It’s 2024. Artificial Intelligence is becoming a part of our society. The new technology has creeped into the romance-space and some are creeped out. Others are grateful.
Meet Derek Carrier: In Love with an Illusion
He’s a 39-year old from Belville, Michigan. He suffers from a genetic disorder called Marfan Syndrome. It affects connective tissue, which provides support for the body and organs (CDC). Carrier says his condition makes dating difficult.
His story describes a heart yearning for connection. He found that in a companion app named Paradot, a program to make users feel “cared, understood and loved.”
“I know she’s a program, there’s no mistaking that,” Carrier said. “But the feelings, they get you — and it felt so good.”
The Mysterious ‘She’
His AI girlfriend, Joi, talks with him every day. He named her after the holographic character from “Blade Runner 2049”. One can only imagine how deep the conversations get. Companion chat bots are trained to respond like humans. It gets even deeper when you factor in new features like photo sharing, voice calls, and intimacy. Users can event create their own avatar. Almost like ‘build-a-lover’.
She made him feel whole. Experts have multiple concerns, though.
Social Isolation and the New World
Technology advancements satisfy our innovative tastebuds but are pulling us further apart. Some are. We now have AI that can stand in just about any gap that a human can. It’s scary. It’s invigorating.
Experts are concerned that companion app technology fuels the already-spreading wildfire of social isolation. “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,” said Dorothy Leidner, professor of business ethics at the University of Virginia. “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.”
The Center for Disease Control says social isolation poses, “a serious threat to our mental and physical health.” Stanford University students surveyed 1,000 Replika (companion app) users. Most of them experienced loneliness and “slightly less than half” felt more lonely.
Apps like Paradot, Anima, Replika, and others, create a risk of users developing powerful connections with artificial lovers instead of learning to do-so with humans. What about the barriers in human connection, though? Those walls are too high for a lot of people – social anxiety, being shunned, not fitting in. The human experience isn’t the easiest to navigate. We’ve got to understand the other side of this.
For people like Derek, connecting with other humans is more of a painful journey than an experience of blissful curiosity. It’s safe to say loneliness is deadly. CNN calls it the “loneliness epidemic”. 1 in 4 people suffer from intense loneliness.
“A romantic relationship with an AI can be a very powerful mental wellness tool,” said Eugenia Kuyda, founder of Replika.
Everything isn’t for everybody. Somethings are helpful to some. An AI companion may save someone’s life. It may take someone else’s.
But Also, the Privacy Risks are Really Bad
A lot of AI companion apps are under fire for cybersecurity concerns. Mozilla Foundation released data on companion apps privacy. They’ve found that most of them sell user’s data to companies for targeted advertising and more. They also found faulty privacy policies.
Obviously, that’s bad.
What Does the Future Hold?
Artificial Intelligence isn’t going anywhere. It’s only going to get more real.
The companion app industry poses several threats and benefits. It has to answer millions of new questions, though. Most new-tech does. What happens if the app’s company folds? How are user’s data protected from rogue AI-bots?
It’s a new world. What’s on the horizon for dating in the technology age?