The rise of AI in our modern era, as detestable and repulsive as it is (minus, of course, those used specifically in medical fields that are not LLMs), surprisingly mirrors the exploration of free will in persona 5.
Which is to say, the way in which many people use and interact with LLMs and chatbots is highly reminiscent of the public in persona 5 relinquishing their own free will on the idea that doing so would make their lives better, smoother, or easier in some way. While not universal (...for now), there are many that speak of and treat AI in a way that borders on worshipful; the individual must be sacrificed to fully merge into the "easy life" offered.
Which is another way of saying, I'm thinking back again to when I was trying to get some healthcare and the doctor I went to fucking chatgpt'd shit, could not hold a proper conversation about the issue at hand without going back to the chatbot, and was absolutely fucking useless. The last doctor I went to at the same clinic actually did something. Wow! But that chatgpt using doctor? I've never met someone so incompetent, and it wasn't even that they were new or were trying without having any foundational knowledge. If it were a different job there'd be more room for error and learning. But a doctor? A doctor??
At least in persona 5, when people are sacrificing their autonomy and mental capabilities they are doing it for a god-like being, one with will and force and an actual brain. The only reason people end up sacrificing their autonomy is because that god-like being thought it the best solution to the plight of humanity, which meant there was reason and reason beyond one concocted by humans. But this?? LLMs are mimicries of knowledge, they are so obviously not a tool for help people but rather one for control.
They encourage dependence, the decline of critical thought, trigger psychosis in those susceptible and can trigger people who otherwise could avoid the manifestation of mental health struggles to gain them, it unfairly and unjustly harvest information from others, let alone everything else it does! There are people making religions to worship it! There are people taking advantage of those people through it! If you somehow manage to ignore every single horrible environmental impact it causes, you cannot deny that it unlocks the worst in people and gives terrible people ample ammo to be even more wretched!
I cannot begin to imagine why anyone would sacrifice their own free will for such a mindless life. Free will, autonomy, the choice to choose what you can do and who you can be, all of these are of the highest privileges to experience and should be preserved with tenacity. To not only have the opportunity to be the master of your own free will but betray yourself for the lie of simplicity? It's the highest self-betrayal any person can undergo, and I am increasingly frustrated whenever I realize just how far others have fallen. The temptation is fickle, the "wonderful lovely chatbots" are both marketed as and speak to you as if you're an incompetent fool with half a brain and no ability to do anything on your own.
And I'll acknowledge that for some they theoretically could be used for aid, but that is only if there is no other alternatives, which there very easily could be if society just put effort into those alternatives! The only reason why chatbots have any semblance of "success" is because the people who fund them and push them to have more influence over the average life is because chatbots are a brilliant tool of control. If people depend on it for knowledge, how easy is it to rewrite history, or omit the truth, or provide only what ""people should know""? If people depend on it for guidance, how easy is it to guide people in a certain way? If people tell it everything, how easy is it to harvest even more data? It's just barely acknowledging the true harm (on a societal, individual, and global scale) that this technology can cause.
The fact that there's heatwaves all over the world (not only in the northern hemisphere, as much as that's getting news coverage) that is quite literally killing people and there's the risk of countries running out of fresh water, and yet more data-centres are being put up? It's beyond idiotic! There is no future to these people past the supposed "inevitability of AI controlling humanity" so they'll sacrifice the planet to make that ""inevitability"" come true. It's bullshit.
Which is to say, why on earth should a medical professional, someone who quite literally requires their brain, thinking and analytical skills to do the job is not only using fucking LLMs but getting away with it? There should be no form of reality where such a thing is possible! Chatbots have no place and no purpose to be anything more than a passing curiousity, not a tool used to get people purposefully addicted (like many social medias).
