But currently, aside from generating "creative media", I'd say I'm pretty much opposed to LLM tools. They have yet to demonstrate any value to me at work or with respect to the areas of research I am interested in, and given the kind of statistical mechanism that they are, I do not believe they are capable of doing so.

"Then Daniel took pitch, and fat, and hair, and did seethe them together, and made lumps thereof: this he put in the dragon's mouth, and so the dragon burst in sunder: and Daniel said, Lo, these are the gods ye worship."

>"It does not always give the best advice possible in a situation. It will not necessarily make its wearer King, or help her solve the miseries of the world. But its advice is always better than what the wearer would have come up with on her own."

I think one very simple explanation would be that this comes down to a matter of exploration vs exploitation. Since it is only giving "better" advice, and not even 'locally optimal', there is reason to favor exploring vs merely following the advice unquestioningly.

A more complex, but ultimately comprehensive answer, is that free will consists, at least in one aspect, in the ability not only to choose one's goals or means, but also what _aspect_ of those various options to consider "good" or "better".

And if one were to say that all such considerations ultimately resolve back to a fundamental desire to be "happy", to me, this seems to be hand-waving, rather than addressing the argument, because different people have different definitions of the "happy" end-state. If these differences were attributed fully to biology & environment, the story loses its impact, because there was never free will in the first place. If, while reading the story, we adopt a view that genuine free will exists, and hold some kind of agnosticism about the possible means by which that can be so, then it seems reasonable to attribute at least some of the differences in what the "happy" end-state looks like to the choices made by the people, themselves.

Given that kind of freedom, unless one has truly perfect knowledge (beyond the partial knowledge contained in the advice of the earring), the pursuit of one's goals seems to unavoidably entail some regrets. And with perfect knowledge, well... The kind of 'freedom' attributed, for example, to God by philosophers like Thomas Aquinas, is explicitly only analogous to our own, and is understood to be an unchanging condition, rather than a sequential act.

(As a final note: One might wonder what this 'freedom to choose aspects' approaches as an 'asymptotic state' -- that is, for an immortal person. And this leads to metaphysical concerns -- of course, with some things 'smuggled in' by the presumption of genuine freedom, already. Provided one agrees that human nature undeniably provides some structure to ultimate desires/"happiness", the idea of virtue ethics follows naturally, and from there many philosophers have arrived at similar notions of some kind of apotheosis as a stable end-state, as well as the contrary state of some kind of scattering or decay of the mind...)

I don't have one, but it's closer to what you mention.

I am a religious person, but for someone in such a situation, a naturalistic explanation may be that, if what will increase their chance of survival from "effectively zero" to "slightly more" is the attention & care of others around them, such "narrative" hallucinations may make it more likely that they receive that care.

"When the city clerk had quieted the crowd, he said: 'Men of Ephesus, what man is there who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is temple guardian of the great goddess Diana, and of the image which fell down from (Zeus/Jupiter)? Therefore, since these things cannot be denied, you ought to be quiet and do nothing rashly. For you have brought these men here who are neither robbers of temples nor blasphemers of (y)our goddess. Therefore, if Demetrius and his fellow craftsmen have a case against anyone, the courts are open and there are proconsuls. Let them bring charges against one another. But if you have any other inquiry to make, it shall be determined in the lawful assembly. For we are in danger of being called in question for today’s uproar, there being no reason which we may give to account for this disorderly gathering.' And when he had said these things, he dismissed the assembly."

Some quotes:

>"Something else is happening. It is as if these screens are a portal to something. As if something is using them to get to us: to change, to remake, to control us."

...

>"There is a reason they call it “the web,” Bridget; a reason they call it “the net.” It is a trap. We have built the means of our own enslavement, at their suggestion. Now we are all carrying a portal to the underworld in our back pockets and handbags, and we are entirely unguarded against whoever chooses to step through it."

...

>"It’s not demons messing with our minds, Uncle. It’s fairies. ... They steal children, Uncle! That was what grabbed me. ... The fairies would steal babies and leave fairies in their places, and there would always be something strange, something lost about them."

...

>"That’s the thing, you see, Uncle. Fairies aren’t like demons. They’re not evil. They mind their own business, and they usually leave people alone unless they’re offended. But we’ve gone and cut down their thorns on a global scale. So what if they’re driving us mad on the same scale?"

...

>"If this is the revenge of the nature spirits, Uncle, maybe they’re winning—and maybe they should be. We’ve got power way beyond our ability to control it. We can’t even control ourselves. Maybe it’s better this way."