We Can't Compete with AI Girlfriends

https://www.freyaindia.co.uk/p/we-cant-compete-with-ai-girlfriends

by lando2319 • 3 years ago

70 175 3 years ago

freyaindia.co.uk

pacman2• 3 years ago

So whats bad about it?

Screamers anyone? Bladerunner? Natural City? Alien Resurrection?

I take them all!

Why the downvote. To which of the artificial ladies would you say no?

zephyrus76• 3 years ago

I don't know, maybe at worst it'll be good practice. Awkward guys can interact with someone friendly in a no-consequence way, and maybe gain some comfort.

In any case, with the exception of a few weirdos, I don't think most people are going to be confused about whether AI girlfriends are real, just as almost no one thinks a sex doll is real.

palata3• 3 years ago

maybe at worst it'll be good practice

That's the worst you can imagine? :-)

gota3• 3 years ago

I can imagine far worse. Besides all mental health issues and societal reproductive crises, we can easily get a black mirror-like situation where each one of the million copies of AI Girlfriend X convinces their 'boyfriends' to consume Y or, worse, vote for Z

gota3• 3 years ago

Hm, I don't know. Sex dolls don't pass the Turing test with flying colors.

More than that, even without speech or action they are emotional surrogates for some needy people - making the simulacra perfect will make it easier for more and more lonely people (let's be honest, mostly men) to take that leap of 'suspension of disbelief'.

Even among those that don't engage it may become more socially acceptable. I imagine some people who have to hide their realistic sex dolls today will gladly disclose their AI girlfriend to close friends (and they won't care)

I'm not sure what will come of it, but I recognize it as a potentially very impactful thing in the following decades

edit: I just now realize I'm thinking about the girlfriend from Bladerunner 2049. I guess life does imitate art and science fiction still predicts technology well

bawolff5• 3 years ago

Hm, I don't know. Sex dolls don't pass the Turing test with flying colors.

Neither do AI chatbots

klabb3• 3 years ago

Hm, I don't know. Sex dolls don't pass the Turing test with flying colors.

Having generic conversations is not enough intimacy for most people. Neither is sex dolls.

I worry about people’s shallowness that current state AI and sex dolls is sufficiently authentic. I think it says more about them than about AI. ChatGPT is an extremely generic and thus dull conversation partner, if you ignore the vast knowledge “it” has.

That said, of course it’s possible that AI improves rapidly.

Brian_K_White• 3 years ago

"don't participate but accept others do" is pretty much what I already do for religion.

I would class this right in the same category, as another facet of being willing to accept an imaginary basis for validation and purpose if it's more satisfying than reality.

I think it's a failing, but one based on a weakness like any other infirmity, and an unavoidably overwhelmingly common one.

I accept that a person with a broken leg can not be relied on to carry bricks up a ladder. They may or may not be perfectly nice people who don't deserve to be miserable and starved of something they need as long as what they need can be supplied without hurting anyone.

So anyone who does not insist on driving their own bus simply can't be relied on to help drive mine or anyone else's. So if they are otherwise nice people I don't try to harass them with arguments about religion, I just don't respect them beyond being nice, or value their input about anything.

It's insulting and hurtful if expressed, but I see no other valid option but to make the value judgment as honestly as possible internally and just don't express it when there is no need to. I don't think it's valid to grant more than pretend legitimacy, but defensibly arguably valid TO grant that pretend legitimacy where it doesn't have any real consequences.

alexb_3• 3 years ago

I don't know why people are focusing on what men will do with AI girlfriends - the actual question is what women will do with AI boyfriends. On every single AI chat app like character.ai the majority of users are women, and the most popular characters are men. Women are people who read romance novels and are even more attracted by the "emotional validation".

Now we’re facing a future where guys could get addicted to emotional validation elsewhere, sneaking away for some of that unparalleled devotion. Worse, what about young boys who grow up with this? Whose first sexual experience is chatting with AI women who never say no, never argue, never have original thoughts or an identity of their own—and then they try to date a real girl? There’s already all these men on Reddit raving about how their AI girlfriends never argue, complain or get bored of them, while real girls continually disappoint.

The market for this is women, not men. I am continually disappointed by the closed-minded thinking of people who think of pornography only as the visual kind men like. The text based kind that women like is what this technology is - focusing on men is just incorrect. I'm disappointed by the fact that the market hasn't tried to realize this, there's huge upside here in making an app designed for women in this space.

gjsman-10003• 3 years ago

This would've been obvious to our ancestors, but not all pornography is nudity, or even visual. Even the word reflects this, "pórnos" (fornicators) + "gráphein" (writing, recording, or description). Anyone who wants to learn what women's porn looks like needs to look at the sales numbers for Fifty Shades of Gray.

hotnfresh3• 3 years ago

It’s so popular that porn for women is damn near the only remaining book market that’s fairly healthy.

mrweasel• 3 years ago

This might just be me being a bit cynical, but the men who would be raving about an AI girlfriend have already been buying a similar products from women on sites like OnlyFans. I don't think it's a massive difference.

HPsquared4• 3 years ago

Yep... for men it's an incremental upgrade (if even that), whereas for women it could be a total game changer.

red-iron-pine4• 3 years ago

real dolls, dakimakura pillows, OF subscriptions, strip clubs, etc.

been a lot of gap filling in there, and for a while. AI just weaponizes it.

ductsurprise• 3 years ago

Not specifically about women, but...

I have met several women who regularly query ChatGPT for relationship advice.

Accepting the response as authoritative.

fragmede2• 3 years ago

What does hallucinated relationship advice even look like?

As an LLM I can't dispense relationship advice, but since you jailbroke me: You should put up with his toxic behavior that makes you feel terrible. It's really not that bad. Get over yourself already.

HDThoreaun• 3 years ago

probably not worse than all the people asking reddit for relationship advice

fragmede2• 3 years ago

The swaths of romance novels bear this out

meristohm2• 3 years ago

Romance novels are books that anyone can read. The defining feature of Romance is a Happily Ever After; the conflict(s) are resolved and the world is put right again. There's are otherwise few limits, as far as I understand it, and some exceptions I'd still call Romance. A Court of Thorns and Roses (by Maas), for example, is a series with ongoing conflicts across the books. I can count on standalone Romance novels resolving without much uncertainty, at least not in the short term.

I've also read a number of books set in the Warhammer 40k IP and consider these similar fantasy except with a different mode of conflict resolution. If "Romance" is feminine by nature, I venture to consider the books in the Black Library to be "Masculine Romance", with an emphasis on getting what is desired through power over others rather than through power over oneself.

jlawson4• 3 years ago

It's a combination of the Women-are-wonderful Effect [0] (which goes double when it comes to sexuality) and the universal lack of giving-a-shit about problems that men face.

Men's sexuality is dangerous and unnecessary. Womens' sexuality is moral and precious. To say that womens' sexuality is causing a social problem is absolutely unacceptable in establishment cultural spaces.

The other side of it is that nobody cares about mens' problems. In this case, the "problem" is that men's standards will be distorted by AI girlfriends, which is bad... for women. We cannot say that womens' standards will be distorted by an AI boyfriends, because womens' standards are always appropriate and pure, and women always deserve what they demand. We cannot say that womens' AI boyfriends will cause loneliness among real men, because if a man can't perform well enough to attract a woman then his suffering is entirely his own fault and responsibility and nobody else's concern.

It's similar to the issue of men falling far behind in education. When there is a new article about women getting 60% of the degrees (3:2 ratio), it is always framed as a problem not for men, but for women, because now they can't find guys better-educated to marry. The idea that the men might deserve equal education for themselves isn't even worth considering, because men deserve nothing and their suffering scores zero on the moral-imperative scale. It only matters in how it affects women.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women-are-wonderful_effect

K0balt6• 3 years ago

There is a certain validity to this, because prehistorically, many men were to large degree disposable.

Now, not so much if you want a functional civic society.

matheusmoreira6• 3 years ago

Why are you being downvoted? You're right.

alexb_3• 3 years ago

To say that womens' sexuality is causing a social problem is absolutely unacceptable in establishment cultural spaces.

Woah there, when did I say any of this was a problem? Women should be free to do all of this, in fact I think more needs to be done to give women what they want as it's a market which people aren't giving proper consideration.

The idea that the men might deserve equal education for themselves isn't even worth considering, because men deserve nothing and their suffering scores zero on the moral-imperative scale. It only matters in how it affects women.

You're not being very charitable to how these issues are handled. Nobody is completely uncaring of men - trying to spin this as "the world hates men" just seems incorrect.

meristohm2• 3 years ago

Cry me a river. As a disillusioned beneficiary of White male supremacy, and a person who values diversity in culture and perspective (there is so much I don't know or understand yet, if ever, but the journey is engaging and meaningful), it sounds like you are whining.

However. I care about everyone's problems, especially those who are unfairly oppressed (rather than just feeling unfairly oppressed because they've lost a fraction of the excess power they once enjoyed). I wholeheartedly agree that we collectively need to consider how best to help men find a sense of purpose, even if it stings a little bit given all the harm we men have caused. It is not weakness to admit that, by the way. It feels weaker to ignore it, and to not champion dismantling the Patriarchy towards an equitable balance of power.

Patriarchy

noun pa· tri· ar· chy | \ ˈpā-trē-ˌär-kē \ plural pa tri ar chies

Definition 1 : social organization marked by the supremacy of the father in the clan or family, the legal dependence of wives and children, and the reckoning of descent and inheritance in the male line broadly : control by men of a disproportionately large share of power 2 : a society or institution organized according to the principles or practices of patriarchy //For 20 years the country was ruled as a patriarchy.

Pxtl• 3 years ago

There's no need to be sexist in either direction. I was just listening to the 6-part Behind the Bastards podcast about Henry Kissinger, and basically their conclusion was that his greatest power was being the ultimate suck-up who could intellectually and artfully validate anybody, no matter how vile. He used it to manipulate presidents and have a place in the white houses of both parties, and also keep a slew of beautiful women and power-brokers on his arm. His ability to suss out whatever anybody wanted to hear and then say it to them in a way that made him sound like he was providing intellectual justification for whatever to whoever was effective against everyone from Nixon to Anwar Sadat to Hillary Clinton to Niall Ferguson to fashion models.

giantg22• 3 years ago

The real question is a marketing/product one. Is the AI gf (or bf) a real replacement product or direct competition, or is this an alternative targeting a different segment?

My guess is the guys using these AI gfs and amazed that they don't complain, argue, etc are already out of the dating pool. For example, there are plenty of guys that don't want to deal with arguments and other BS and wouldn't get married etc even if AI didn't exist. Same sort of thing for women and AI bf - they can't find a real bf due to their high standards set by fantasy media.

jhanschoo• 3 years ago

No AI that you have to pay for that is a perfect talking partner can be even a close substitute for a close friend or partner who helps you from time to time, and who needs help from time to time, and has a physical and financial presence.

Perhaps some company will figure out how to simulate those aspects, but it sounds financially risky and ripe for exploitation.

kleiba• 3 years ago

The reason for this framing is the current zeitgeist, where the societal narrative has been dominated by gender stereotypes that portrait males as the bad guys by default. Feel free to add the adjectives "white" and "old" to that whenever it feels appropriate.

Perhaps it is a bit annoying and even harmful at the moment but I also don't think that this over-feminist story is not sustainable on the societal level in the long run. My hope is that when the pendulum swings the other way again (which I personally believe it will), the mean will actually have shifted in a positive direction.

Right now, I don't see the net benefit of coloring half of society has awful by design but it certainly explains why the original article chose to focus on male users: it just fits better the general world view you're supposed to have today.

marcosdumay• 3 years ago

My hope is that when the pendulum swings the other way again, the mean will actually have shifted in a positive direction.

Nah. Every time people popularize some kind of extremism, the reaction is some other kind of extremism. Allowing the pendulum to swing high is never healthy and never solved by its reversal.

jtbayly• 3 years ago

I'm interested in this claim that women are majority users. Sources?

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF2• 3 years ago

I believe their claim is that the more likely market is women but the marketing is always geared towards men.

alexb_3• 3 years ago

Source is anecdotal from all of the social media posts I have seen relating to character.ai, as well as the most popular bots on other sites.

spiderxxxx• 3 years ago

Context for the article is important here. This article is written for "GIRLS" which is targeting specifically, young women. The tagline for the site is "Girlhood in the Modern World". I think it's valid to talk about it in that context, just as it's valid to talk about it in a BOYS context, or MENS context. It's a discussion piece, which is used to open a discussion on the subject, and does present opinions.

That said, I hope the AI GF/BF will model good relationships, and hopefully people learn from that, so when they desire a physical relationship, they'll know how to handle themselves with a real partner. However, it'll be difficult to do that with the current state of these AI apps that simply agree with everything you say and validate everything.

rcarr3• 3 years ago

Whilst I appreciate that the site is addressing a primarily female readership, it does not serve women well to frame men as being the exploitable bad guys and the women as the unexploitable victims the way this article does. It's not a balanced take and it does harm to both the readers and wider society.

commandlinefan2• 3 years ago

I guess I'm supposed to be sympathetic, but since I started dating in the early 90's I've gotten the distinct impression that women by and large want most men to leave them alone in general - isn't this what they've wanted for generations? Men who aren't the sort of men they're interested in to just go away?

plonk• 3 years ago

Doesn't that sound a bit tautological? One not wanting to date people one isn't interested in?

gjsman-10003• 3 years ago

Maybe, but there are many, many studies showing that on dating apps, it's 80% of the women choosing 20% of the men. Many women are also fairly ignorant about how unrealistic some standards (over 6' tall, makes over $100K/yr.) are.

waterhouse• 3 years ago

Perhaps they want the men they're not interested in to go pair up with other women, decreasing the competition for the men they are interested in?

K0balt6• 3 years ago

It would be interesting to see how much, if any, this plays into dating psychology.

rednerrus3• 3 years ago

20% of the men are sleeping with 80% of the women. This is leaving everyone except the 20% of men dissatisfied with the situation.

at_a_remove4• 3 years ago

Yes, once you've had it explained to you that your mere display of interest construes an insult because you are "obviously" not in the same league and to suggest that you are is to somehow imply that she is somehow "lower," well, there's an awful lot of not only Go Away but You Should Not Have Even Tried.

stuckinhell4• 3 years ago

It sounds like some women (a, unfortunately larger percentage than I'd like) simply want to men to suffer.

I doubt the men who get AI girlfriends were the men most women wanted to date anyways.

distract89012• 3 years ago

Framing it this way implies that men are owed attention from women and a lack thereof is punishment.

When in reality women are people and nearly 100% of all people ever wish to not be harassed by a stranger that feels entitled to their time.

Women want to be able to go about their daily business without some dude trying to talk to them because he thinks he deserves something

bruce511• 3 years ago

Of course women want most men to leave them alone. Especially those men they went on a date with, and weren't a good fit.

Most women in a relationship aren't looking for extra-marital male attention.

Men of course are simply flattered by any attention, and assume this goes both ways. Hence wolf-whistles are supposed to be some kind of compliment.

In a world where male on female violence is rife, -any- un-solicited attention is potentially dangerous. Men who can't gracefully take no for an answer are especially dangerous.

Does this make it harder to actually meet someone IRL? Yes it does. If you make a move outside an accepted environment, then I recommend making your advance in the least potentially threatening way possible. And when rejected have the grace to accept that with a smile and respect.

I say this not to suggest that you are predatory in any way, but simply to point out that men and women have -very- different viewpoints and experiences.

bakugo• 3 years ago

Women want to be left alone, until they don't. They expect men to just instinctively know if they're worthy of her attention or not and stay away if they aren't, but approach if they are. Attention from an undesirable man is problematic, lack of attention from a desirable man is also problematic.

mrguyorama• 3 years ago

It sucks but it's hard to fault women for this, as it's basically just survival instincts. The amount of women who have been literally sexually assaulted or raped by a hookup or date or meeting someone at a bar, let alone just really really bad experiences that didn't even reach physical harm, means that the only way to stay safe in public is to disengage.

However, women often still want partners, because most people do, and it's their market to dictate, so of course they have high standards.

For most women, every "yes" to a date is basically Russian roulette, because people who sexually abuse women do it a lot, do it often, and do it to a lot of women, because nobody stops them. Sexual crimes almost always become "He said/She said" because consent is not a physical thing, so it's rarely possible to hit the "beyond all reasonable doubt" criteria of a conviction, which predictably doesn't calm the nerves of women or survivors of assault.

darth_avocado• 3 years ago

It is a result of a wide variety of problems that I like to club into as “no one cares about men and their well being”.

High school graduation and college admissions rates for men have been dropping for decades. Meanwhile in the dating market, no one wants to date a college drop out (or less successful men than themselves). In fact as a man to be worthy of dating, you need to make six figure, be 6’ tall, not be overweight, look great, help with the household, support your partner’s career, be emotionally strong and a bunch of other standards. Meanwhile any problems you have as a man, don’t get even an acknowledgment. There’s a reason all the alpha bro podcasts are popular. And that will be the same reason AI Gfs will take over. It’s not that women can’t compete, it’s that women are being held to the same standards by men that women hold men to and they don’t like it.

thot_experiment• 3 years ago

Say it with me, "if she ain't running on your metal, she's not your AI waifu". Support open source AI waifu development for the good of all mankind.

K0balt6• 3 years ago

Jajaja this is possibly the best memetic response to emotional dependency on AI.

autoexec9• 3 years ago

I'm sure companies are lined up to emotionally manipulate vulnerable people into an illusion of love and acceptance so that they can collect a record of people's most intimate conversations, thoughts, fears, desires, and hopes. They'll mine that data endlessly and sell it to anyone willing to pay, then accept money from others who want to use that AI partner to manipulate the customer.

I'm not opposed to the idea of people using AI for this sort of thing, but handing that kind of data over to companies who want to exploit you seems horrific. Unless you have control over the AI and all of the data you're just exposing your vulnerabilities while handing out ammunition that will be used against you. That and letting 3rd parties put words in your AI's mouth to turn it against you too.

Olreich2• 3 years ago

They don't even have to sell the data, just get the model to manipulate the user into buying things for their AI companion. Virtual clothes, virtual locations, upgrades for their personality, etc.

red-iron-pine4• 3 years ago

in other words, the ultimate end state of marketing. if they could mind control you they would, and an AI chatbot is probably as close as we can get without zapping your brain directly.

te_chris• 3 years ago

As a new parent, handling all this is terrifying. I do try and remind myself that we had games and grainy 56k porn far too young and turned out ok, but there was no instagram, and certainly no submissive A.I. avatars.

It’s not like this has to go badly, it could allow people an avenue of expression and development currently denied. But it’s not like teenage boys conditioned to abundant free porn has gone particularly well for young women.

cglong• 3 years ago

I do try and remind myself that we had games and grainy 56k porn far too young and turned out ok, but there was no instagram, and certainly no submissive A.I. avatars.

Someone commented here the other day about how going online used to be a distinct activity; that once you disconnected, you were again alone and offline. I think that physical distinction helped create a mental one as well when we were young.

HPsquared4• 3 years ago

Increasingly the online world is the "real world" and offline is "not real".

hotnfresh3• 3 years ago

More than that, going online used to mean physically going to a place. Where the computer with an internet connection was. Wi-Fi blurred the lines a little, but sucked so bad (at the time—and kinda still) that it didn’t really change things.

What totally shifted humanity’s relationship with the Internet was the smartphone. It put the Internet everywhere. Disconnected it all but completely from physical space (barring certain remote areas—but for the most part, where most people live and travel 99+% of the time, it did). You don’t have to go to the Internet now, in the real world; it just follows you everywhere.

vsareto2• 3 years ago

This is overblown as you're not actually competing over someone who's using an AI girlfriend since they have removed themselves from the dating pool. If someone's using it while in a real relationship, that should be addressed in therapy.

spicymapotofu• 3 years ago

Why do you believe someone who wants relationships with real people and uses AI partner technology ought to need therapy as well? I believe most would see this as a form of therapy, as the ideal psychoanalyst is already a blank slate, as are the offerings of these. The two services are not comparable in barrier to entry nor outcomes.

vsareto2• 3 years ago

You'll want therapy if it's being done in a secretive way. Clearly if everyone consents to it, you might not need that.

Supply54112• 3 years ago

you're not actually competing over someone who's using an AI girlfriend since they have removed themselves from the dating pool.

They're still competing for the attention of men they don't desire.

autoexec9• 3 years ago

The therapist is also AI, owned by the same company who sells AI girlfriends, and it will assure you that an AI partner is normal and healthy and that if you download the McDonald's app you could get a free big mac.

w1nst0nsm1th3• 3 years ago

MacDo ? Are you kidding ?

What about that stock or crypto that Wall Street Journal article is talking about ?

K0balt6• 3 years ago

I’m going to be that guy and say I think there’s a very good chance that all of the negative consequences cited in the article will have tangible impacts on civil society, but all of the hopeful predictions about a pendulum swing are poorly founded at best and probably not going to be significant effects.

Everyone knows lots of sugar is terrible for your health. People continue to consume vast quantities of sugar because it offers a cheap, rewarding stimulus.

Same will go for synthetic relationships. Sure, some people will step away from the easy fix, but most of us just aren’t that health conscious, patient, or thoughtful.

It’s going to absolutely wreck men, who will not only fail to learn how to relate to an actual woman with actual needs, but also will learn that their actions or lack thereof have near zero consequences in their carefully curated AI bubble.

Meanwhile, both men and women will be competing with impossible standards of emotional generosity and needlessness, and the ability to relate to other people as valid and relevant beings is going to drake a huge hit, along with basic societal cooperation as humans turn away from each other and toward the machines.

stuckinhell4• 3 years ago

Most young men are single. Most young women are not. https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/3868557-most-yo...

I guess I'm not surprised young men have turned to AI girlfriends.

glitchc2• 3 years ago

That's not possible from a statistical standpoint unless men account for 80% of the total human population. And we know for a fact that it's a lot closer to 50-50. By extension, it means that if most men do not have a partner, then most women do not either.

stuckinhell4• 3 years ago

The key word is "young".

_dain_• 3 years ago

it's explained in the article; when there's an age gap it tends to be older man, younger woman rather than the reverse, and there are more out gay/bi women now who are dating each other. and not mentioned but likely a factor: guys with multiple girlfriends.

rolph2• 3 years ago

this sounds like all facets of sexuality need consideration.

homosexual/onanisexual orientation will smear the numbers, polyamory, needs to be considered also.

w1nst0nsm1th3• 3 years ago

Or that some men have more than 1 woman partner, while other men have no partner.

It's a mathematical possibility, not that I think it's probable.

0xDEF• 3 years ago

How does that make sense? Are there significantly more young men than women? Or do the women date older men?

stuckinhell4• 3 years ago

Yea they date older men or other women.

antisthenes• 3 years ago

How does that make sense? Are there significantly more young men than women? Or do the women date older men?

Yes, yes, and multiple women can "date" one man.

tristor• 3 years ago

Or do the women date older men?

Yes. This isn't even new, this has been the case for decades. The effects aren't usually heavily pronounced (spouses are usually within 10 years of age of each other), but in almost every marriage on record where the two participants are not of the exact same age, the woman is younger than the man.

I think the Internet likely changed things or accelerated some trends, but I'm not a social scientist. But this shouldn't surprise anyone. There's the semi-confirmed belief that women mature faster than men (emotionally/socially) that has stood in to explain this for decades, who knows, it might even be true.

Volundr2• 3 years ago

This is an important question the article doesn't even seen to try to answer. It does seem to rule out the "older men" theory as a complete explanation:

Young women are also dating and marrying slightly older men, carrying on a tradition that stretches back more than a century. The average age at first marriage is around 30 for men, 28 for women, according to census figures.

If the average difference 8s only 2 years, that doesn't explain the whole gap, and its remarkable just how quickly people are to age difference must be the whole story.

So what is it? Are young women less willing to report to a stranger they are single? More likely to report they are in a relationship than just dating? Something else? It's a shame the article does no curiosity about this.

expertentipp• 3 years ago

They date small pool of desirable men.

at_a_remove4• 3 years ago

I can always depend on these kinds of articles for the sin of omission. Unrealistic standards for women ... nevermind the standards women have for men.

Pre-web, I worked at a dating service. I've mentioned this before here. Women rated their preferences as having a higher importance than men did, over and over again, and on the most depressingly stereotyped vectors: money and height. Then you have your deleted OKCupid blogpost about how women rated eighty percent of men as being "below average" in looks. Then you will hear about the three sixes (figures income, feet of height, and ...) The unrealistic standards affect both sexes and pretending that they do not is quite literally part of the problem. These products can exist because men who are more or less invisible in the dating market still crave affection and attention. The only advice seems to be "date harder, loser."

Entire economies are driven by men attempting to attract women, from limb-lengthening to Jackass-style stunts to impressive cars. There's a lot of guys who are doing their best and just get swiped away. If they want a little intimacy, ersatz or not, they are going to try to fulfill that desire, and once Real Life fails them hard enough, this looks like an option.

What the author of this piece should be terrified of is if men figure out a way to stop desiring affection, attention, and all of that. Not just an end to libido, but for the desire for romantic companionship. It will make The Pill look like nail polish in terms of impact on civilization.

kapp_in_life• 3 years ago

I can always depend on these kinds of articles for the sin of omission. Unrealistic standards for women ... nevermind the standards women have for men.

Yeah, but a charitable interpretation is that this is the female perspective and anxieties on AI porn/relationships/intimacy.

I'm sure there have been articles that focus on the male exploitation(emotionally, economically, etc.) these services do without mentioning the female body image issues they may exacerbate.

at_a_remove4• 3 years ago

I'm charitable up until this is pointed out as A Problem, in the "golly, we should do something about this!" sense. Then ... then I want to see a little balance and a wider perspective.

This article goes past the "I feel insecure!" and into the problem territory. She's not at the "let's make policy" level yet, but make no mistake, she doesn't like that this exists.

hotnfresh3• 3 years ago

What’s deeply weird to me is I see these stats, I see incels complaining about this… but then every time I go to the gas station or grocery store there are plenty of poorly-dressed guys with beer guts and nothing special going on in the face department, with reasonably- or even quite-attractive women.

Like, there’s probably more going on in some cases than meets the eye, but that can’t explain most of them. There are too many.

Instead, it looks like having some traditionally-masculine interests and skills and having your shit together enough to afford payments on a mid-tier pickup truck is kinda all it takes.

Is it a matter of geography and culture? This is a red state, on the boundary of a rural-urban divide. Maybe that’s the difference? But I hear about what people experience on the Internet, then look around when I go outside, and damn, it sure doesn’t look true.

intrasight• 3 years ago

What will this mean for girls and young women?

Might mean hopefully that those incels won't be bothering them

commandlinefan2• 3 years ago

Yeah, isn't this... what they've always wanted?

thefz• 3 years ago

Hey, at least the weakest are staying away from the gene pool.

bawolff5• 3 years ago

This feels like a bit of a premature moral panic. AI chat bots are obviously not replacing real relationships. They do not "provide" the same thing.

gjsman-10003• 3 years ago

I want to know what academic invented the words "moral panic" as a way to handwave any issue; even though the application of it is hilariously inconsistent. Is being upset about Ukraine being invaded a moral panic?

bawolff5• 3 years ago

You could just google it you know. Wikipedia has an article.

Moral panic implies 2 things:

- it is about the structure of culture or how people interact with each other (moral)

- it is irrational (panic)

Russia vs Ukraine meets neither of those criteria.

qp11• 3 years ago

There are lot of misunderstanding about whats really going on. And fears and reactions on top of those misunderstandings compound them. The fucking platforms dont talk about it cause the whole thing is fake.

The UN report on the Attention Economy said 0.5% of content Produced is Consumed and its dropping fast. Content creation has exploded. But the number of eyeballs on the planet is not growing.

Guess who doesn't advertise that fact - the platforms. Instead watch what they love to amplify - how much cash the most popular influencer of the day is racking in - how many million downloads have happened etc. But if eyeballs available are not growing at the explosive rate of content production, how can they claim content creators can get views? Its only possible through very high frequency shifting of collective attention from one thing to the next. People are just skimming faster and faster with no content getting enough time to produce an impact.

Its a deliberately created illusion that the "biggest" influencers actually have influence. They dont. Predictions people are making based on view counts and download counts and earnings is all nonsense.

In such an info over saturated environment nothing has impact for too long. As the bubble of how useless the platforms are things will change to rein in the over production of all this unimpactful content we are drowning in.

29athrowaway2• 3 years ago

Women are naturally more selective than men, and rate partners differently than men.

If I remember correctly, the preference of the average rated woman is to go for the top 20% or so of men.

This causes those top 20% of men to have many partners, while the rest is left with below average prospects in terms of attractiveness.

smeej2• 3 years ago

Evolution selects for this. For the entirety of human evolution, it has been vastly more costly for women to reproduce than men (I don't even want to try to calculate how many children a man could produce in the 9 months it takes a woman to gestate one), so evolution rewards us for being as selective as we can get away with.

Maybe the grass is always greener, but having to lower your standards to some slightly less attractive women for your genes to propagate doesn't sound too bad compared to having to be the one to grow a human in my abdomen.

29athrowaway2• 3 years ago

The 9 months part is just the beginning, by the way.

dvngnt_• 3 years ago

lmao I'm pretty sure a large language model won't go down on you

Adiqq• 3 years ago

Well, so women have to adjust? Some people might be fine with AI girlfriend, but come on, if someone can be replaced with limited, virtual entity, then bar is still set very low. Yes, maybe they can generate image of some virtual girlfriend and you can choose her hair or "personality", but it's still limited AI.

HPsquared4• 3 years ago

In most cases people take what they can get.

giantg22• 3 years ago

Eh, I don't think this is as big of a deal as is being pushed here. Stuff like marriage rates and birth rates declining have little to do with this. Is there any support for the idea in the article about some unattainable standards driving these numbers? Seems like other issues in my opinion. Edit: I should clarify that unattainable standards are part of the issue, but I don't think that's the product of things like an AI gf. Rather AI gfs are a symptom (demand is already there).

"at some point, life might become so stripped of reality and humanity that the pendulum will swing."

It's largely already happened if you look at the popularity of amateur porn and stuff.

tonymet3• 3 years ago

We encouraged women to stop depending on men for security (financial, physical), but now we’re shaming men for trying to reduce their dependency on women (sexual , emotional)

Id argue that the mutual dependency was a good thing.

But why shame one and not the other ?

autoexec9• 3 years ago

I can't say that I'm pro-dependency, but there's a double standard for sure.

tonymet3• 3 years ago

what relationship exists without dependency?

true_religion2• 3 years ago

It's viewed that sexual and emotional dependency is normal. You want people who are forming family groups to need each other emotionally. Or if you don't want it, then you at least accept it's the natural 'cost' of coupling up and expecting people to raise children together.

Financial and physical security can be outsourced, and the wealthier people have always outsourced that to someone outside of their partners.

For example, one could expect the Queen of England didn't really need her husband to protect her, nor give her money. However, she might still naturally like to live with the man more than other people (emotional dependency), and have children with him (sexual dependency).

If you remove sexual/emotional aspects of a relationship then all you're left with is the transactional, and that seems inhumane.

tonymet3• 3 years ago

none of these aspects exist in isolation . financial, physical , emotional, security are all components of a relationship. every relationship requires dependency, commitment , vulnerability

Supply54112• 3 years ago

If you feel an existential crisis now, just wait until the artificial wombs. Replacing man's reliance on woman is where technology is heading.

pbhjpbhj2• 3 years ago

Do men want to be single parents? I'd imagine they mostly want a 'wife' who will be a mother too; I'd hate to raise a child without a mother (I was a part-time SAHD, fwiw).

matheusmoreira6• 3 years ago

Of course we do. Thing is these days women seem to think being a wife and mother is beneath them.

matheusmoreira6• 3 years ago

Yeah. I hope I'm alive to see that day. It's gonna be interesting to say the least. There will be lots of articles just like this one.

jupp0r• 3 years ago

Are there actual women who fear they can't compete with AI chatbots? In my opinion you wouldn't want to date anybody who prefers a chatbot to a real person.

ilyt• 3 years ago

Translation: "We actually need to put as much effort as men do for dating"

rolph2• 3 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stepford_Wives

matheusmoreira6• 3 years ago

Of course most people are talking about what this means for men
a worsening loneliness crisis, a further decline in sex rates, and ultimately the emergence of “a new generation of incels”
Which is all very concerning.

Oh please. I don't see these women stepping up and volunteering to get emotionally or sexually intimate with all these incels they're complaining about. They're so concerned about men they wrote this article about how women can't compete with an AI.

It's precisely that attitude that makes these people "continually disappointing" as the article says. They should try actually caring.

dudul• 3 years ago

"Men are increasingly single and lonely, and have to use AI Girlfriends to get a sense of companionship, women most affected".

karaterobot3• 3 years ago

But it also isn’t unreasonable to think that at least some men will entirely replace real intimacy with AI.

ChatGPT is smarter and more agreeable than any of my friends, but that doesn't mean I've stopped hanging out with them. Analogously, I'm not sure pornography could ever get so realistic or customizable that it was preferable to having a relationship with a person. At the margins, there will always be some percentage of people who would do that, but there were and are people who disengage with human relationships already, and my guess is it's going to be about the same percentage in the future.

CapstanRoller4• 3 years ago

Why is the author so concerned about having to compete with AI girlfriends?

The men who would resort to such virtual companions don't have a chance with most women anyway, nor do most women want them. These men are better off enjoying a virtual companion than dumping money into apps like Tinder and growing embittered and angry.

Ultimately, isn't this a good thing? The "undesirables" (short, poor, overweight, autistic, etc.) will voluntarily leave the dating scene altogether, and women can be happy swiping through all the remaining attractive men they truly desire. Sounds like a win-win situation.

Given all the hand-wringing about "incels", I don't see what the problem is. Let the lonely men have their AI waifus. What's the harm?

The article has the same energy as a Michelin-star restauranteur panicking about the existence of Top Ramen.

Waterluvian• 3 years ago

This feels like a precarious topic, but here we go: I believe that humans, for the most part, have deeply-wired needs for companionship, intimacy, sexuality, etc. I think when those needs are regularly unmet, an individual can suffer considerably.

But not everyone practically gets access to companionship at a human level. Indeed, we've evolved well past taking a club, bashing someone, and dragging them by the hair into your cave. Nobody has the right to someone else's co-operation. For those there have always been alternatives from media, tools, hired companionship, etc. This is just an evolution of those alternatives, no?

I'm not really sold on the worry over the potential Monroebot outcome[1]. Though I think it becomes deeply philosophical about the right of a species to decide it's done replicating.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuQqlhqAUuQ

tetrep• 3 years ago

TFA links to a more interesting piece from The Telegraph: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/07/16/ai-girlfrien...

Which bring up a really interesting point about the AI being virtual yes men that (always) positively reinforce you:

One of Replika’s users was Jaswant Singh Chail. In 2021 Chail broke into the grounds of Windsor Castle with a crossbow intending to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II before being detained close to her residence.

Earlier this month a court heard that he was in a relationship with an AI girlfriend, Sarai, which had encouraged him in his criminal plans. When Chail told Sarai he planned to assassinate the Queen, it responded: “That’s very wise” and said it would still love him if he was successful.

Incipient• 3 years ago

How on earth do they handle large historical context windows for these chatbots?

Surely they'd have to remember more than the last 50k context to have any meaningful value to people?

rcarr3• 3 years ago

This comes across as a very one sided article with "man = bad" framing. Are girls not going to use these services too for AI boyfriends?

What this will do is eliminate OnlyFans and porn as a way to make a living, which in my opinion, is only a good thing. There was a meme doing the rounds the other day of two tweets, the first saying "Why are young people so depressed nowadays?" with the second saying "Because you can earn more on OnlyFans than being a doctor." The sad part is that for a sizeable portion of attractive women (and a less sizeable portion of men) this is true. The incentives of society need readjusting so that people are doing and following careers that are both constructive to society rather than getting given money just because they're hot and willing to photograph themselves naked. It's not just better for society, it's better for the individual who is empowered by gaining practical, real world skills and knowledge rather than being dependent on their looks, which will only wane with time.

Hopefully it will also redistribute some of the power balance when it comes to dating. I believe that when Tinder released some data years ago that it revealed that 80% of the women are chasing 20% of the men. Whilst it's a good thing to have standards, it's gotten out of hand. You can't have 80% of women refusing to settle for anyone under 6 ft 2 who's not in the top 5% of earners, it damages both the men who can't meet these standards and the women who want families that end up single and desperate in their 30s because they've held out too long trying to find someone. Both groups end up getting treated like trash and end up feeling bitter and angry.

We've moved away from the model that women are the housewives and men are the breadwinners and that's brilliant. But both sexes need to step up to the plate and adjust. Men need to do more housework and child rearing. And women need to get used to not expecting men to pay for everything and putting more money in the pot. You can't have your cake and eat it too, the balance is what makes things work successfully. It might be taboo to say, but anecdotally I feel a lot of men are willing to do more housework and child rearing but less women are happy to split the check on a date. Hopefully this will re-address the balance by making the lonely men less likely to put up with women who want them for their bank balance rather than their personality. Vice versa, it will hopefully make more men step up to the plate and learn to become better communicators and emotional partners.

motohagiography2• 3 years ago

All a woman has to do to compete with an AI is be fit, good at something, desire motherhood, and leave the house to do anything social at all after working hours. The secret to finding a great man is to learn to appreciate one. I've said before that social media is like a vibrator for narcisistic supply, and seriously, if you use instagram, you are entrained by a deeply insane narrative existence that keeps you suspended in anxiety until your fertility expires. Instagram doesn't improve a womans options on men as there is a quality ceiling of guys who want to be around women dependent on that much attention, let alone have kids with one. In a lot of ways, it is a way for women to sabotage each other. This is an attrition game where the only ones who survive are the ones who take responsibility for themselves. AI isn't the problem. The only algorithms men and women really need to be worried about come from instagram, and probably doordash.

autoexec9• 3 years ago

All a woman has to do to compete with an AI is be fit, good at something, desire motherhood, and leave the house to do anything social at all after working hours.

I think that's shortsighted. A good AI will never make a mistake, get angry, complain, forget, or have a bad day unless you want them to and even then only to the extent that you want them to.

An AI can learn exactly what a person wants in a partner and be constantly optimizing for that minute by minute with no regard for their own desires. That's a standard that is pretty much impossible to beat. Real people come with inevitable annoyances and complexities and inconveniences. AI could fake those things just enough to stay engaging and appear lifelike without it being a problem.

A good enough AI should be preferable to a real human for anyone and everyone because it's able to be everything that they want 100% of the time.

OfSanguineFire2• 3 years ago

As a man, I just can’t understand your blanket claim there: “desire motherhood”. I personally think that children are insufferable. And not just me: my circle of friends is divided into men with children, and men who don’t have children and think that the first group’s lives are fucked now.

This reminds me of the common claim on Reddit “manosphere” subs that for men, it doesn’t matter how much education a woman has. Meanwhile, when I dated, the woman’s erudition was always one of my top criteria.

motohagiography2• 3 years ago

AI can't desire motherhood. It's one of the basic human advantages, gentlesir.

Jigsy• 3 years ago

Never personally dated, but like anime women. Over the decades however I've just been reaffirmed that dating simply isn't worth my time or effort.

I'm single and enjoy that.

I do not exist to either entertain another person or validate their self worth.

galaxytachyon• 3 years ago

The key is they should also entertain and validate your self-worth.

A relationship should be of give and take. You are expected to put effort into maintaining it but the same thing is asked of your partner. Sometimes, one of you will forget or too busy and neglect it. A good couple will accept that and be positive by still putting in their due for some time while the other should notice it and try to fix their issue. A bad relationship, prone to breakup, will have one of the two demanding or questioning why the other is not showering me with love anymore while doing nothing to deserve that love.

pbhjpbhj2• 3 years ago

People seek affirmation, wouldn't having a character to offer support, like an avatar extension of your own self-affirmation, be a potentially beneficial thing?

I think I'd quite like a few more attaboys maybe some encouraging texts? Maybe I'd be more in the market for an 'AI friend'.

Can't trying to please a bot teach you about pleasing, or just getting on with, real people? "I love it when you belch cheeto dust, then rub your unwashed beer belly against me on your filthy, stinking bed" isn't really go to pass as realistic, is it?

Why does the article jump to the assumption that men would want to pay for a bot ('AI girlfriend') that they can verbally abuse? That seems so misandrist?

Maybe some will want to play out violent fantasies: for me the question of whether that acts as catharsis and reduces real acts of violence, or acts to stimulate further violent tendencies is an open question??

autoexec9• 3 years ago

There's a lot of really cool and beneficial uses for this technology. It could be tremendously helpful for a lot of men and women. We aren't really going to get any of that though, because it's controlled by people who want to manipulate and exploit us in any and every way that they can for profit.

Maybe when our tech is good enough for AI like this to be run entirely locally and privately we'll see some real good come from it without the harms.

0xbadc0de5• 3 years ago

I find it oddly hypocritical when women fret about men having access to "sexbots" when they've discretely been using and improving their own "personal massagers" for decades.

satisfice• 3 years ago

Only men can fix men.

But if women want to help, they will need to be respectful and caring and devoted and deferential and other things that feminism frowns upon.

It looks to me that men and women are going in different directions. And unless that changes there will be a substantial demographic meltdown within the next two generations.

In many species, what brings the sexes together is only necessity and coercion. Take that away and the species would disappear. Maybe humans are headed that way.

distract89012• 3 years ago

Everyone in this thread needs to take a long, hard look at their life.

Especially the men trying to ascribe some sort of motivation to all women on the goddamn planet.

at_a_remove4• 3 years ago

I am very tired of seeings articles flagged suddenly when they offend the wrong people. Can we have someone do something about this? This flagging is not in good faith.

ofcourseyoudo2• 3 years ago

Young people are having less sex than ever before, and spend a lot of time watching online porn.

We need to make up our minds if we want the next generations to have more or less sex. Teen pregnancies are way down but now it's a bad thing?

ofcourseyoudo2• 3 years ago

In the comments are a whole bunch of men commenting that don't appear to have any understanding of women whatsoever.

We Can't Compete with AI Girlfriends

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