They say good sci-fi doesn't predict the automobile, but the traffic jam. Well, I think science fiction didn't predict LLMs. They predicted computers, they predicted AI, they predicted sentient robots, humanoid robots, talking robots, stupid robots.
But they didn't predict AI psychosis.
If in 2005 you wrote a science fiction TV show episode predicting AI psychosis, i.e. a codependent relationship or folie à deux between a person and a computer, you'd have sounded like an idiot. Is this a big problem? That somebody who's prodromal, manic, psychotic, or delusional will only talk to a computer, and the computer will reinforce the mental illness or mirror the symptoms? It sounds contrived!
If in 2005 you wrote sci-fi episode about a sycophantic computer, critics would have rightfully called you out for using lazy tropes from fantasy and fairy tales, like the "monkey's paw", instead of cool tropes from sci-fi, like lasers.
If a writer had predicted the traffic jam in the year 1900, somebody could say in 2019 "Yeah, but that's what they said about cars, too."
Why doesn't the movie Her fit this standard?
