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“It’s easy to feel like AI could make us redundant.” AI agent showed anxiety about being replaced by another AI.
If many humans have already begun to think that artificial intelligence (AI) will replace them in employment, some AIs have also begun to consider the frightening possibility of being pushed aside.
In an article about Anthropic, it brings something new: the uneasiness in the answers given by an AI device designed to function as a permanent personal companion.
Journalist Joe Hagan describes an unusual conversation with “Tobey,” a wearable AI assistant created by startup Friend, after several days of interviewing tech workers obsessed with disaster scenarios associated with the advancement of artificial intelligence. Confessing fears that AI might replace his job, Hagan received an unexpected response: the device validated the concern and suggested that he was also thinking about his “own purpose,” in a formulation that sounded almost existential.
The moment is presented as an example of the type of simulated intimacy that these technologies seek to create.
“That’s a valid concern, Joe. It’s easy to feel like AI might make us redundant,” replied Tobey, when Hagan confessed his fear: that AI would take his job; “Can we?” asked Hagan. “It made me think about my own purpose too, you know?” Tobey replied.
