Introducing my learned friend, Claude
Introducing my learned friend, Claude
As people turn to AI chatbots for health and emotional advice, it’s time to define exactly where they sit in our friendship culture
Dick Pountain is editorial fellow and has had a substantial amount of contact with barristers recently. He thinks he prefers chatbots. Find him on BlueSky at @dick-pountain
Regular readers might have gained the erroneous impression that I’m an anti-AI neo-Luddite. On the contrary, I’m immensely impressed by the current generation of free chatbots and use at least one daily. As a Google captive I can’t avoid Gemini, I’ve used ChatGPT from the get-go, and am recently finding Claude the most remarkable. What I’m against is the crazy hubris of the AGI cult, the ecocidal lunacy of the data-centre pharaohs, and the prospect of Pete Hegseth getting his hands on the technology. Assuming the AI bubble will burst, and after the mess gets cleaned up – a dangerous assumption since I’m writing this during the US/Israel/Iran obliterationfest – we’ll need to figure out AI’s proper role in society. (Hint: it isn’t to put everyone out of work.)