September 27, 2023 - 1:30pm
This week, OpenAI announced that ChatGPT can now “see and speak,” broadening its interactive range. “Settl[ing] a dinner table debate” and “request[ing] a bedtime story for your family” are among the list of potential use cases suggested. OpenAI seems to be positioning ChatGPT to be more than just a tool — perhaps an AI companion.
The impending rise of robot and AI companions has been circulating the tech news world for decades — even before the mid-60s, with Joseph Weizenbaum’s ELIZA — arguably the first and most popular example of a human-computer “chatbot”-style interaction. However, it’s taken on renewed significance with the rise of AI tools like ChatGPT, MidJourney, Replika, and character.ai.
These developments could well mean that we are heading towards an ever more atomised future in which people feel more comfortable with robots (or chatbots, as it were) than with other people. Indeed, we may end up in a situation where human-human relationships become a luxury for those with “reality privilege”.
People are surprisingly skilled at nurturing one-sided affection, and there have been numerous studies that show that feelings need not be reciprocal (including with computers) for love to develop. The most extreme examples of this tendency can manifest in sometimes frightening behaviours, such as the erotomania of somebody like Ruth Steinhagen or John Hinckley Jr.. But there are, of course, also parasocial relationships between celebrities or social media influencers and their fans; the myriad stories of people becoming attached to and anthropomorphising household objects and robotic pets; and the strange affection some people feel towards historical, religious, or even fictional figures and characters.
The question is how these dynamics would change if given the opportunity to interact. What if there was a tool that allowed people to have conversations with that pet or object they’ve been weirdly attached to for years? What about a celebrity?
In studies of a phenomenon called “fictosexuality,” a rare sexual orientation where individuals primarily feel attraction to fictional characters, researchers discovered an interesting paradox. People who experienced fictosexuality weren’t experiencing erotomania or any other type of delusion: intellectually, they were aware they were projecting onto someone (or something) who couldn’t reciprocate their feelings. Yet the affection was nonetheless as real-feeling as human-to-human affection. This has been well-documented in Japan, in books like The Moe Manifesto, where people regularly become attached to pop idols and anime characters. Often, it is a symptom of extreme loneliness, and these people never return to “normal” lives.
Two other interesting quirks might strengthen the case for the rise of AI companions. The first is that according to a post-Covid study of Zoom interactions, in-game and computer-mediated “eye contact” has the same psychological impact on people as physical world eye contact. That is, it creates a feeling of connection. If we already have an incredible capacity for one-sided relationships — including with chatbots — what happens when we add eye contact to the mix?
The second is that it’s well-documented that even if something is obviously “fake”— in this case, non-human — that won’t prevent people from getting attached, like in the infamous story of Miranda Grosvenor. There have been several famous stories of people being deceived on telephone chat lines or people maintaining online relationships with the deceiver — even after discovering the truth. But more mundanely, this is something we see daily on programmes like Dr. Phil and MTV’s Catfish. The human will to hang onto connection is strong.
AI companionship might not be such a far-off prediction after all. But it could well end up being dystopian, as people give up on human-to-human relationships and opt for more accessible chatbots.
Katherine Dee is a writer. To read more of her work, visit defaultfriend.substack.com.
default_friend
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
Subscribe‘It could well end up being dystopian.’ No, it’s dystopian by its nature. The ongoing complicity of humans in their own dehumanisation is depressing, frightening and enraging.
This is a process that has been going on since the advent of agriculture as humans have compromised and contorted themselves to fulfill their own desires while still not giving up the benefits of membership of wider society. The fact that people look back wistfully on pastoral life, the shift to which produced such levels of malnutrition as to result in a very noticeable decline in height and muscle mass that we have only begun to recover from in recent generations.
The reality is that the lives we lead now are so utterly alien to the baseline human experience of our hunter-gathering ancestors that it renders people having AI waifus and husbandoes as fairly trivial by comparison.
We’ve been “dehumanising” ourselves in exchange for the comforts and safety offered by civilisation for thousands of years at this point and updating our idea of what it means to be human accordingly. I’m sure the future humans will look back at our comparatively primitive existance with the same horror and fascination as we do towards the distant past. It is the height of hubris to suggest that our current way of life is the “one true way” when it has displaced countless other “one true ways” before it. It’s just what we’re used to.
Reading your post put the idea in my head that maybe the story of Adam and Eve in the garden is in fact a metaphorical description of the shift from the easy and leisure rich life of hunter-gathering to the limited life of agriculture.
Dr Jordan Peterson has written and lectured extensively on this subject. His interpretation is rather deeper and set further back in time to the development in humans of intelligence and, in particular, self awareness.
If you type “Jordan Peterson Adam and Eve” into a YouTube search you will not be disappointed.
https://youtu.be/4RP4SIYw1YA?si=uDLy_T9WkDK67fc7
There is a reason spending time outdoors is good for you and why so many people like to go backpacking, camping, etc. We were designed to spend most of our time outdoors.
So according to your facile analysis, our hyper-digitalized lives are just another stage in our evolution. Sorry but I don’t buy it. When human populations switched from a hunter-gatherer life to a mostly agrarian one, we were still dealing with reality. No longer. Accepting an artificially generated simulacrum of life over the imperfect, messy, unreliable and often heartbreaking real thing is delusional, cowardly and plays right into the hands of the evil bastards who are increasingly controlling our actions and stealing our hard-won rights from us. The relativist thinking of the futurists is sucking the life out of everything.
In one of Issac Asimov’s stories, set well into the future, humans on a certain planet no longer engaged in any form of human to human contact unless it was absolutely necessary and in those cases they found it deeply disturbing and distasteful. The story seemed improbable when first written, now it appears quite prescient.
The development of highly interactive sexbots with advanced AI is inevitable and unstoppable. So too is the artificial womb. The financial and business rewards are simply too great. Make no mistake, as AI advances the sexbots will eventually be indistinguishable from real humans and, not all, but a majority of men will find their company more than adequate. Based on female nature this seems unlikely to be reciprocated for women. Humans in general, and the sexes in particular, will lead increasingly separate lives as social interaction and interaction for procreation are no longer essential.
I imagine you’ve seen it already but I recommend to anyone who hasn’t the movie ‘Ex Machina’. Factoring in that more and more work presently done by humans will be done by AI/robots, human beings will become redundant, useless, borderline extinct. Can’t believe that we’re willingly doing this to ourselves.
Its pretty much inevitable, isn’t it? The technology is only going to become more sophisticated and there are a lot of lonely people in the world.
However much we might think that real human connection is better for us (individually and as a species), the fact is that many people struggle with social interaction and relationships due to awkwardness, illness, circumstances etc. A proportion of them will be drawn to using AI for this purpose.
And this instinct isn’t a new thing. When I was a child our elderly widowed next door neighbour used to put the TV on “for a bit of company”. The technology was more primitive, but she was responding to the same instinct to feel connected.
Of course, as the technology gets more sophisticated, it raises bigger ethical questions. Would creating AI “girlfriends” based on the likeness of a glamour model be ethical? What if the model licensed her image for this purpose? What if she later changed her mind and wanted to withdraw her permission? What about AI “children”? Would limits on how we can interact be in any way enforceable? Someone, somewhere will break the code.
Like anything else though, it has potential for good and bad. An AI companion who recognises suicidal ideation and responds appropriately could save lives. There are many other possible positive applications.
Things like this always get introduced and promoted for the “positive applications” but pretty soon it often turns negative. In lockdown time every one embraced Zoom meetings but it wasnt long before us inventive humans were finding ways to subvert the process and annoy the others. I’ve heard if your camera was at the wrong angle everyone else was looking up your nose,or only saw your worst profile,people found out they could attend the meeting with their.camera off and that annoyed everyone else. One person was obviously wearing their pajamas and everyone was too embarrassed to say. I never did Zoom but I soon heard all this and more,this is why it worries me when the “scientists” or tech developers say they can develop AI that thinks exactly like human beings. Haven’t we got enough mendacious malevolent liars in the world already.
The sex doll industry will love chat ai. Next add robot body tech and most people may choose a robot wife.
I would.
Inevitable and unstoppable.
Married love primarily is about service, and giving. But a chatbot has no needs. I’m sure this AI approach will work fine, if you’re a self-absorbed twit.
Exactly. Having an AI ‘girlfriend’ designed by you is narcissism writ large.
I saw that particular Dr. Phil show. Adult children brought their mother on to the show because they were exasperated that she was giving away all her money to a Nigerian scammer even despite knowing that she was being scammed.
We all desire to be loved above all else.
Could ChatGPT be my new girlfriend? I don’t know, I’ll have to ask Mrs U.
Ha! Does raise an interesting point… would having a ChatGPT girlfriend whilst married – or indeed a ChatGPT boyfriend – be seen as infidelity?
There is at least one Black Mirror episode along those lines.
Well,in reality it would be.
Perhaps not, but it’s certainly indicative of a relative lack of interest in the 3D model
Whilst there are all sorts of potential dystopian consequences, it would be fair to say that AI companions might be a help for the chronically lonely, which is the case for vast numbers of elderly people. It may also help with dementia (patients may not even realise they are not talking to a real person). Mustafa Suleyman makes a case for these ideas in his must-read book ‘The Coming Wave’, which I just happened to review this morning 🙂
But this idea,the elderly are chronically lonely is,to use that term “medicalising” a normal condition of life. I’m now “elderly” or at least im the same age as Old People and I am lonely sometimes but I actually don’t want my life to be like a food advert on tv.. All the food adverts on TV are the same now. A multi-generational,multi- race and culturally diverse family,all attractive and laughing their heads off is crammed round a table loaded with processed food items from AsTesIdl and they’re all stuffing it in their gobs while laughing and all being merry and convivial.Because from infancy enforced gregariousness is now imposed. A bit like in Brave New World really. I dont need a bot to be my best friend. I can read books and watch YouTube,until they ban it.
All of this is already happening in Japan in care homes for the elderly.
Tell me about it. That hot YouTuber I follow. He’s got me on his watch list. “Security!”. This phenomenon doesnt need a faux science name. Who hasn’t discovered a Best Friend in an author who lived hundreds of years ago but succinctly described a problem or circumstance you just encountered. For instance William Hazlitt explained to me why people are often rude and mocking AFTER you’ve helped them! A phenomenonenen that applies to Refugee/Asylum.Seeker/Whatever other term applies….why are you criticizing our Society we angrily cry. You risked death to get here. Aged 20 I fell in love with Robert Louis Stevenson,well who wouldn’t. The thing is,his mortal body may be long gone,but the essence of that man is in his writing. But its one thing to admire + take an interest in a real person even if you only see them behind glass on your device. It’s much more sinister if those forking silicon valley b’stards decide to utilize this innate human trait by creating imaginary friends for us who might exert a bad influence. Now,I’m off to send a disturbing post to my Hot You Tuber declaring yet again my devotion and identification.
The thing about all of these potentially troublesome tech advances is that they will be misused. It goes without saying. Cloning, “gain of function” virus research, etc and now this. This is simply because the researchers who wind up handling these technologies (and the grant-givers and the scientific journals), are over-flowing with socio-pathic tendencies.
In a world full of normal people, why are the ones with “issues” always being rewarded with access that some more level-headed person should have gotten, instead?
You humans are very strange.
AI may already present a simulacrum of humanity, so far as fulfilling the needs of its user goes. But the one thing it can never develop is genuine **need**. We don’t develop relationships only for our own sake, but also for the opportunity to love, to sacrifice, to pour what we have and are into someone who needs us. And that itself is one of our greatest needs.
It’s a need that can be ignored, for a while, but at what cost to the individual and to the society? – How much can I enjoy having my needs met, when I myself become unneeded and useless?
What people want, is what they want, ie is by definition something within themselves. It’s possible that a responsive artificial intelligence can be a better conversational companion than a lifetime of physical searching can find. I expect it to become the principal emotional partner for all of us.
Well I tried to download a chat.gpt that was hairy, promiscuous, lacking in self-control, inclined to stealthing and pretending to be single.
It said it’d get back to me, then hacked my NatWest account.