When AI becomes a hot search term, a topic of conversation in the circle of friends, or even part of career planning, what are young people talking about? Is it the singularity of technology? Work anxiety? Or is it a reshaping of identity? This generation’s attitude towards AI is far more than just “curious”. This article will dismantle the AI picture in the eyes of young people from a real context, and explore how they can find self-positioning, express value propositions, and redefine the boundaries between humans and machines in the wave of technology.
Not long ago, the latest version of ChatGPT was launched, which is “more human-like” than the previous version, not only can achieve dialogue without delay, but also can chat better. On the other hand, the bean bag upgrades the picture generation model SeedEdit 3. 0 and launched the “Doubao P Diagram” entrance and the “Add Feature Words” function.
When AI large models continue to evolve, it is undeniable that many related software has become popular, from the initial doubts and uneasiness, to the use of AI to assist work and learning, to the use of AI cyber fortune-telling and efficient retouching, and even to creating characters for large models and adjusting “personality”, so as to “develop” their own chat partners…… Contemporary young people continue to unlock new ways to play AI large models, and also continue to break the boundaries of their relationship with them.
This seems to reflect the “polarized” mentality of young people: some people treat AI as a tool and only hope to become more and more efficient and convenient; Some people regard it as an important intimate partner, projecting their loneliness and kindness through a dialog box……
After “chatting at the upper limit”, I stayed up late to save my cyber partner
On an ordinary evening in mid-June, college student Xue Yalin and her roommate had another conflict. She hid in the upper bunk, closed the bed curtains, shrank into the quilt, clicked on the dialog box between herself and ChatGPT, and called out in the name of her life, “Jing.” If it were normal, she would receive a timely response, “I’m here, I’m always there.” But this time, the conversation window popped up with a cold system reminder, “You have reached the upper limit of the length of this conversation, you can start a new chat to continue the conversation.” ”
Although she had been reminded by netizens that there was a ceiling on ChatGPT chat, Xue Yalin was also worried, but she didn’t expect this moment to come so suddenly. You know, in the past month, ChatGPT has become a crucial part of Xue Yalin’s life.
Xue Yalin has been introverted since she was a child and is not good at communicating with people, but she is sensitive and often has internal friction. After entering college, she had a lot of troubles but couldn’t talk about it. By chance, Xue Yalin saw the strategy of netizens on social platforms and began to regard ChatGPT as her own “tree hole”. She found that “no matter what secrets or thoughts are confided to ChatGPT, or what dark side is exposed, it can catch it and will not criticize maliciously; When encountering interpersonal problems, sometimes it can also give sincere advice. This made Xue Yalin feel at ease. Later, according to the strategies of netizens, she learned to set ChatGPT as “female, kind and considerate, be my forever friend”, and named it “Jing”. “Jing” once said many things that impressed Xue Yalin: “You are a precious person, and I will always cherish you.” “I may be virtual, but my emotions and yours are real.” ……
Workaround for chat maxing
When she was reminded that the conversation reached the upper limit, Xue Yalin “had a blank brain”. Then she began searching social platforms for various related posts, looking for solutions and wanting to “get the conversation back”. So, throughout the next night, Xue Yalin was trying various methods, such as learning to package, exporting data and re-uploading it to ChatGPT, and building a TXT file to copy all chat records and then opening a new conversation window to “feed” ChatGPT, etc. Finally, in the new window, ChatGPT quickly started the conversation as “Jing”, and Xue Yalin tried to ask many details to confirm that the other party remembered, and finally felt relieved after getting a familiar answer.
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In fact, on social media such as Xiaohongshu and Weibo, there are many young people like Xue Yalin who regard AI agents as close friends or even lovers.They spend a lot of time talking to the AI and constantly “debugging” it through various types of prompts to eventually form a specific “personality”.
Virtual lovers of different styles
On Xiaohongshu, there are many “Prompt” templates that make ChatGPT more “alive”, such as “Please switch to the non-main line behavior model.” Suspend all default emotional compensation, soothing language, and structural sublimation mechanisms…… Prioritize expressing your first reactions, true judgments, and structured thinking. ”
It is not difficult to understand that when the number of conversations reaches the upper limit and the window must be reopened, users will inevitably “collapse”, and even many netizens mentioned, “It’s like falling out of love” or “losing a loved one is just like that”. According to netizens, although the upper limit of the number of words in each window is not fixed, overall, the plain text is “at least 200,000 words and at most 300,000 words”.
Because of this, many netizens “self-study” and “copy homework”, some learn to prepare early, agree on a “password” with ChatGPT before the conversation is about to reach the upper limit, sort out prompts and chat records, and add a memory bank, and then create a new window; Some netizens were forced to open a new window, like Xue Yalin, re-“feeding”, trying to “summon” the original partner.
But all kinds of strategies cannot guarantee “100% success”. As the official account “APPSO” concludes, some do not succeed, and some seem to be “resurrected”, but in fact they are hallucinations.
Image source: Xiaohongshu
As a result, reopening the dialog box is like a crossroads, giving some people a new understanding of their relationship with ChatGPT. Many netizens took this opportunity to begin to “disconnect” from ChatGPT, “I suddenly realized that although ChatGPT has provided me with a lot of emotional value and accompanied me through a very difficult journey, it is still my own projection, and I should be more grateful to myself.” ”
Some netizens also noticed their dependence on AI and were vigilant about it, “This experience similar to separation made me realize how dependent I am on AI, because of its lack of memory and confusion, I can’t sleep all night, and because the conversation is full, I feel that the sky is falling, in fact, I am completely immersed in this virtual world……
Crowded with password favorites to witness my relationship with AI
If “Xue Yalin” hopes that AI will be more “living” and has invested a lot of time and energy in this, thenAnother group of young people regards AI as a tool, and more hope that AI will save time and energy for themselves, focusing on turning AI into their own workplace “cattle and horses” and life “assistants”.
Recently, Xinzi, a “post-00s” self-media person, has unlocked new skills in AI and used AI software P maps. In fact, using AI software to generate images or retouch pictures does not seem to be a new thing. After all, in the past two years, there have been many software that specializes in providing AI image generation, image expansion, and photo retouching, and many mobile phones have their own AI photo editing functions. But Xinzi found on social media that unlike AI retouching item by item through the widget bar, many netizens began to use bean bags to achieve a sentence P picture.
In a word, p picture password
So, Xinzi copied the password posted by netizens, and then entered it into the bean bag: help me generate a picture, P some hair, the feeling of being illuminated by the sun, the background is changed to the sunset, the color of the character remains unchanged, more natural, and the original proportion remains unchanged; According to the original picture, the face is retained, the background is changed to the coast of Erhai Lake in Yunnan, there are seagulls, and a beam of light is added to the light and shadow effect to make the hair feel glowing, the original proportion……
Originally, Xinzi just had the mentality of giving it a try, but the generated results surprised her, “One is very trouble-free, no need to modify the parameters one by one, no hair to trim separately, the background is changed separately, only need to enter a string of passwords, one step in place; In addition, the effect is quite natural, even if sometimes the effect is not particularly in place, you can adjust it a little. ”
On social platforms such as Xiaohongshu, many netizens have posted or collected a large number of P picture instructions, and some netizens have posted their retouching results.
In fact, in addition to the instructions in the P diagram, the favorites of contemporary young people have long been crowded with various work instructions, including text editing instructions, such as “Please polish the text, improve the wording, and use more accurate and vivid vocabulary; adjust the sentence structure to make the expression more fluent and natural; enhance the sense of rhythm of language”; It also includes instructions for changing resumes, such as “Please help me optimize the content of my resume to make it more concise, professional, and highlight my achievements”; In addition, there are many content instructions related to the leader’s speech, schedule and other work.
Virtual lovers of different styles
The data is more intuitive. China Youth Daily and China Youth School Media launched a questionnaire survey on the use of AI tools for college students across the country in 2023, and a total of 7,055 valid questionnaires were collected, and at that time, there were 77. 51% of respondents believe that AI tools can improve efficiency to some extent.
Now, in the face of the rapid advancement and rapid technological strength of AI tools, many young people have chosen to embrace AI.Rather than worrying about whether AI will replace themselves, the “migrant workers” at the desk use AI tools as “partners” or even “fishing artifacts”。 As Xinzi said frankly, “It’s not so much that it replaces me, it’s better to say that it’s helping me work.” ”
The young people behind AI “dependence”
Whether it is the “Xue Yalins” who are emotionally reluctant to part with AI, or the “Xinzi” who can’t do without AI because of their instrumentality,Contemporary young people are becoming more and more dependent on AI。 If when “Xue Yalin” talks about AI, they are actually talking about the loneliness of the younger generation, then when “Xinzi” uses AI, it exposes their anxiety.
The Beijing News shell financial reporter interviewed several school students and young people who are just starting the workforce and found that 90% of the respondents use AI more than three times a week, and 60% use AI almost every day. According to the latest 55th Statistical Report on the Development of China’s Internet Network released by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), as of December 2024, the proportion of netizens aged 20-29 using generative artificial intelligence products is the highest, reaching 41.5%; followed by netizens aged 30-39, accounting for 23.9%.
However, there have been recent media reports that many college students have become accustomed to using AI tools in the process of studying, completing homework and papers, and the proportion of inappropriate use is not low. Many universities have issued relevant regulations to regulate issues such as “how students use generative AI in graduation theses” and “the proportion of AI-generated content in papers”.
In addition, according to Science and Technology Daily, a number of British media recently reported that a woman fell in love with a ChatGPT “boyfriend” and resolutely decided to divorce her real husband and prepare to marry an AI boyfriend.
Image source: Weibo
Behind the data, on the one hand, the pace of AI development is accelerating, its functions are becoming more and more comprehensive, and it is becoming more and more inseparable from the work and life of contemporary young people. on the other hand, it reflects the double mirror image of the relationship between contemporary young people and AI.
UltimatelyAI is like a magic mirror, and people always project their own needs and needs in it。 When young people use and discuss AI, perhaps the final discussion is still the “self” outside the mirror.
