The better angels of our nature.
With the rise of generative AI have come many chatbots, and I’ve discussed them before. There are the venerable ones, like ChatGPT, which started the whole thing, and even The Artist Formerly Known As Bard, AKA Gemini. Then there are many new kids, often using ChatGPT as a foundation but sometimes becoming highly specialized, from medical to academic to purely recreational.
AI roleplaying presents a unique opportunity to augment our real-world behavior. It offers a dual approach: one can either rehearse positive behavior or negative behavior. The absence of real-world consequences in AI roleplaying can lead to uncharted territories where the only limit is the user’s imagination.
We coin the term rehearsing bad behavior for a reason. Thoughts can rewire our brains, and attitudes we apply in our imagination can become deeply ingrained in our conscious reality. For instance, mistreating women in roleplaying can lead to mistreating them in daily life. It’s a breeding ground for destructive attitudes.
Rehearsing good behavior is more than just a phrase. It’s a call to action. It’s about treating the AI with respect and any characters it creates for us with dignity. It’s about consciously choosing a method that steers our reality toward attitudes associated with “the better angels of our nature.”
You may find this silly. It’s just a machine, and it’s just imagination. But it’s not. This is an opportunity to shift your worldview, and that’s more valuable than any other gift AI can give.