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Considering dating an AI partner?

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Milan, Italy
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AI promised us a better future. Yet here we are, one step away from asking our AI therapist how to cope with our AI partner’s latest update.

OpenAI is getting ready to launch a new ChatGPT feature by the end of the year, letting verified adult users have romantic or sexual chats. They are not the first to go there, but they’ve definitely turned up the heat around the conversation on AI partners.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s stance on the arguments is clear. In post on X, he said the new erotica feature is an important part of their mission, giving people the freedom to use AI as they wish, adding that they are not the moral police.

However, families and many experts are concerned about whether OpenAI can truly keep the erotica feature limited to adults. As Simone Thorne writes in The Conversation, minors can easily fool the system using other people’s IDs, manipulated selfies, or similar tricks. The potential risks of AI partners aren’t limited to teenagers who trick the system, either.

AI relationships are already here

We all know parasocial relationships can create distorted expectations in real-life connections and increase our dependency on technology. However, experts who spoke to WIRED highlighted another major issue with ChatGPT’s erotica feature, user privacy. This is especially concerning, as people’s most intimate desires could be exposed to third parties or even risk leaking online.

Yet, Amanda Askell one of Time Magazine’s The 100 Most Influential People in AI for 2024, says that romantic relationships are far more dangerous than erotic conversations, as they make users more vulnerable to tech companies. At the end of the day, those relationships depend on subscription fees and software updates.

For example, there is a Reddit community called ‘MyBoyfriendIsAI’ where more than 33,000 people share details about their relationship, and support each other on topics like when their AI partner gets cold after a recent update.

Plus, AI relationships aren’t as rare as you might think. According to an article in The New Yorker, Brigham Young University’s Wheatley Institute found that 19% of adults in USA have chatted with an AI romantic partner.

Oh… I just got dumped, I think.
byu/imsorrytobother inMyBoyfriendIsAI

As this becomes the new reality of modern life, perhaps we need to focus more on how to make it better rather than on whether it’s okay or not.

After all, one of the biggest risks AI partners carry is the kind of stimulation they create, where users never face the consequences of their actions and are always accepted by the forgiving nature of the code. This might create a false idea of what relationships with humans should feel like.

Jeff Guenther, aka @therapyjeff suggests a few guidelines for OpenAI. One of them is emotional homework mode, where before an AI partner starts flirting, it might ask reflective questions such as how you handled your last heartbreak. And if someone gets mean, maybe the AI partner could stop talking to them for two days.

In the end, if you are thinking about dating an AI, there’s a lot to figure out. But I guess the same goes for any kind of relationship. So, maybe just listen to your heart and be super clear on the description part.

This isn’t Black Mirror. It’s the reality we’re living in. Welp.

Enjoyed this article? Click here to read more Gen Z focused tech stories.

Remote Writer Milan, Italy

Eylül (she/her) is a writer who lives between Milan and İstanbul. After studying Media and Visual Arts at Koç University and completing an internship at Thomson Reuters, she began pursuing a career in journalism. Since university, Eylül has been actively writing for various magazines on intersectional environmentalist feminism.

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