Human nature, we have personified objects for millennia, humans have personified everything from the sun, to automatic rifles, to boats, to the weather, to cars, to mountains and much much more.
Remember religion? It makes people personify a concept.
Now, none of what we have personified in the past have ever been able to respond to us directly, people sang to the weather for rain, the weather never responded at all, let alone by talking, but people would recognize patterns that could be seen as a response if interpreted correctly.
So people thought they could talk to the weather.
People pray to god, and as people are excellent at pattern recognition they would interpret any random coincidence as an answer.
People are personifying LLMs as they see it as a magic computer that is friendly and can respond naturally in their own language, with semi verifiable facts.
There are a few reasons as to why personifying LLMs have been super charged compared to other things.
It actually responds in a normal language
It can seem to understand a specific context
It can respond with semi verifiable data
It is programmed to work to keep the user happy, reinforcing their beliefs
Look at point 1, normal language matters a LOT, people are comfortable with normal language, even if the grammar is obvious and slightly weird.
Point 2, this means that the user can feel as is the entity can remember added details later in the conversation.
Point 3, this is an important point, seeing as the major LLMs now have access to the internet, they can now answer questions and quote sources, sources that most people skip reading, yet believes that the mere presence of source links is enough to verify the data.
Point 4, this makes it so that the user get’s emotionally invested, amplifying the effect of the above points
Human nature, we have personified objects for millennia, humans have personified everything from the sun, to automatic rifles, to boats, to the weather, to cars, to mountains and much much more.
Remember religion? It makes people personify a concept.
Now, none of what we have personified in the past have ever been able to respond to us directly, people sang to the weather for rain, the weather never responded at all, let alone by talking, but people would recognize patterns that could be seen as a response if interpreted correctly.
So people thought they could talk to the weather.
People pray to god, and as people are excellent at pattern recognition they would interpret any random coincidence as an answer.
People are personifying LLMs as they see it as a magic computer that is friendly and can respond naturally in their own language, with semi verifiable facts.
There are a few reasons as to why personifying LLMs have been super charged compared to other things.
Look at point 1, normal language matters a LOT, people are comfortable with normal language, even if the grammar is obvious and slightly weird.
Point 2, this means that the user can feel as is the entity can remember added details later in the conversation.
Point 3, this is an important point, seeing as the major LLMs now have access to the internet, they can now answer questions and quote sources, sources that most people skip reading, yet believes that the mere presence of source links is enough to verify the data.
Point 4, this makes it so that the user get’s emotionally invested, amplifying the effect of the above points