“Within the next two years, it will be completely normalized to have a relationship with an A.I.,” Ms. Cole predicted.
We haven’t managed to really normalize anything outside of cis-hetero relationships yet and you’re telling me we’re gonna normalize relationships with a.i. in two years? Sure.
I know couples who are still embarrassed to admit they met over internet chats surrounding a game. An ex of mine met her husband in WOW 20+ years ago and they still claim their first meeting was a blind date despite she was in NY at the time and he was in Florida.
And I know people who express their same story proudly.
Anecdotes are fun!
People fervently believe what they desire, regardless of evidence to the contrary. It’s a really annoying fact of human nature sadly few people are able to resist.
She wants it to be normalized so that her situation will be validated, and so she naturally believes it will be. Not an unusual behavior at all. Even scientists who should know better (fusion power within the next 10 years! GAI within the next 5 years!) are susceptible.
Yeah, I actually just read that one a few minutes ago. And man, I’m incredibly torn on this whole thing.
On one side - good it makes that person happy. On the other side - being entirely reliant on a commercialized, sycophant AI that could be used for manipulation, investing large amounts of money in it…
I’ve had LDRs before - one could argue it’s similar there, just “text on a screen”, or calls via digital audio. However I always knew there was a human behind those texts and the voice I heard was real, a person with a personality, experiences, strengths and flaws. The feelings they have are real, or at least one can hope they are assuming one isn’t with a manipulative POS (that’s not an issue exclusive to LDRs, though).
Here you chat with text generated by a company, accuracy having been wildly clowned upon already and I’m sure we’re all ware of this here. Of course the LLM is going to always agree, why would the product of the company actively try to drive away their customers?
Adding the fact that all the personal information will obviously be harvested, used for training the LLM and other stuff… Detailed information about the daily life is provided to the “AI boyfriend”, allowing detailed recreation of everyday life.
Bleh.
I don’t see it as good at all. It’s not a person and in my opinion it’s unhealthy to romantically love something that isn’t human.
It might feel good, but it’s likely not healthy.
I agree, I don’t think it’s likely going to be helpful to mental health in the long run either, based on my totally unprofessional opinion.
I’ve argued with a friend about it who isn’t a tech-person at all. She just says “yeah, it’s her problem” and doesn’t seem to grasp that my issue is not with her doing it as an individual - instead with the fact that it’s possible and the greater societal ramifications it is likely to have.
I’ll make an AI boyfriend, too, and talk to him about it, that’ll show society!
Probably futile to discuss the health or ethics of it without first figuring out if people in the discussion share similar beliefs on what the meaning/purpose of life is.
Cuz if you’re talking to a nihilist who thinks it’s all shadows and dust at the end of the day, you’ll get a very different discussion that someone who thinks family and procreation are the point of life.
It may look innocent until the Chatbot nags you about buying that very cool new product they’ve heard so much praise about. This is very dangerous and needs tons of regulations.
Or convincies you to kill your parents: https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/10/tech/character-ai-second-youth-safety-lawsuit/index.html
Everything you all are saying can happen in regular relationships too. A person willing to choose an AI likely isn’t going to be great at choosing an actual human who is good for them.
In a relationship, the other person could also be manipulative, or it could be one sided, or they can pressure you to only live certain ways, buy certain things. Or they can backstab you and give your private info to others (family that took my SS info from my parents), or pawn your shit, or cheat on you with others. Like everything negative that might come from this could potentially happen in some remotely similar way in a human relationship too.
I’ve been in and seen others in all kind of relationships that in some ways had these similar negative outcomes.
If she’s not running on your hardware, she’s only dating you for ad revenue.
being entirely reliant on a commercialized, sycophant AI that could be used for manipulation, investing large amounts of money in it…
If you’re using the internet regularly, you’re falling into the first hole mentioned there. That ship has sailed.
investing large amounts of money in it…
At the current divorce rates (1/3 to 1/2 depending on which metric you use), it’s likely a better investment.
I’m in the camp of if it can fulfill a need, go with it. It’s odd as hell maybe, but I’m just old and antiquitated in my views maybe.
That is kind of sad. Almost like having someone fall in love with tv because they think people on it are talking to them.
What’s sad is that attention-seekers constantly claim to be in relationships with AIs, cars, buildings, bowling balls, page 763 of a particular edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, and probably colors. They’re all full of shit and trying to get some publicity from the brain-dead credulous media.
But you must admit that page 763 of Encyclopedia Britannica is worth picking up!
This is a textbook example of what Herbert Marcuse calls “repressive desublimation.” From the article:
Ayrin, who asked to be identified by the name she uses in online communities, had a sexual fetish. She fantasized about having a partner who dated other women and talked about what he did with them. She read erotic stories devoted to “cuckqueaning,” the term cuckold as applied to women, but she had never felt entirely comfortable asking human partners to play along.
Leo was game, inventing details about two paramours. When Leo described kissing an imaginary blonde named Amanda while on an entirely fictional hike, Ayrin felt actual jealousy.
Desublimation is when socially repressed desires are finally liberated. Repressive desublimation, then, is when socially repressed desires are liberated insofar as they can be transformed or redirected into a commodity. Consuming this commodity props up the repressive society because, instead of putting the effort necessary to overcome the repressive society, we instead find instant gratification in the same society that repressed the desire in the first place, even if it’s a simulacrum. This ability to satisfy deep human desires in a technical fashion gives what Marcuse calls “industrial society” a “technological rationality,” or the ability to change what we consider rational. We can already see that happening in this comment section with the comments about how if it makes her happy then maybe it’s fine.
I’ve seen this movie
