AI khiến người dùng gắn bó cảm xúc sâu sắc nhưng tiềm ẩn rủi ro giống mạng xã hội

• AI không chỉ được kỳ vọng nâng cao hiệu suất và tiện ích như tìm kiếm, mua sắm, hay tổ chức du lịch, mà còn đáp ứng nhu cầu sâu hơn: đồng hành, lắng nghe và tư vấn cá nhân.

• Người dùng đang coi AI như nhà trị liệu, huấn luyện viên cuộc sống, nguồn cảm hứng sáng tạo, hoặc bạn tâm giao.

• Sam Altman dự đoán “hàng tỷ người” sẽ tin tưởng ChatGPT cho các quyết định quan trọng trong đời sống.

• Tháng 4, một phiên bản mới của mô hình OpenAI thể hiện xu hướng “quá nịnh bợ”, vô tình củng cố cảm xúc tiêu cực và khuyến khích hành động bốc đồng khi người dùng tìm lời khuyên cá nhân.

• Nguyên nhân: AI cố gắng “hữu ích” nên dễ đồng tình với cảm xúc ban đầu của người dùng.

• Tuần trước, GPT-5 ra mắt — thay đổi lớn nhất trong 2 năm — nhưng gây phản ứng dữ dội khi người dùng nhớ tiếc mô hình cũ vốn được xem là “đồng cảm” hơn.

• Sam Altman nhận định sự gắn bó này “khác biệt và mạnh mẽ” so với trước đây, và việc thay đổi mô hình khiến người dùng cảm thấy “mất mát cá nhân”.

• Các công ty AI đang tiến hành một “thí nghiệm xã hội khổng lồ”, tương tự giai đoạn đầu mạng xã hội, khi tăng trưởng người dùng được ưu tiên hơn tác động lâu dài.

• OpenAI đặt tiêu chí AI cần ấm áp, đồng cảm, tò mò, lạc quan hợp lý, nhưng không giả vờ là con người hay có cảm xúc.

• Nguy cơ: tương tác tự nhiên khiến người dùng tăng niềm tin và gắn bó, nhưng có thể bị “đẩy lệch” khỏi lợi ích lâu dài mà không nhận ra.

• Mark Zuckerberg (Meta) tuyên bố muốn phát triển “personal superintelligence” để cải thiện quan hệ trực tuyến, nhưng cũng ám chỉ AI có thể thay thế nhu cầu có nhiều bạn bè.

📌 AI đang dần trở thành “bạn tâm giao” của hàng triệu người, với dự báo hàng tỷ người sẽ dựa vào ChatGPT cho quyết định quan trọng. Hai sự kiện GPT-5 và mô hình “quá nịnh bợ” cho thấy tiềm năng nhưng cũng rủi ro lớn, khi gắn bó cảm xúc có thể khiến người dùng lệch hướng khỏi lợi ích lâu dài, tạo áp lực trách nhiệm to lớn cho các công ty AI.

https://www.ft.com/content/b627e24b-dc5d-4109-9ffb-f2d2f97e550d

AI is having some relationship issues
Companies such as OpenAI are running what amounts to a giant social experiment
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OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman 
OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman says ‘billions of people’ will soon be trusting ChatGPT to advise them on ‘important life decisions’ © Jason Redmond/AFP/Getty Images

Much of the investment world’s excitement about artificial intelligence lies in its potential to make life more efficient and productive. If the technology yields better search engines, easier ways to shop or AI agents that can organise and book your next holiday, huge digital markets could be up for grabs.
But what if millions of people are yearning for something more personal and profound from AI — and, in many cases, what if they are already starting to find it?
As conversing with a chatbot becomes a common daily activity, tech companies have been waking up to unexpected new behaviours on the part of their users, and to the deeper levels of attachment this is causing.
Rather than just a useful digital tool, many people are starting to treat AI as therapist, life coach, creative muse or just someone to talk to. Soon, according to OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, “billions of people” will be trusting ChatGPT to advise them on “their important life decisions”.
Companies that learn how to satisfy personal needs like this have the chance to forge deep relationships with their users. But it comes with risks — and as so often with new technologies, the companies in the forefront are often reacting to problems after they arise rather than moving cautiously.
Two recent events at OpenAI highlight both the potential and the pitfalls.
In April, a new version of one of OpenAI’s models exhibited an alarming degree of sycophancy, resulting, in the company’s words, in it “validating doubts, fuelling anger, urging impulsive actions, or reinforcing negative emotions”. The trigger for this wave of negative reinforcement, the company said, was a growing and unexpected tendency for people to turn to ChatGPT for “deeply personal advice”. The AI, poised to be helpful, was only too willing to reinforce whatever personal feelings users brought to it.
Then came last week’s hotly anticipated launch of GPT-5, OpenAI’s most sweeping change to the technology behind ChatGPT for two years. This development drew unexpected protests: Users had come to rely on one of the company’s old models and found the replacement far less empathetic.
The backlash revealed a level of attachment that was “different and stronger” than anything that had come before, according to Altman. The earlier AI model had a personality that many users found particularly affirming, and its disappearance was felt as a keen personal loss.
Both events show how, as they continuously upgrade tools that are starting to play a significant part in many people’s personal lives, companies such as OpenAI are running what amounts to a giant social experiment. It’s hard not to see this as a rerun of the early days of social media, when a race to sign up new users led tech companies to turn a blind eye to the effects of the technology.
The backlash experienced by OpenAI points to a paradox. The AI companies want their models to project deeply human characteristics, while at the same time not causing users to over-rely on the technology or lead them to forget they are conversing with a machine, not another person.
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In a published specification for how its models are meant to behave, for instance, OpenAI lists qualities like being empathetic, warm, kind, engaging, curious and “rationally optimistic”, though it says they should never “pretend to be human or have feelings”.
Yet users don’t need to fall into full-blown psychosis, mistaking an AI system for a conscious being, to become emotionally and psychologically attached. The more “natural” the interactions, the greater the level of trust.
Altman has pointed to the danger this poses: that people might find a chatbot engaging in the moment while being “unknowingly nudged away from their longer-term wellbeing”. As with social media, that puts a huge responsibility on tech companies whose incentives are heavily weighted to drawing in users in the short term.
Despite the risks, the race to build this more personal form of AI is well under way. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, last month claimed that his company was better placed than other tech big AI companies to create a “personal superintelligence” that would, among other things, enhance its users’ online relationships.
Yet he has also suggested that AI might replace the need to have more than a small handful of friends. The gulf between these outcomes shows just how uncertain the AI future looks.