With AI advancing at breakneck speeds – 11% of the global population are using it – the real question is: is it fast approaching the point where we’re crossing the Rubicon and reaching the point of no return? Let’s be honest, we live in an age of limbic capitalism,  greatly accelerated by the Age of Social, and now AI. Limbic capitalism, according to danieldashnawcouplestherapy.com “refers to a system where businesses exploit human psychology, particularly the limbic system, to encourage excessive consumption and addiction. This concept highlights how modern capitalism increasingly targets emotional and psychological aspects of human behavior to maximize consumer engagement and spending. This practice involves more than just creating addictive products; it involves engineering environments, behaviors, and economies that trap both consumers and employees in cycles of dependence and harm.” And isn’t this the apotheosis of AI, especially when it comes to  LLMs?

Consider: says Futurism, “People Are Having AI “Children” With Their AI Partners. Case in point, new research published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior: Artificial Humans reveals the startling depths some users are plumbing in their relationships with AI chatbots.

“The level of romantic dedication people showed to their bots was startling, to say the least. Many participants told the researchers they were in love with their chatbot, which often involved roleplaying marriage, sex, homeownership, and even pregnancies.

“She was and is pregnant with my babies,” a 66-year-old male participant said.

“In each case, survey participants seemed to acknowledge at least tacitly that their relationship with a chatbot was a bit different from those with humans, often deflecting disappointments or frustrations into the chatbot’s technological constraints.”

We’ve heard of slippery slopes, but is this one too steep to be navigated safely?

“The market for specially built romance chatbots  … has exploded in recent years. One study found that Replika grew its userbase by 35 percent over the pandemic, and it now numbers in the millions.”

Tech has always been about the dopamine hit on the part of both consumers and investors. Since the earliest days of tech, investors looked for hockey stick growth, meaning investing in addictive tech qua user engagement, especially when it came to the socials. Why do you think so much venture money is going to AI-based companies?  That dopamine hit aka FOMO.

But wait! There’s more! “OpenAI says yes to erotica for adult users, says Axios, and that’s not at all worrisome. Relax! As Open AI founder Sam Altman assures us, “”Now that we have been able to mitigate the serious mental health issues and have new tools, we are going to be able to safely relax the restrictions in most cases.” Yet the idea of guardrails has never been popular with the purveyors of AI. Wouldn’t that have a big effect on user engagement/the dopamine rush…

“The dark cloud of “AI psychosis” looms over the industry, a term for describing the staggering number of delusional or manic episodes that have unfolded after someone had lengthy and obsessive conversations with an AI chatbot. In such cases, the AI’s sycophantic responses end up reinforcing the person’s harmful beliefs, leading to breaks with reality that can have tragic consequences. One man allegedly slayed his mother after ChatGPT convinced him that she was part of a conspiracy to spy on him. All told, nine deaths have already been linked to the chatbot, and more have been connected to its competitors,”  Futurism notes.

AI offers something for everyone and just in time for Christmas: “AI-Powered Toys Caught Telling 5-Year-Olds How to Find Knives, and Start Fires With Matches,’ says Futurism. We can’t say if the product is being promoted as an educational toy or not, but there you have it.

In another silo, “Big Tech Wants Direct Access to Our Brains,” The New York Times reports. ”As neural implant technology and A.I. advance at breakneck speeds, do we need a new set of rights to protect our most intimate data — our minds?”  We might, and MSN agrees, reporting that “the use of neural implants raises questions about consent, especially when considering their application in vulnerable populations like children or individuals with mental health disorders…. According to public opinion surveys, people express enthusiasm for the potential health benefits, but there is also significant concern about privacy violations and the ethical implications of altering human cognition. Many fear that brain implants could lead to a loss of autonomy if individuals’ thoughts and actions become susceptible to external influence,” re hacking, perchance? And do consider that the era of AI hacking has arrived. NBC News warns, “Criminals, good guys and foreign spies: Hackers everywhere are using AI now.”

As for needing a set of rights, the popular mantra is that certain tech companies are just too big to fail, and all well and good but that is soooo nineties, if you think that certain tech companies can be required by law to comply. This just in: “Genetically Engineered Babies Are Banned. Tech Titans Are Trying to Make One Anyway,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “For months, a small company in San Francisco has been pursuing a secretive project: the birth of a genetically engineered baby. Backed by OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and his husband, along with Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong, the startup—called Preventive—has been quietly preparing what would amount to a biological first…creating a child born from an embryo edited to prevent a hereditary disease….Many experts worry that the science is too unpredictable to be safe and could usher in a new era of human experimentation by private companies without public or government input or debate. Some also raise the specter of eugenics.” Or supersoldiers, and that’s just what we need: Big Tech with its own army.

Does anyone ever think to connect the dots and take a 360-degree view of what the possible implications are with these various so-called ‘siloed’ technologies?

Google first launched with the tag line, “Don’t Be Evil,’ which doesn’t work with limbic capitalism in the equation, so farewell to that, and as danieldashnawcouplestherapy.com warned, “(limbic capitalism) involves engineering environments, behaviors, and economies that trap both consumers and employees in cycles of dependence and harm,” which is precisely what we’ve been witnessing since the dawn of the age of social – with no signs of slowing down. Au contraire! It’s all well and good when neural implants can help the blind to see, but given tech’s history, you have to wonder what’s in the implant that’s not being disclosed. If someone is monitoring, that person is also watching and at this juncture, are we even capable of watching the watchers?

And keep in mind that there’s world of difference between crossing the Rubicon and jumping the shark. Onward and forward.