"people can distinguish between fantasy and reality" can, but often don't. when cops use shooting targets with George Floyd's face on them, are they just shooting a target, or are they imagining how much they'd enjoy killing a Black man for real? brains are not hard to program this way

"this is like arguments about video game violence" that depends. most people playing games where you kill enemies are not focusing on the pleasure of killing enemies, imagining them to be people. they're a means to an end, a challenge to overcome. you aren't seeing them as people to hurt, probably

but we know there *are* people who *do* play games this way, not just as a way to desensitize themselves to committing violence, but to increase their own psychological enjoyment of the act of killing, in preparation for the real thing plenty of mass shooters trained on video games

i don't think it should be illegal to say nasty things to an LLM any more than we should outlaw violent video games, but that doesn't mean doing those things is harmless to you, depending on what is motivating you and what impulses you are feeding by doing it

it has been frustrating to see people miss this point because they mischaracterize it as "you're saying LLMs have feelings/are alive" or "you're equating being mean to an LLM with actual bigotry" and yeah, some people do say those things, but other people are saying other things

this isn't a binary "you either think AIs are alive and can be hurt, or you don't" situation this is a question of what is healthy for you, as a person, when it comes to indulging in fantasies of cruelty