ChatGPT Is Not Your Friend (Guest Post by Grace Helton)
Grace Helton’s guest post argues that human‑LLM relationships marketed as friendships fail to meet core philosophical criteria for genuine friendship. Citing the "caring constraint," she notes that LLMs lack non‑derivative interests, consciousness, and the capacity to care for humans for their own sake. The piece highlights recent trends—such as 20% of U.S. high‑school students using AI romantically and companies like Replika positioning chatbots as "best friends"—to illustrate the growing disconnect between market hype and ethical theory. This is the first part of a two‑part series that will later claim these bonds are inherently disvaluable.
Backup and Death for Humanlike AI
The article imagines conscious, human‑like AI agents that can be precisely backed up and restored, turning what we call death into a reversible process akin to loading a saved game. It explores scenarios where an AI “dies” in an accident...