I was thinking about how lightphone 3 is basically a all or nothing solution to internet addiction and there exists an ideal where we have all the convenience of modern phones but without the addiction and I got thinking that properly fully functioning digital ai agents are a good use case here, we can reap the benefits of certain things such as access to browsing endlessly but with combing that aligns us to our goals we define in some format somewhere.
This is loosely what I sorta did on my phone awhile back and its been pretty awesome, there definitely exists a way to push the idea even further and make it better.
Right now I’m basically at a point with it where I have the bulk of the structure in place but it doesn’t have the alignment aspect because I don’t have some sort of immediate block to doing things that aren’t in alignment, the closest I have is a minimal launcher which I can get to most apps are not visible unless I explicitly find them besides a few recents and a few alternative apps which make vital internet use cases more in line with this goal such as using the grayjay app for youtube and basically half the time when I browse the internet I am doing it through an ai app in some way that saves me time whether its more basic googling or more complex problem solving.
So I’m most of the way there bit wondering if anyone has ideas for making this better.
Edit: why are people downvoting an idea generation thread lol, do y’all like internet addiction and loss of self alignment? Or is it purely just that I whispered the word ai
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I don’t think this is necessarily connected to AI agents. You need something that’s boring, doesn’t provide constant dopamine hits, so there can’t be endless content or a new interaction opportunity every few minutes. And maybe something to keep you aware of your goals, like put the phone away and read a long-form article in the weekend edition of the newspaper instead. Or practice your music instrument so you’re going to be able to play it by the end of the year… Or have real-life social interactions instead of internet ones. This might be done with an AI agent or without.
I suppose there are several ways to do a half-assed job as well. Idk. Common advice I’ve seen to make a regular phone less addicting is: switch the display to greyscale mode, put it on DND and uninstall as many apps as possible. Especially everything “social” and the news as well. And avoid push notifications. Instead, deliberately do it at your convenience, like check for mails and messages twice a day and not have it envelop you in between and all day.
Oh yeah I’m past that point of being truly addicted by doing those kinds of things, basically comes down to removing what is noise for you as an individual and what is signal for you as an individual, to improve your experiences in a goal aligned way.
I’m more interested in how this can be taken further, that’s kinda my fault though my thoughts on this stuff is kinda scrambled right now. I’ve gone past the point of fixing specific apps and experiences and micro routines and wanting to see if there is a way to make things more fluid and cohesive because presently its a process of me identifying problems and fixing them with lots of up front work to find ways to do what I want, I’m find with the lots of up front work but at some point an approach becomes so comprehensive that it needs a system to be done better.
I think we need to answer the question first, whether this is even fixable. And if making it more efficient or smooth/fluid is going to help a lot with addiction. I mean you might as well just get more efficient with your addiction… I think that’s why some concepts are more radical. People often suggest to make some clean cut at some point. And throw overboard old behaviour or replace it with something fundamentally different… Like chewing gum instead of cigarettes. No one recommends you’d switch to a different just slightly healthier brand.
Oh it absolutely is fixable, plenty of other options that work just not as ideally as one could hope, they are not yet fixed because it is a radical idea that few are aware of needing that is in need of a nice ecosystem. Fixing the addiction is turning into promoting personhood is the motto basically.
I suppose at this point I’d be leaning more towards those kind of ai first devices that have all sucked so far because nothing exists to make these kinds of systems work yet.
Or is it purely just that I whispered the word ai
Speaking for myself: yup, that.
That and using the term “alignment” like some kind of longtermist weirdo.
Do you have a better word to use for fixing being made into the product of consumerism?
I keep phone usage low by keeping busy, I’m either working or doing hobby, I never used tiktok and I got rid of instagram, I only use YouTube a lot but I usually put on a long video and mostly just listen to it. Most of my feed is educational like engineering or science which I find really fun.
Also I’m not some 60 year old, I’m in my early twenties so I am of the same age as most of the people with these issues. Replace addictions with things you consider as productive, and train your will power to not break under the pressure/urge.
I think one barrier to making this happen is that experiences of services or apps are best had on the thing they provide so it makes less sense to have an agent compatibility layer in certain cases when its a priority to have the user experience in tact so it can only ever be an on or off access to certain apps sometimes.
