Maybe AI will soon be used to “ghostwrite” a relationship to a polite end.
Imagine switching a dating conversation to ghostwrite mode. The AI will reply as you, coming up with some suitable phrases and polite excuses until the other side gets the hint.
Of course it would hurt even more when you get paranoid suspicions that you’ve already been handed over to the person’s ghost bot.
“It’s not you, it’s me. Well, technically not even me, it’s my LLM autoreply”
"Before we part ways, I just want you to know, and to always remember, that currently you can get 50% off your first month of Squarespace if you use my code GHOSTBOT26"
We should have relationships but they’re entirely based on text and also the AIs text for us. When the AIs love each other enough the male AI forks the code of the female AI, injecting his code, to make a new hybrid model
I don't know know your age or health status but nonetheless I'm convinced you will be still alive in the midst of the AI revolution, complete with all its weird and at times horrible side effects.
Yeah I mean it's wild that someone thinks the answer to a sociopathic practice, is to be even more sociopathic and even better at concealing it. So once these AIs are out there dumping each other we won't just have to worry that someone who stopped talking to us has lost interest, we'll have to worry that every single conversation we're having could be an automated lie in progress...
We are going to fuck our species up so hard with this shit.
Circular-interactive AI's will consume all bandwidth in the blink of an eye. We need some AI to control it and to filter out the human from the AI. Maybe using some AI-in-the-middle attack vector to stall the bots a bit.
Makes me want to make an "AI" that will try to "gatekeep" or filter, for very attractive people/people who don't want their time wasted... It would chat and filter out suitors (according to the user's preferences) before the user actually talks to them. Maybe even google/look them up on LinkedIn.
Then the adversary will make a bot that will try to defeat my bot's gatekeeping...
On the flip side, how about an AI Wingman that learns who you are attracted to, swipes right in dating apps to people who fit the profile, then starts a conversation. The user need only check their calendar for which dates they are going on that week and a summary of the conversation so far.
The first use case will be to use AI to try to attract the other side. So your AI will pursue them, likely decide it doesn’t want them, then let them down gently.
And it will probably be interacting with their AI in some weird game.
But ghosting is wasting your time, as our brain is wired to need closure [0]. Not having that closure, is like a psychological DDOS attack, especially when done by a romantic partner, whereby (assuming you're looking for monogamy) you can't tell whether to make yourself available for someone else or not.
I agree with everything you wrote. Yet, as my parent comment suggested an AI indefinitely continuing the conversation, which gives me no closure either, I still massively prefer ghosting.
I just went through a job search. It is absolutely normal to be ghosted. „Feedback next week.“ And one third interviewers went silent. Even no answer when asking. Is it hard for a tech company to implement automatic “no” e-mail with default template to be sent after one month inactivity?.. It would hurt if I were less confident in my abilities.
It makes an explicit promise of future communication which it then
reneges on. It's cowardly, and shitty, and unfortunately normalised in
corporate culture. And we've talked here on HN about whether it's
acceptable to, in retaliation, simply ghost an employer who offered
you a job after a better offer transpired.
I think the consensus generally is that taking the moral high-ground
is the mark of a professional, indeed a decent and dignified person.
In retaliation to who? Not all employers are an amorphous blob who are responsible for each other, and ghosting Walgreens because CVS ghosted you doesn’t really make any sense.
Prejudice against some member of group because another (perceived)
member of that group wronged you is a road to ruins. As if "employers"
were all of one mind.
It's like kicking some random car in the street because the one ahead
of it honked at you.
However, behaviours are shared by example and through culture. (and
lack of challenge). It becomes normal to simply lie to a jobseeker's
face "We'll call you next week". And after a few experiences of that
one cannot deny or begrudge negative expectations that emerge.
What is needed is adaptation and robust challenge that calls out the
lie (everyone now knows it's a lie).
Something like:
Interviewer: "Hey great. We'll call you next week",
You: "So I didn't get the job?"
Interviewer: "Errr. What do you mean? I said we'd call you next week"
You: "Ah, but everybody knows what that means. You probably won't
call me. Because you have 100 people to call. I can see you're a busy
guy. If I agree to wait for your call, and you forget, that could make
you look like a liar. And I don't want to think that about you."
Interviewer: "......"
You: "So how about I'll call you! If I still want the job. Plus that
will save you money on the call. How about Wednesday morning at 10?"
If they balk, you can walk and at least know the score. But if they
agree, even tacitly, stick to it and call-in on time.
When confronted with weak behaviour taking ownership and
responsibility seems the only dignified way to avoid becoming jaded
and prejudiced.
Take away their ability to lie to you, and you won't have to suffer
diasppointment,
LOL, there has been an article on German news[1] yesterday about HR people complaining about job applicants increasingly "ghosting" them. The Reddit thread about it[2] was basically all "got a taste of your own medicine"...
Yeah that's a terrible attitude to have. We've made that experience as well with a younger applicant, where after the first interview we wanted to invite her to meet the team and she just never replied. She turned up at the office a couple months later having found a job at a different team. Needless to say, her reputation was instantly tarnished after the other team learned about that.
Every company / team is different, and we never ghost applicants. If you're just gonna be an asshole because you had a negative experience yourself, it's a sign of a weak character and you can also really shoot yourself in the foot. That's not limited to job hunting either, but applies to any social relationship as well.
I don't know about your German skills, but reading the Reddit threat may be eye-opening (even if your company is different).
I generally agree with your "gonna be an asshole because you had a negative experience yourself" comment, but reading the comments it more seems like corporate HR (as a whole across virtually all companies) has fostered a culture of broadly ghosting job applicants. If you experienced this once, your comment applies, but if you experienced it a couple dozen times (as some people in the thread have), then I don't think your "weak character" judgement is accurate. It is more "learning how things are done here", with "here" being the job applications space.
I understand how people who only just enter the workforce might see all employers as some sort of monolithic entity, and maybe go into a sort of "fuck em" kind of mindset, especially if they hang around on Reddit (which is never a good and reasonable source of advice let's be honest), but you really do yourself a disservice. I get it. It's frustrating coming out of university and getting shot down left and right, and sometimes not in a nice way. Even so, I still believe that you should always do what you think is the right thing to do, rather than give up on your principles because those around you seem to not act in kind.
It's the same with dating (which TFA is about). I couldn't look at myself in the mirror if I started ghosting people just because I get ghosted regularly (which I do).
Just be a decent person and don't let what others do affect you. It's dignified and much healthier for yourself as well if you're above others' bad behaviour.
Maybe... the obligation of ongoing contact just because it's possible is just as damaging to people who need space and focus. Not every relationship has a denouement. Sometimes there's nothing to say that is better than nothing, or petty socially obligated lies.
Even cold algorithms and coms protocols have a teardown phase.
Otherwise loose ends like half-filled buffers and outstanding packets
can't be resolved. And the sudden cessation of a link is
indistinguishable from a peer dying, or a medium failure.
You'd think that a technologically informed culture might actually
tend toward more formal protocols of initiation and disengagement.
The problem for people seeking alignment, but who are emotionally
immature and cannot negotiate, is that they err towards conflict
avoidance.
Technology has reduced us all to abject fear of being "unacceptable"
or "awkward". So we'd rather be brutally cruel than even seen as
wrong.
You can use hackersmacker.org, a browser extension I built, to highlight HN authors while reading on the web. And if the people you follow also use it, you’ll see friend-of-friends and foe-of-a-friends.
Insert rant here about bloat, deteriorationg user experiences, HN possibly turning into another little social network, the cognitive load of tending to notifications, of making the little numbers on top of inbox-icons go away
Hey! I'll be in trouble if I say more, but we've actually just
finished two episodes [0] on the cybershow.uk about psychology of dating
apps, and human connection through tech.
Considering how hurtful ghosting can be, you can always at least say "i'm breaking contact with you, so you know". Simply stating your intention. Then at least the ghostee knows you made that choice, for whatever reason.
Does this help the people who have a compelling need for closure? The "why" is still totally open. What makes it any easier for someone to let go of an open "why" than an open "what"?
It is not "why" versus "what". It is "why" versus nothing at all, just a sudden disappearance with no information at all. My guess is that most people would prefer that. After all, ghosting is considered to be very hurtful.
The point is, though, that the loop doesn't close either way. If you can't let go of "this person just stopped talking to me one day," is it really any easier to let go of, "this person just told me they weren't going to talk to me anymore one day"?
Because it is annoying to deal with pushy people, especially those with an agenda. And there are also situations where saying anything does you no good.
I would not ghost people who I have a relation with or I have some respect of them. Unfortunately sometimes you have to deal with not so nice people too.
If you ask my dad, I am 100% sure he would tell you I have ghosted him. In reality, I told him repeatedly, over the course of years, that if he would not speak to me with at least a base level of civility, I would stop talking to him, and then when I did stop, I ended with, "Because you continue to refuse to speak to me with at least a base level of civility..."
And it's not like I just put up with it for years. Each time, I would go slightly longer without speaking to him. But eventually I would guilt myself into, "But he's your father. You have to try again." But it didn't matter how long the break was. Nothing changed. So I finally realized there was no more good to come of being in touch, told him so, and cut contact.
I imagine a lot of people have this experience with narcissists. And if they see your action as "ghosting," so be it.
When you have people in your life that make false accusations, manipulate, lie, and cannot be reasoned with, ghosting them can be a quality of life improvement.
It is quite a bit different than someone ghosting because they’re bored with someone. The conflict is already out in the open.
But otherwise, I’ve always given a reason. Whether they can accept the reason is up to them.
I think perhaps the ability to distract ourselves with the internet means we're just worse at having painful conversations.
The idea of the conversation overwhelms us causing "fight or flight" and we "flight" into distracting ourselves and just pretending the problem doesn't exist.
There are some good observations here but the whole thing gives off the vibe of those men who complained about being "friendzoned" some years ago.
Like in general, doesn't this go both ways? The ghoster has most likely a complementary psychological issue or whatever to the ghostee who is traumatized by the abandonment (or whatever). A relationship where somebody is significantly hurt by abandonment is particular and filled with intimate context, anything otherwise is necessarily an effect of false entitlement on some level.
The impulse to pathologize this as a kind of phenomenon, to try and universalize so many surely specific and nuanced relations between human beings is at best misguided, and at worst culture war bait.
Human relations are messy and charged necessarily by the expectations and conceptions of the cultural ideology you find yourself in. But they can also be the one beautiful thing in a life that need not be colored by Big Discourse or sweeping societal diagnoses. But this doesnt stop relationships from being the source of some of the greatest misery a person can feel. In fact, that very quality is actually what makes so great, it makes relationships precisely what they are. Friendship, love, companionship, etc are nothing without loss, betrayal, and even abandonment. Its a feature, not a bug!
I worry lines of thought like this can encourage people to be scientific and critical and optimizing-mindset about the one thing you really shouldnt be that about.
Ghosting, where it is most ubiquitous now, that is short lived interaction with obvious disinterest (bad first date, failed job interview, etc), is good actually.
Even in professional settings, responding with a “no” often leads to unwanted further communication.
In a perfect world people would take a no for an answer and not cross boundaries but it’s not the case (you can call me an oversensitive zoomer)
If that's the issue, you can always write something like "The answer is no, please do not contact me further in this matter", and maybe even block the sender then, but still have the "no" spelled out. It would be so much nicer than just ghosting.
And in fact it's better this way. I never had a problem with anyone who said no personally or professionally. You end up spending a bunch of emotional energy thinking about what might be when someone ghosts you, made worse by the fact that some people are genuinely slow to get back to you and then sometimes actually do so.
No it isn’t. It destroys trust in society and robs people of the chance to figure out where they went wrong and dehumanizes everyone.
There’s a certain lack of value for humanity endemic in huge parts of society right now that’s especially present in rich people, which leads to shit like that. Why do you think so many people are depressed and anxious right now?
If you go on a date with someone and then the next day or a few days later text them and they don't respond, you have your answer. They weren't into you. What more is there to discuss? They don't owe you an explanation as to why they didn't like you. Is it really helpful for them to say, "Sorry, I wasn't attracted to you"?
The problem is that pretty much all of society is operated on the principle that no one owes anyone else anything. Makes everyone resent each other, and it’s friends, employers, schools, everything. Huge reason behind the success of people like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders
The ghosting that most pisses me off is from service providers of various types. If I make an inquiry, it's simple professionalism to reply, even if the reply is "we don't do that kind of work" or "we're booked up" or whatever. Worst of all is when therapists do this. I've seen therapists who specialize in social anxiety and executive dysfunction ghost potential clients. WTF?!? Of all the people who should understand the psychological effect of that, and the corresponding need for just one iota of effort on their part, they're at the top of the list ... and yet most of them still do it. This should not be or become a norm.
(Yes, I know this isn't exactly the kind of ghosting that OP spends so many paragraphs talking about, but it's part of the same phenomenon and goes by the same name.)
The more ghosting happens, the more it permeates. The one getting ghosted, and feeling shit, will do the same. Because it's no longer an exception, but rather the norm.
It failed to talk about any form of ghosting outside of personal relationships.
The most shocking form in the modern world i would say is during job searches.
Companies routinely ghost applicants, sometimes after 3 or 4 interviews, they suddenly just stop commonicating.
It's one thing when people stop responding to sexual advances, it's totally another thing when corporations in the middle of businesss dealings suddenly terminate communication without closure of any kind.
I actually had a friend ghost me for more than a year even though we lived in the same town (<50k people, so not even a huge town). He knew what I normally did well enough just not to be in those places, and I genuinely thought he had moved away or something.
I was totally confused when he reached out later telling me it had been on purpose and about issues between us that I hadn't even known were a problem.
> According to a 2019 BuzzFeed survey that describes ghosting as a “crummy dating behavior,” 81% of respondents said they ghosted because “I wasn’t into them"
Perhaps, but why should one have an obligation to keep in touch with someone they hardly even know?
What the discussion is missing is that with the plethora of those social apps, appeared also an expectation of continuous socializing. And while people might be social yes, most will not be that social to always answer that annoying neighbor who keeps trying to communicate yelling from across the street, the guy you rejected last year who still sends you letters, or the shop clerk trying to chit-chat you before you had coffee - and whatever their contemporary equivalents are. Unwanted socializing is nothing new, new is only that now you can have muuuuuuch more of it.
The article is all over the place because "ghosting" is too broadly defined; "ghosting" online because you are creeped out by a guy you barely had contact with is a another whole category as leaving your house and saying to your newly wed and pregnant wife: "Honey, I'm going to take out the trash!" and never coming back.
I assume the most common and potentially hurtful "ghosting" coincides with the ubiquitous use of dating apps, so I will focus on that.
Though it is possible to "ignore"/"ghost" someone you dated which you got to know from workplace, through mutual friends or through a regular activity you share (art, sport, church ...), it also may cost you because you have to potentially quit your job, lose some friends or find another place for your hobby. The club/bar/socially going out thing is a bit of a grey zone because the probability of someone looking for a "one-night stand" is pretty high which is normally regulated by giving a clear rejection or risking to suffer a rebuff.
Online dating changes the game field because without a social environment and therefore potential considerable personal cost (in the example above: the husband "ghosting" his pregnant wife would have gone through the lengths to leave his belongings, house, common friends, family members, the city, the state ...) ghosting is a very attractive strategy, the psychological consequences - as described in the article - you only tend to feel later and as a repeated ghostee you also start at some point to feel entitled to ghost in this sterile digital environment, too --> positive feedback loop.
As with the club context ("one night stand") in online dating "ghosting" is to be expected, I would reckon for a lot of people a hefty price for the ultra-convenience, they didn't fully consider when going in.
...
>Ghosters are just doing what good capitalists do, except within the domain of interpersonal relations: maximize the bottom line of personal gain without letting empathy, compassion, or kindness get too much in the way. If a partner must be “fired” because their “performance” is inadequate, then so be it. Nothing personal, it’s just business.
It boils down to social regulations as applied above. "Corporate capitalism" with elaborate mechanisms (in tandem with dozens of specialized law firms) to maximally "diffuse responsibilities". Yes.
But I don't think in companies in which the boss knows his employees and their families. That is a very different talk.
Indeed, at some point conjuring up the dark triad is inevitable.
But that's another highly loaded discussion and while it is a serious problem in the scale of our modern societies, it's often used as a boogeyman/strawman in isolated contexts to deflect from the enabling circumstances which are uncomfortable to acknowledge.
Ghosting totally makes sense for creepy strangers on dating apps, but you really don’t want to make those where people expect to find intimacy, which a lot of people (especially nerds on the internet) seem too think is supposed to happen. They're basically the worst nightclub on the planet, and the $500 Tinder package pretty much proves why no one should ever use it
Imagine switching a dating conversation to ghostwrite mode. The AI will reply as you, coming up with some suitable phrases and polite excuses until the other side gets the hint.
Of course it would hurt even more when you get paranoid suspicions that you’ve already been handed over to the person’s ghost bot.
“It’s not you, it’s me. Well, technically not even me, it’s my LLM autoreply”