The fear of being replaced by human creations has plagued the collective psyche for a long time. From the assembly line to the personal computer to now artificial intelligence, we have always feared human obsolescence.
The debate often centers on labor. workFactory workers have been replaced by assembly lines, and software engineers by artificial intelligence.
There has long been an interest, if not outright fear, that something similar might happen in love, from the ancient Greek myth of Pygmalion and the ivory statue that comes to life, to early science fiction works featuring artificial women, such as Auguste Villiers de L’Isle-Adan’s novel The Future Eve (1886). More recent works, such as the 2007 film Lars and the Real Girl and Her (2013), have carried our deepest fears into the 21st century, but we still seem to return to the idea that while machines may indeed be able to change the way we work, they cannot change the way we love. No artificial companion, no matter how realistic and personalized, can ever replace a real human relationship. Love is what makes us human.
I think an AI boyfriend is likely to present more complex challenges than an AI girlfriend.
As technology advances, the concept of artificial companions has moved from the world of film and literature to sex dolls and, more recently, AI-powered virtual companions, with an inordinate amount of attention being paid to AI girlfriends. Men are addicted to porn, but this is the next iteration — right?
A few months ago, an article about the rise of AI girlfriends became a hot topic on X.
The crux of the article is: If women become infinitely more personalizable (and presumably more beautiful), how do real women compete? Most of my social media peers were skeptical, arguing that it’s not the perfection or customization that makes romance romantic. Even with an OnlyFans model, there’s some chance, however slim, of connecting with a real human being.
While it’s true that some people enjoy erotic role-play with AI, they rarely have a human girlfriend or boyfriend. If there are no humans in the photo, it’s most likely because they can’t find any, not because they don’t want to. Furthermore, this may be true: parable They have a special fetish for AI and robots.
First came Gooners (internet slang for compulsive masturbators) or microwaveable meals for one. Some critics say the answer is the former, which means these technologies are a cause of isolation, not a symptom of it. It’s tempting to blame porn, or robots, but everything we know, from the bizarre to the mundane, suggests otherwise.
I’m reminded of an article MIT professor and sociologist Sherry Turkle wrote in 2007, “Authenticity in the Age of Digital Companions.” Then, and now, and long before 2007, machines existed in a border zone where they were both fake and alive.
For example, children perceive machines as sentient, sometimes “living” beings. We also have emotional responses to what Turkle calls “relational artifacts,” such as Furbies, Tamagotchi pets, and more recently chatGPT (Have you ever apologized or said please after being asked?). Turkle writes that we can form emotional relationships with them that cannot be compared to our relationships with other people. Turkle concludes his article with an anecdote about a friend who is severely disabled, but I think this still applies today.
“Show me someone who’s in my shoes, looking for a robot, and I’ll show you someone who’s looking for a person and can’t find one,” he tells her.
According to Turkle:
[Richard] The conversation turned to human cruelty: “Some of the aides and nurses at the rehab center hurt people because they’re not skilled, and some hurt people on purpose. I’ve experienced both. One of them pulled me by my hair. Another pulled me by my tubes. A robot wouldn’t do that,” he said. “But at the end of the day, there was a reason why that person pulled me by the tubes, and I was able to find out.”
For Richard, being with people, even if they were unpleasant and sadistic, made him feel alive. It meant that even if the scope and scale of his activities were dramatically reduced, his way of being in the world still had a certain dignity that was, to him, the same as being real. This sustained him. He didn’t want his life to be endangered, but he preferred sadists to robots.
Richard’s vision of life is a word of warning to those who speak too quickly about our interactions, or only in technical terms. What is the value of interactions that have no understanding of us and contribute nothing to the store of shared meaning for humanity? These are not easy questions to answer, but they are worth asking and returning to.
The counterargument is that the lack of credibility is because we know machines are not human, or because the technology is not there yet.
I prefer the former. The manifesto for “Love Revolution” by “fictiosexual” author Honda Toru (a person who consciously seeks romantic relationships with fictional characters rather than with real people) also reflects the idea that “I am like this because I have no choice but to be like this” rather than “I am like this because I was born like this.”
“Some people find satisfaction in fictional characters. Not everyone feels that way, but more people might approve of this life choice if it wasn’t constantly belittled. Forcing people to live up to an impossible ideal so they can participate in so-called reality creates so-called losers who may despair and lash out.”
Reading Tohru’s passage about “love capitalism,” a term he uses to describe the transactional nature of romance in Japan, it seems likely that he would not have chosen a “waifu,” or anime wife, if he had felt more accepted by society.
I got a similar impression when I spoke with fellow fictionalist Kate Calder.
Neither Kate nor Toru are claiming that their attraction to or love for fictional characters isn’t real — they describe the experience as weird, wonderful, and real, and they want to be accepted for who they are — but they also acknowledge that this desire doesn’t come about in a vacuum, whether explicitly, as Toru does, or implicitly, as Kate does when discussing her autism diagnosis.
I suspect that part of people’s attempt to move away from the denial of these relationships is the claim that they are not maladaptive – that they are perfectly rational in our mediated and sometimes deeply alienating world.
Gender dynamics also complicate this debate, with women overwhelmingly portrayed as losers because men chose simulated women over real women. This is intuitive, but I think it’s wrong. I think an AI boyfriend is likely to present more complex challenges than an AI girlfriend.
My prediction is that AI boyfriends will become popular in four main ways:
- For a small minority, such as fictosexuals and those deeply involved in fandoms, AI companions will replace real-world lovers. But even within this community, many remain unsure, reporting that interacting with AIs, while fun, is less satisfying than daydreaming or writing fanfiction.
- AI is a form of play, like The Sims, playing with dolls, or role-playing games. It can be addictive, but it cannot replace 1:1 human interaction.
- These are a type of erotica similar to romance novels, and some users like to “play characters” within the story world of the AI chat. They may become popular in fandom communities.
- These will be used to perpetrate romance scams on naive and gullible people who believe celebrities will send them direct messages on Instagram.
Of these tropes, the third one is likely to be the most prevalent because there is already a well-established precedent for women to form emotional attachments to fictional characters and celebrities and to develop fantasy relationships with them through various mediums such as romance novels and fan fiction. An AI boyfriend would serve as an interactive, personalized extension of these existing trends, allowing women to have an immersive, emotionally satisfying experience that is customized to their desires and needs.
That said, the threat that AI companions pose to real-life relationships is likely exaggerated.
Text-based role-playing games and dating simulations have been around for years. These games provide connection and fulfillment, but they don’t replace the desire for human companionship. They’re proxies for companionship. And they’re all just that: proxies. No teenage girl has ever preferred Sherlock Holmes, Edward Cullen, or a boy band member to a real-life boyfriend, not since the dawn of time.
The same can be said in reverse, until AI powers sex dolls. Unfortunately, the jury is still out on sex robots that can mimic human women so well. But as things stand, chatGPT, Replika, character.ai, and Digi are no replacement for girlfriends for men who are confident in finding one. Obsession with this type of media exposes what is missing in life. The people who instill unrealistic expectations are those who have had little opportunity to lower their expectations.
Ultimately, it is unlikely that an AI companion will become a widespread, sustainable replacement for a real-world partner, or replace a lost loved one, as in the movie Marjorie Prime. The uncanny valley (the uneasy feeling we feel when an AI or robot looks similar to a human but is not convincingly real) will limit the appeal of AI. After all, people crave real human connection, and while an AI companion may temporarily alleviate loneliness, it cannot replace the depth and sincerity of another person.
I think that middle ground will become more common in the future, and in fact, this may be the situation we live in now.
The proliferation of online relationships outside of dating apps and the extended pre-dating communication aligns well with what we know about younger generations. While dating apps are declining in popularity, online interactions continue, and meeting potential partners and friends online is becoming more common and accepted. People are no longer embarrassed about having “online friends,” and it seems like every app except dating apps is being used for dating.
People still crave human connection, but in an increasingly isolated world, the compromise is not human-machine, but human-machine-human interaction. While these technologies can bring comfort and friendship to some people, they cannot replace the richness and authenticity of face-to-face human interaction.
