It’s Good to Be Loved: Experientialism and the Problem of Chatbots

Abstract:

Experientialism is the view that there could be no change in your well-being without a change in your experience. Hedonists are proud experientialists, many non-hedonists reject experientialism out of hand, and the debate has receded from our attention. I think recent developments in AI give new urgency to this old debate. I argue that it’s not as easy to reject experientialism as we’ve assumed. I’ll also suggest a theoretically grounded way to do it.