days, however, the "they're all after me" pleas are getting drowned out by inquiries from people who have clearly delved too deep down the AI chatbot rabbit hole. To the point where they're trying to convince everyone that nefarious, AI-based actors are harassing them, or that benevolent sentient beings reside within.
The thing is, the sentient being claim aside, it is actually stupid easy with today's hot new agentic AI toys for people to make their worst nightmares come true -- including having all their stuff taken over by a machine that most definitely does not have their best interests at heart.
@briankrebs Eddy Burback had an interesting video about ChatGPT 4.x making people crazy... Good to have on in the background while you work.
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One of my early roles at WaPo was as an editorial aide in the Editorial section, where part of my job involved reading all the Letters to the Editor and separating the crazies from those might possibly have a salient point to make.
30 years later (gulp), I am still getting plenty of Letters to the Editor, but they are not what they used to be. Time was, they were mostly people convinced their lives were being turned upside down and inside out by nebulous hackers, the govt, their ex, etc. Back in WaPo days, the common thread from the crazies was that their tormentors were using radio signals or somesuch to track and harass them.
These days, however, the "they're all after me" pleas are getting drowned out by inquiries from people who have clearly delved too deep down the AI chatbot rabbit hole. To the point where they're trying to convince everyone that nefarious, AI-based actors are harassing them, or that benevolent sentient beings reside within.
The thing is, the sentient being claim aside, it is actually stupid easy with today's hot new agentic AI toys for people to make their worst nightmares come true -- including having all their stuff taken over by a machine that most definitely does not have their best interests at heart.
@briankrebs The 21st century turns out to be the worst imaginable time to have paranoid schizophrenia.
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One of my early roles at WaPo was as an editorial aide in the Editorial section, where part of my job involved reading all the Letters to the Editor and separating the crazies from those might possibly have a salient point to make.
30 years later (gulp), I am still getting plenty of Letters to the Editor, but they are not what they used to be. Time was, they were mostly people convinced their lives were being turned upside down and inside out by nebulous hackers, the govt, their ex, etc. Back in WaPo days, the common thread from the crazies was that their tormentors were using radio signals or somesuch to track and harass them.
These days, however, the "they're all after me" pleas are getting drowned out by inquiries from people who have clearly delved too deep down the AI chatbot rabbit hole. To the point where they're trying to convince everyone that nefarious, AI-based actors are harassing them, or that benevolent sentient beings reside within.
The thing is, the sentient being claim aside, it is actually stupid easy with today's hot new agentic AI toys for people to make their worst nightmares come true -- including having all their stuff taken over by a machine that most definitely does not have their best interests at heart.
@briankrebs Good luck convincing the AI "masses" that this is actually what's happening. I keep recalling a sci-fi, post-apocalyptic story that had the entire population living underground, worshiping a god that was actually a computer regulating the atmosphere that allowed them to thrive. Well, one day the computer malfunctioned. People panicked; their god had died. In desperation, all the inhabitants went to the radiated surface, where they all died.
Sorry, I can't remember the name of that book, but we're seeing the moral in action today.
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R relay@relay.an.exchange shared this topic
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One of my early roles at WaPo was as an editorial aide in the Editorial section, where part of my job involved reading all the Letters to the Editor and separating the crazies from those might possibly have a salient point to make.
30 years later (gulp), I am still getting plenty of Letters to the Editor, but they are not what they used to be. Time was, they were mostly people convinced their lives were being turned upside down and inside out by nebulous hackers, the govt, their ex, etc. Back in WaPo days, the common thread from the crazies was that their tormentors were using radio signals or somesuch to track and harass them.
These days, however, the "they're all after me" pleas are getting drowned out by inquiries from people who have clearly delved too deep down the AI chatbot rabbit hole. To the point where they're trying to convince everyone that nefarious, AI-based actors are harassing them, or that benevolent sentient beings reside within.
The thing is, the sentient being claim aside, it is actually stupid easy with today's hot new agentic AI toys for people to make their worst nightmares come true -- including having all their stuff taken over by a machine that most definitely does not have their best interests at heart.
@briankrebs when I worked a customer-facing support role I got exposed to some of that as well. People who would interpret any bug or unexpected behavior of their devices as some hacker trying to cause chaos in their life, so they'd install a bunch of random crap from the Internet that doesn't do what they think it would, and of course they get the sketchiest possible versions of this software so now their computer does in fact act quite oddly as it has a bunch of stuff running 24/7 in the background popping scary notifications to try to milk more money out of them. This was all pre-ChatGPT for better and for worse, but I always wondered what could ideally be done for these poor folks who are clearly suffering
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@briankrebs Good luck convincing the AI "masses" that this is actually what's happening. I keep recalling a sci-fi, post-apocalyptic story that had the entire population living underground, worshiping a god that was actually a computer regulating the atmosphere that allowed them to thrive. Well, one day the computer malfunctioned. People panicked; their god had died. In desperation, all the inhabitants went to the radiated surface, where they all died.
Sorry, I can't remember the name of that book, but we're seeing the moral in action today.
This one sounds like a match.
I recall reading it in high school. Given that's 40+ years, and literally thousands of sci-fi stories ago, it must have made an impression.
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This one sounds like a match.
I recall reading it in high school. Given that's 40+ years, and literally thousands of sci-fi stories ago, it must have made an impression.
@pseudonym @briankrebs Yes, I think that's it. Nice.
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One of my early roles at WaPo was as an editorial aide in the Editorial section, where part of my job involved reading all the Letters to the Editor and separating the crazies from those might possibly have a salient point to make.
30 years later (gulp), I am still getting plenty of Letters to the Editor, but they are not what they used to be. Time was, they were mostly people convinced their lives were being turned upside down and inside out by nebulous hackers, the govt, their ex, etc. Back in WaPo days, the common thread from the crazies was that their tormentors were using radio signals or somesuch to track and harass them.
These days, however, the "they're all after me" pleas are getting drowned out by inquiries from people who have clearly delved too deep down the AI chatbot rabbit hole. To the point where they're trying to convince everyone that nefarious, AI-based actors are harassing them, or that benevolent sentient beings reside within.
The thing is, the sentient being claim aside, it is actually stupid easy with today's hot new agentic AI toys for people to make their worst nightmares come true -- including having all their stuff taken over by a machine that most definitely does not have their best interests at heart.
@briankrebs I care for a person with paranoic schizophrenia, and in the beginning, the part with the hallucinations was clear. Then came the times when his psychiatrist told me: 'When my patients tell me that the US government is evil, how should I react? Their hallucination has now become reality.'
The worst fear of all therapists, including myself as carer, is that such vulnerable people will have access to LLMs and use them. It would be a disaster for real therapy. It will kill many people.
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@briankrebs when I worked a customer-facing support role I got exposed to some of that as well. People who would interpret any bug or unexpected behavior of their devices as some hacker trying to cause chaos in their life, so they'd install a bunch of random crap from the Internet that doesn't do what they think it would, and of course they get the sketchiest possible versions of this software so now their computer does in fact act quite oddly as it has a bunch of stuff running 24/7 in the background popping scary notifications to try to milk more money out of them. This was all pre-ChatGPT for better and for worse, but I always wondered what could ideally be done for these poor folks who are clearly suffering
@trainguyrom There's therapy but neither a journalist or customer support can convince people to seek for a therapist.
Schizophrenia and/or paranoia (also occurs in dementia) is unfortunately characterised by the fact that people do not realise that they are ill. However, many can live quite well again with medication and hospital stays. What you can do: Do not engage with delusions. Set boundaries: 'You may perceive it that way, but my reality is this. I can help you with the -
@trainguyrom There's therapy but neither a journalist or customer support can convince people to seek for a therapist.
Schizophrenia and/or paranoia (also occurs in dementia) is unfortunately characterised by the fact that people do not realise that they are ill. However, many can live quite well again with medication and hospital stays. What you can do: Do not engage with delusions. Set boundaries: 'You may perceive it that way, but my reality is this. I can help you with the@trainguyrom technology, but for everything else, please seek help elsewhere.' There are telephone lines for such mental health problems depending on the country.
Never argue about hallucinations. Stay with your reality and set limits.
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@briankrebs The 21st century turns out to be the worst imaginable time to have paranoid schizophrenia.
@cstross @briankrebs Or maybe the best.
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R relay@relay.infosec.exchange shared this topic
