We are unconsciously becoming someone else

Sidenote: An interesting less spoken about part is Rene's idea of the scapegoat. Any good mimetic desire needs a scapegoat for when competition and rivalry ultimately occur as a byproduct of many people wanting the same thing. Is the LLM the scapegoat in this new equation? This article certainly blames it.

That can, also, undoubtedly be a powerful tool in overcoming cultural brainwashing of sorts, but I think the knife cuts both ways. The "authentic self" term makes it sound ontologically real and suggests that there is merit in searching for "finding oneself" when no ther motivating need exists. That road leads to pathological definition writing, IMHO.

Before looking for a solution, just stop for a second and evaluate whether we need more problems. If so, ask yourself for whom we are creating more problems?

They bolded that section. I’m not saying we need to give over all thinking to AI, but it is helpful for spotting typos.

so did someone come up with a solid authenticity benchmark for humans yet?

I set the line at "people" questions. I'll ask an LLM about math, programming, or how to better take care of my flowers. But turning to an AI for the human questions, relationship advice, I don't even understand why one would do that. The machine hasn't experienced that. There is no objective truth to these questions. Asking other people these questions lets you connect and bond.

I noticed a long time ago that each personality trends towards an average of the community they interact with - which makes me even more hesitant to use LLMs outside of work. I don't want to start talking like a clanker myself. I go out of my way to interact with weird people.

Thinking back to pre-LLM days, I would have the same line with classical search engines. I would never Google for relationship advice, since it doesn't know me well enough to actually say something worthwhile.

Secondly, and even more dangerous, is to assume you had an identity in the first place. What the author probably mistakes for his identity is an image molded into him by parents, early circumstances, and societal norms and rules at the time. A “violation” of these internalized rules later in life can feel life-threatening, or wrong, and invoke shame, because in early age, belonging was strictly necessary for survival. Later in life, that limits your options, but has nothing to do with “who you are”. You create who you are, moment to moment.

Consider an inquiry when you think “that was not authentic” (by yourself or other). What kind of internalized rules does it touch? Do you actually still consider these rules to be correct and useful today?

The past can and will haunt you, but it’s not real. It’s ghosts. You need to decide how to deal with them. But “lack of authenticity” is not it.

You are the ongoing creator of your identity. And you still want to belong. But maybe not to the church of your upbringing. You’re free to burn it down any time.

Burning Man has a lot of things I’ve never seen before that I wind up liking without anyone else’s validation

Most of that experience is still different than what gets posted online about that experience

If you’re looking for what this article is talking about, it’s there

so unconsciously in that context is absolutely correct but not in a way one would expect while "someone else" is incorrect. Monkey see monkey do until monkey is (immersed) in a loopy-do flow. This goes on until monkey finds one of infinite doors to consciousness and a part of it's self.

The crazy part is another one: once people successfully mimic, and they don't feel fulfilled, they often don't have the guts to admit that and just roll with it because "social proof". A bit fucked up in the head, if you ask me, but whatever. A lot of people also rather roll with wanting what others want even though there is a distinct feeling of disgust (*guts out, not mine, doesn't belong to _self_*) ...

Full disclosure: didn't even open the link.

Sorry for the snark. I like the idea of the article. I'm becoming an asshole day-by-day, I don't like it, I wonder if it's because of the deluge of idiocy that we're confronted with, that grows and grows, also thanks to comment sections (spot the irony). The sad thing about the Internet is it's a high speed tool to bring idiocy in front of you.

But even without the Internet, isn't culture a way of creating society of similar people, ie. people influenced by others? Taylor Swift is gigantic pop star, but so were the Beatles. Different regions had different local recipes, that all the moms knew how to make, spread in a memetic way...