Meat-based LLM proxies
I am noticing one thing becoming more prominent over time; meat-based LLM proxies.
They'll talk to you as if they're human, except all of their words are written by an LLM. Anything you tell them, they feed to the same LLM and send you the response.
Effectively, you end up talking to the LLM via a meat proxy.
The experience is strange; you aren't able to grasp any common human aspects because there are none. You can't reason with the human, because the human isn't doing the reasoning. You can't appeal to it, because the LLM behind it is in direct support of its own and the proxy's opinions and whims.
If the proxy holds a position, the LLM will hold the position too, reinforcing it for both the proxy and itself. This position is unwinnable, as the human chose to do this willingly, and the LLM doesn't care. The proxy cares about the LLM output reinforcing their position, and the LLM exists only ephemerally for as long as the message does. Your arguments may never land, as the LLM will find ways to discount them and reassure the proxy that they're correct. In the end, it becomes frustrating to the point of giving up.
When you respond with humanity, you receive much of the same, and it feels quite bad. You're writing your own messages, giving them the respect of your time, and they've offloaded their thinking to an LLM and copied you the response. Every future interaction is the same, resulting in a reduced willingness to engage at all.
One place I have experienced this directly is in the workplace. Messaging they send out is obviously written by an LLM, as it quotes all of the things it should quote; company values, recent outcomes, shared comms, and hits all of the buzzwords throughout. It will say all of the seemingly-right business things yet distinctly lack the touch of humanity the proxy possesses.
""" Congratulations to the incredible team on this outstanding delivery — your unwavering commitment to excellence, cross-functional collaboration, and customer-centric execution truly exemplifies our core values in action. This is what going above and beyond looks like, and I couldn't be prouder of the impact we're driving together. Well done, everyone — let's carry this momentum forward! """
- Faithfully yours, Meat Proxy
You may chat over coffee breaks, random meetings, or just ad-hoc. You'll share experiences, small talk, maybe even dive into some deeper topics. When interfacing with them as the proxy, all of the things you've learned about the human are absent, and there's none of that familiarity. It's all sterile, and feels rather alien and disconnected.
Yes, communications in the workplace are often sterile though the human aspect is important for keeping a good working relationship. If you remove all-or-most of the human, you've lost that connection and end up feeling a distinct disconnection.
It happens in personal relationships too. You may feel strongly about something and approach your friend, and they'll feed it through an LLM for assurance and support, and copy the output back to you. The LLM will again give them assurances and take their side, because that's what it does.
Most folks, in business or not, don't meaningfully attempt to recognise the bias an LLM has toward their own position. They're happy to absorb the assurances, the reinforcement, and don't do work to see the other position. Often, they don't even recognise it when called out, as if it's just how things factually are because the LLM said so.
If we're going to self-deprecate we may as well keep some sense of self-identity because the LLMs are definitely not going to do that for us. We're heading toward a place of even more disconnection and emptiness. I could sit here and reminisce about MSN, IRC, and platforms-of-old where humans interacted organically, though I may only make myself sad.