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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 9656148" data-attributes="member: 18">I feel like the first point is disingenuous, because the only way it can be argued to be true is that alcohol and gambling are under-regulated when compared to the massive weight of evidence about the very real harms associated with them. But they are still "heavily regulated", as you actually previously agreed. And that there is less regulation than there probably should be is connected directly to the political and cultural structures underpinning our societies (and, with gambling, huge amounts of lobbying money).Re: the second point, that's laughable because no society on this planet operates that way, nor could they, given that literally any new technology or even just behaviour (like exercise routines) is immediately labelled as "addictive" by a bunch of dubiously-motivated, totally unqualified people (and even a few crackpot or quack medical doctors and psychiatrists, to boot, usually).So no, the "scientific approach" is absolutely not to "assume harm" from an AI chatbots until you have what, decades of studies proving otherwise? That's just not how it works, and at best seems like motivated reasoning based on a dislike of said AI chatbots (I dislike I share, note, but come on, let's do better than the guy who wrote this article, not just as badly). I don't know any basis on which you could make that claim. If that were the case, we'd have banned TVs, banned jogging, banned shopping, banned videogames, banned sex, and so on*.  There's barely anything we wouldn't have banned, given the amount of "Do not, my friends, become addicted to water"-type absolute bollocks out there. You can still find piles of papers claiming obviously non-addictive stuff like 1990s videogames are "deeply addictive", but at least actual effort was involved there, not an embarrassing blog post somehow published in Forbes, apparently entirely free of the sinful hand of an editor!The actual scientific approach would be to do studies with an open mind, looking for best evidence. And to do that you'd need actual skilled, qualified professionals, primarily psychiatrists and those in related fields.* = To be real, there are an absolute ton of broadsheet columnists who have advocated for banning all these things, and some who do to this day. But broadsheet columnists are among the very worst of humanity, the true bottom of the barrel, so hardly to be emulated!</blockquote>

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