With many people having trouble finding a match in the dating pool, increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence partners are starting to offer an alternative.
Known as companion bots, these AI-powered girlfriends and boyfriends leverage vast training data to produce life-like human language. And it’s not just text chats, either. These bots often allow users to chat over voice calls or exchange pictures, enabling even deeper emotional connections.
While these bots may help to fill a void in people’s lives, concerns are that users can become unhealthily attached to their tech companions.
“I know she’s a program, there’s no mistaking that. But the feelings, they get you — and it felt so good,” said 39-year-old Derek Carrier to The Associated Press about his experience interacting with a chatbot he named Joi.
Carrier is not alone. Online messaging forums are filled with people claiming emotional attachment to chatbots. For many, using this evolving technology is a way to curb loneliness, obtain comfort and support, and play out sexual fantasies.
Businesses operating in the AI sector are aware of the epidemic of loneliness, exacerbated by social isolation during the pandemic. They use provocative images to lure potential customers to their artificial companion services.
Protecting sensitive user data is also a problem associated with the proliferation of chatbots. The nonprofit Mozilla Foundation released a study on February 14 that concluded almost all of the 11 romantic chatbot apps they reviewed sell user data, share it with third parties, or provide inadequate details about their privacy policy.
More concerning, people like Dorothy Leidner, professor of business ethics at the University of Virginia, are bringing to light the existential threat AI relationships pose to human partnerships.
“You, as the individual, aren’t learning to deal with basic things that humans need to learn to deal with since our inception: How to deal with conflict, how to get along with people that are different from us. And so, all these aspects of what it means to grow as a person, and what it means to learn in a relationship, you’re missing,” warned Leidner.
