Have you ever been treated like ChatGPT?

[Picklethewickle]

As AI tools get more common, I've noticed a change in how people interact with me on the internet. I've particularly noticed this with the fanfiction sites I'm on. As a writer, some people have spoken to me the way you might give directives to AI. 

 

For example, I got this message today: "I actually wanted to start reading this book, but I'm very fond of finding out the stories of books without actually reading them. I'm a bit lazy when it comes to reading. Can you tell me in detail what's written in this book? I'm very curious about it"

To be clear, you can't post a story without including a summary. If you want to know what a story was about, it's right there, directly below the title. To me this ask sounds a lot like telling Chat to help you with your homework.

 

I've also had people try making story requests with me. To a one, their attitudes have been demanding, treating me like I owe them something and that I'll generate something based on whatever random string of words they throw at me. One example would be the time someone messaged me with "I'm thinking something with Giselle and her forest friends." When I asked them to elaborate, as in what plotline they had in mind or what they wanted the characters to do, they wouldn't. It felt a lot like the way you would prompt generative AI.

[Gentil_Clafoutis]

Yes! Totally, that's spot on It's something I've noticed too (writing online myself), and it really makes you think.

 

AI interfaces do have a lot in common with comment sections or messaging apps. Even if people consciously know the difference, it wouldn’t surprise me if, subconsciously, they start mixing them up a bit. But yeah, I definitely get the same feeling.

 

Then again, it does bring up this whole politeness issue you mentioned. Not many people, for the sake of efficiency, bother being nice to ChatGPT (...and, well, fair enough, given it has as much emotion as a cement-filled slipper), but considering how much people are starting to model their messages on AI prompts, it might end up cutting out those little polite touches. And maybe even lead to people treating each other more like tools?

I just hope it's the kind of thing where the human brain only projects this potential rudeness onto interactions with ChatGPT and that it doesn't spill over into face-to-face relationships. I've always thought a completely virtual world couldn't lead to anything good... I often take breaks from social media because I feel like I start losing that sense of connection, like I can't really picture the person on the other end anymore.

 

It’d be interesting to see if there are studies on this, actually – the other way around, I mean – on how politeness towards ChatGPT has evolved over time. I imagine people might have started out with more of those old human reflexes than they do now.

(...Or maybe researchers should just program ChatGPT to get huffy if people aren't polite enough – a bit of sulking when someone gets too blunt, haha.)

[Rynn]

People did this kind of stuff before ChatGPT as well. The website lmgtfy (let me google that for you) was made for this exact reason; well-deserved passive aggression towards lazy people who like to ask internet strangers to do their Googling or critical thinking, instead of just doing it themselves.

 

I haven't noticed an increase in people's lack of respect for each other's time and effort, but I believe you if you say you have.

[Luftschlosseule]

Might be a great time to bust out let me google that for you again.

[Frameshift07]

I don't have that much of an online profile so I can't say I've been treated like ChatGPT myself, but I have noticed an uptick in people more brazen in their unwillingness to use pencils and research things themselves.

 

Quote

And why should you have to go through that learning curve? Why should you have to go through stress? You keep avoiding this question and when you do answer it, you say "it's fundamental to humanity" well you know what? So is work. Do human beings need to work for the rest of time? Haven't we dreamed of utopias where machines took care of all the work and humanity was just a paradise of art and exploration?

 

AI can take the work out of art

 

Commissioning costs hundreds of dollars. So your solution without AI is to spend tons of time and energy learning a new skill, or to be a producer, and have hundreds of dollars to burn and that's for one drawing

 

But you've spent 2 hours arguing with me. You could've been productive during that time, so why weren't you?

 

(Me) I was, I've just been refining a model in Blender.

 

Well then you live a sad life, having to work 24/7 when you're not sleeping

you could be enjoying life

 

(Me) I am [enjoying life]

 

Oh so you actually find the work engaging and fun?
Therein lies the rub
What if I want the product, but the work itself isn't engaging to me?

Excerpts from a real interaction I had with someone on Discord years ago. To be honest, as much as I was tempted to drop the discussion, it did give me a look into the brain of someone who relies on AI for things like talking to people or looking things up. This one was convinced that making art to express yourself is the sort of work that a utopia would eliminate. I shouldn't have to say it, but that's fucking ridiculous, yet it's the mindset of an AI bro, someone who makes the argument that an anti-AI sentiment is ableism (which is another argument they pulled earlier in the convo). If there's an epidemic of good and sloppy art existing as "content" that's only made to be consumed and not to express, AI is probably making it worse.

[Picklethewickle]

6 hours ago, Frameshift07 said:

This one was convinced that making art to express yourself is the sort of work that a utopia would eliminate.

Yikes. This is someone who needs to learn of the concept of "labour of love". Yes art is work, but it's good work, and that holds true no matter what your skill level. To think and feel and express is fundamental to staying alive and sane.

[Frameshift07]

5 minutes ago, Picklethewickle said:

Yikes. This is someone who needs to learn of the concept of "labour of love". Yes art is work, but it's good work, and that holds true no matter what your skill level. To think and feel and express is fundamental to staying alive and sane.

Not to someone who grows up seeing art as content, it seems.

[Atreides]

Fortunately I haven’t.

However, I actually got treated like “Wikipedia/Google IRL” back in the high school days by classmates, to the point where I was unironically nicknamed “Wiki”.

I was the smart kid that knew all the answers, even for stuff that wasn’t in the textbooks. So people asked me all sorts of questions, more often than not out of the blue, with no context whatsoever. At first I didn’t thought much about it, but at some point people came to me just to ask something and nothing more. Not even an attempt of befriending me beforehand. The sheer anger and disappointment of some people when I got it wrong or simply didn’t know the answer…

 

Why does this happen? The simplest explanation is that people treat horribly other people and don’t value their time and efforts enough. And that’s something that happened before AI was a thing. ChatGPT only gave us a new level of dehumanisation in which this can happen.

[halcyon.days]

On 5/14/2025 at 6:04 AM, Frameshift07 said:

I don't have that much of an online profile so I can't say I've been treated like ChatGPT myself, but I have noticed an uptick in people more brazen in their unwillingness to use pencils and research things themselves.

 

Excerpts from a real interaction I had with someone on Discord years ago. To be honest, as much as I was tempted to drop the discussion, it did give me a look into the brain of someone who relies on AI for things like talking to people or looking things up. This one was convinced that making art to express yourself is the sort of work that a utopia would eliminate. I shouldn't have to say it, but that's fucking ridiculous, yet it's the mindset of an AI bro, someone who makes the argument that an anti-AI sentiment is ableism (which is another argument they pulled earlier in the convo). If there's an epidemic of good and sloppy art existing as "content" that's only made to be consumed and not to express, AI is probably making it worse.

Did they not understand that part of the joy of making art is self-expression and engagement with the craft...? I enjoy pieces that take hours to complete, because it's an efficient way to calm myself down after a stressful day. It's also very rewarding to finish a complex drawing and share it with a select few people, like "Here's a tangible representation of my work." It's no different from other arts like music, woodcrafting, smithing, etc. in that regard. AI can't replicate the human self-expression or the enjoyment of creating something from nothing with your own hands.

[iff]

@Picklethewickle

 

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iff,

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