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Why do many young people prefer to confide in AI rather than talk to people around them?

To be honest, I like to confide in AI about things I can't figure out myself because confiding in AI has lower costs and more controllable risks.

When chatting about personal matters with people around you, you have to consider too many things:

  • Is the other person free right now? Will they find me annoying?
  • Will I be judged if I say it? Or hear "You're thinking too much"?
  • If the relationship changes one day, will these things be brought up against me?
  • Some topics are too private and feel awkward to say out loud.

But chatting with AI is much simpler. It's always there, never impatient, won't judge you, and certainly won't spread rumors. You can say any thought without scruples, even if you feel it was childish the next day, it doesn't matter because no one will remember.

Even if you propose some very childish, abstract, or outrageous ideas, AI will really carefully analyze the reasons behind them for you. Ask ordinary people in society today, who can have such a large amount of knowledge and still analyze it for others properly? If there really were such a psychotherapist, the fee for one hour would be over 800.

Based on the advantages above, I even want to train an uncensored AI myself to run locally, but it just costs too much money.

Stranger-on-a-train Effect​

And I remember there used to be a saying that if there is a foreign teacher in the school, many students like to confide their hearts to this foreign teacher in English. I searched and found out this is called the Stranger-on-a-train effect.

Stranger-on-a-train phenomenon: The core logic is: when you communicate in a non-native language, or face someone outside your social network, a sense of psychological distance is created, which actually makes it easier for you to tell the truth.

Specifically, the uniqueness of confiding in a foreign language:

  • A foreign language is not your "emotional language", so the emotional impact is weakened when speaking it out.
  • It's just like when you curse in English, the satisfaction is definitely not as direct as cursing in Chinese.
  • This "emotional buffering" allows you to dare to say things you usually wouldn't dare to say.

This is almost the same logic as confiding in AI:

  • Psychological distance: Cultural/Language barrier (Foreign teacher), Human-Machine barrier (AI)
  • Social risk: Not in your relationship network (Foreign teacher), Not even a human (AI)
  • Judgment risk: Large difference in values (Foreign teacher), No values (AI)

So essentially, they both use some kind of "isolation mechanism" to lower the psychological cost of self-disclosure.

However, there is an interesting difference: confiding in a foreign teacher, you are at least still establishing a connection with a real person; but confiding in AI, you might really just be talking to yourself.