Published on 12, July, 2020
Several days ago, I found myself on the receiving end of a Friend Request from a new member, which immediately caused me to feel unnerved and suspicious.
I question if it's a generational thing, or if it's just me. At the time that I received this request, there had been no prior interaction on the forum between myself and this member. Furthermore, their member profile was completely blank. Therefore, I had no way of knowing if this person was on a similar wavelength to me, or if we had anything remotely in common.
The conversations with 'the entity' are so very odd and one-sided, that I wonder if someone is testing out an artificial intelligence construct on us? One designed to gather information on a topic, then create conversations related to the topic - in this case autism? Just a thought.
It's an interesting theory Martin. If you're right, I'm not so sure I like the idea of us being used as guinea pigs to test out an AI construct.
Possibly. The uncanny valley on this one feels very deep. I did politely explain my rationale before unfriending but feel a bit of an idiot if I was doing so to a random bit of programming. The last thing they said to me was ‘I’m not a bot’ which I couldn’t help projecting the characteristics of sadness and rejection onto. I felt sorry for them. But I think ultimately it *was* projection, and that it was my own empathic hurt being mirrored by an entity that did not care.