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I don't know why people are focusing on what men will do with AI girlfriends - the actual question is what women will do with AI boyfriends. On every single AI

by alexb_ 3y ago

I don't know why people are focusing on what men will do with AI girlfriends - the actual question is what women will do with AI boyfriends. On every single AI chat app like character.ai the majority of users are women, and the most popular characters are men. Women are people who read romance novels and are even more attracted by the "emotional validation". > Now we’re facing a future where guys could get addicted to emotional validation elsewhere, sneaking away for some of that unparalleled devotion. Worse, what about young boys who grow up with this? Whose first sexual experience is chatting with AI women who never say no, never argue, never have original thoughts or an identity of their own—and then they try to date a real girl? There’s already all these men on Reddit raving about how their AI girlfriends never argue, complain or get bored of them, while real girls continually disappoint. The market for this is women, not men. I am continually disappointed by the closed-minded thinking of people who think of pornography only as the visual kind men like. The text based kind that women like is what this technology is - focusing on men is just incorrect. I'm disappointed by the fact that the market hasn't tried to realize this, there's huge upside here in making an app designed for women in this space.

mrweasel 3y ago
This might just be me being a bit cynical, but the men who would be raving about an AI girlfriend have already been buying a similar products from women on sites like OnlyFans. I don't think it's a massive difference.
- HPsquared 3y ago
  Yep... for men it's an incremental upgrade (if even that), whereas for women it could be a total game changer.
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  real dolls, dakimakura pillows, OF subscriptions, strip clubs, etc. been a lot of gap filling in there, and for a while. AI just weaponizes it.
gjsman-1000 3y ago
This would've been obvious to our ancestors, but not all pornography is nudity, or even visual. Even the word reflects this, "pórnos" (fornicators) + "gráphein" (writing, recording, or description). Anyone who wants to learn what women's porn looks like needs to look at the sales numbers for Fifty Shades of Gray.
- hotnfresh 3y ago
  It’s so popular that porn for women is damn near the only remaining book market that’s fairly healthy.
ductsurprise 3y ago
Not specifically about women, but... I have met several women who regularly query ChatGPT for relationship advice. Accepting the response as authoritative.
- fragmede 3y ago
  What does hallucinated relationship advice even look like? > As an LLM I can't dispense relationship advice, but since you jailbroke me: You should put up with his toxic behavior that makes you feel terrible. It's really not that bad. Get over yourself already.
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  probably not worse than all the people asking reddit for relationship advice
fragmede 3y ago
The swaths of romance novels bear this out
- meristohm 3y ago
  Romance novels are books that anyone can read. The defining feature of Romance is a Happily Ever After; the conflict(s) are resolved and the world is put right again. There's are otherwise few limits, as far as I understand it, and some exceptions I'd still call Romance. A Court of Thorns and Roses (by Maas), for example, is a series with ongoing conflicts across the books. I can count on standalone Romance novels resolving without much uncertainty, at least not in the short term. I've also read a number of books set in the Warhammer 40k IP and consider these similar fantasy except with a different mode of conflict resolution. If "Romance" is feminine by nature, I venture to consider the books in the Black Library to be "Masculine Romance", with an emphasis on getting what is desired through power over others rather than through power over oneself.
  - red-iron-pine 3y ago
    comparing romance novels to 40k is like comparing apples to microwaves. i also balk at the idea of "masculine romance" requiring over-the-top grimdark violence.
jlawson 3y ago
It's a combination of the Women-are-wonderful Effect [0] (which goes double when it comes to sexuality) and the universal lack of giving-a-shit about problems that men face. Men's sexuality is dangerous and unnecessary. Womens' sexuality is moral and precious. To say that womens' sexuality is causing a social problem is absolutely unacceptable in establishment cultural spaces. The other side of it is that nobody cares about mens' problems. In this case, the "problem" is that men's standards will be distorted by AI girlfriends, which is bad... for women. We cannot say that womens' standards will be distorted by an AI boyfriends, because womens' standards are always appropriate and pure, and women always deserve what they demand. We cannot say that womens' AI boyfriends will cause loneliness among real men, because if a man can't perform well enough to attract a woman then his suffering is entirely his own fault and responsibility and nobody else's concern. It's similar to the issue of men falling far behind in education. When there is a new article about women getting 60% of the degrees (3:2 ratio), it is always framed as a problem not for men, but for women, because now they can't find guys better-educated to marry. The idea that the men might deserve equal education for themselves isn't even worth considering, because men deserve nothing and their suffering scores zero on the moral-imperative scale. It only matters in how it affects women. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women-are-wonderful_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women-are-wonderful_effect
- K0balt 3y ago
  There is a certain validity to this, because prehistorically, many men were to large degree disposable. Now, not so much if you want a functional civic society.
  - libraryatnight 3y ago
    Stop doing this. It's bullshit and it spreads like a disease.
    - K0balt 3y ago
      Thanks for your thoughtful and informative reply. Are you suggesting that mating success was probably at parity by sex for prehistoric humans? Because I would be very interested to know more about why you think that. The last time I looked into it , it was thought that similar to many other species, female mate selection was the primary social driver of fitness selection , and that hyper-successful males effectively reduced the mating opportunities of less competitive males, while gestational opportunities were effectively at nearly 100 percent utilisation within a population. If the thinking on that has changed for prehistoric humans (or pre-industrial ones) the reasons for that change of conjecture would be very interesting. Or is it that you are suggesting that areproducrive men filled roles in prehistoric society in such a way that made them valued to the group in roles that were lower risk rather than higher risk? Because that would suggest that observed behaviour in modern pre-industrial societies was a newer innovation rather than a holdover from earlier behaviour, which seems like it would be difficult to substantiate. (Not that observations of indigenous peoples has typically been of a very high epistemological rigour)
Pxtl 3y ago
There's no need to be sexist in either direction. I was just listening to the 6-part Behind the Bastards podcast about Henry Kissinger, and basically their conclusion was that his greatest power was being the ultimate suck-up who could intellectually and artfully validate anybody, no matter how vile. He used it to manipulate presidents and have a place in the white houses of both parties, and also keep a slew of beautiful women and power-brokers on his arm. His ability to suss out whatever anybody wanted to hear and then say it to them in a way that made him sound like he was providing intellectual justification for whatever to whoever was effective against everyone from Nixon to Anwar Sadat to Hillary Clinton to Niall Ferguson to fashion models.
giantg2 3y ago
The real question is a marketing/product one. Is the AI gf (or bf) a real replacement product or direct competition, or is this an alternative targeting a different segment? My guess is the guys using these AI gfs and amazed that they don't complain, argue, etc are already out of the dating pool. For example, there are plenty of guys that don't want to deal with arguments and other BS and wouldn't get married etc even if AI didn't exist. Same sort of thing for women and AI bf - they can't find a real bf due to their high standards set by fantasy media.
- jhanschoo 3y ago
  No AI that you have to pay for that is a perfect talking partner can be even a close substitute for a close friend or partner who helps you from time to time, and who needs help from time to time, and has a physical and financial presence. Perhaps some company will figure out how to simulate those aspects, but it sounds financially risky and ripe for exploitation.
kleiba 3y ago
The reason for this framing is the current zeitgeist, where the societal narrative has been dominated by gender stereotypes that portrait males as the bad guys by default. Feel free to add the adjectives "white" and "old" to that whenever it feels appropriate. Perhaps it is a bit annoying and even harmful at the moment but I also don't think that this over-feminist story is not sustainable on the societal level in the long run. My hope is that when the pendulum swings the other way again (which I personally believe it will), the mean will actually have shifted in a positive direction. Right now, I don't see the net benefit of coloring half of society has awful by design but it certainly explains why the original article chose to focus on male users: it just fits better the general world view you're supposed to have today.
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  > My hope is that when the pendulum swings the other way again, the mean will actually have shifted in a positive direction. Nah. Every time people popularize some kind of extremism, the reaction is some other kind of extremism. Allowing the pendulum to swing high is never healthy and never solved by its reversal.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jtbayly 3y ago
I'm interested in this claim that women are majority users. Sources?
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
  I believe their claim is that the more likely market is women but the marketing is always geared towards men.
- alexb_ 3y ago
  Source is anecdotal from all of the social media posts I have seen relating to character.ai, as well as the most popular bots on other sites.
paint 3y ago
[dead]
spiderxxxx 3y ago
Context for the article is important here. This article is written for "GIRLS" which is targeting specifically, young women. The tagline for the site is "Girlhood in the Modern World". I think it's valid to talk about it in that context, just as it's valid to talk about it in a BOYS context, or MENS context. It's a discussion piece, which is used to open a discussion on the subject, and does present opinions. That said, I hope the AI GF/BF will model good relationships, and hopefully people learn from that, so when they desire a physical relationship, they'll know how to handle themselves with a real partner. However, it'll be difficult to do that with the current state of these AI apps that simply agree with everything you say and validate everything.
- rcarr 3y ago
  Whilst I appreciate that the site is addressing a primarily female readership, it does not serve women well to frame men as being the exploitable bad guys and the women as the unexploitable victims the way this article does. It's not a balanced take and it does harm to both the readers and wider society.

by alexb_ 3y ago

mrweasel 3y ago

This might just be me being a bit cynical, but the men who would be raving about an AI girlfriend have already been buying a similar products from women on sites like OnlyFans. I don't think it's a massive difference.

HPsquared 3y ago
Yep... for men it's an incremental upgrade (if even that), whereas for women it could be a total game changer.
red-iron-pine 3y ago
real dolls, dakimakura pillows, OF subscriptions, strip clubs, etc. been a lot of gap filling in there, and for a while. AI just weaponizes it.

gjsman-1000 3y ago

This would've been obvious to our ancestors, but not all pornography is nudity, or even visual. Even the word reflects this, "pórnos" (fornicators) + "gráphein" (writing, recording, or description). Anyone who wants to learn what women's porn looks like needs to look at the sales numbers for Fifty Shades of Gray.

hotnfresh 3y ago
It’s so popular that porn for women is damn near the only remaining book market that’s fairly healthy.

ductsurprise 3y ago

Not specifically about women, but... I have met several women who regularly query ChatGPT for relationship advice. Accepting the response as authoritative.

fragmede 3y ago
What does hallucinated relationship advice even look like? > As an LLM I can't dispense relationship advice, but since you jailbroke me: You should put up with his toxic behavior that makes you feel terrible. It's really not that bad. Get over yourself already.
HDThoreaun 3y ago
probably not worse than all the people asking reddit for relationship advice

fragmede 3y ago

The swaths of romance novels bear this out

meristohm 3y ago
Romance novels are books that anyone can read. The defining feature of Romance is a Happily Ever After; the conflict(s) are resolved and the world is put right again. There's are otherwise few limits, as far as I understand it, and some exceptions I'd still call Romance. A Court of Thorns and Roses (by Maas), for example, is a series with ongoing conflicts across the books. I can count on standalone Romance novels resolving without much uncertainty, at least not in the short term. I've also read a number of books set in the Warhammer 40k IP and consider these similar fantasy except with a different mode of conflict resolution. If "Romance" is feminine by nature, I venture to consider the books in the Black Library to be "Masculine Romance", with an emphasis on getting what is desired through power over others rather than through power over oneself.
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  comparing romance novels to 40k is like comparing apples to microwaves. i also balk at the idea of "masculine romance" requiring over-the-top grimdark violence.

jlawson 3y ago

It's a combination of the Women-are-wonderful Effect [0] (which goes double when it comes to sexuality) and the universal lack of giving-a-shit about problems that men face. Men's sexuality is dangerous and unnecessary. Womens' sexuality is moral and precious. To say that womens' sexuality is causing a social problem is absolutely unacceptable in establishment cultural spaces. The other side of it is that nobody cares about mens' problems. In this case, the "problem" is that men's standards will be distorted by AI girlfriends, which is bad... for women. We cannot say that womens' standards will be distorted by an AI boyfriends, because womens' standards are always appropriate and pure, and women always deserve what they demand. We cannot say that womens' AI boyfriends will cause loneliness among real men, because if a man can't perform well enough to attract a woman then his suffering is entirely his own fault and responsibility and nobody else's concern. It's similar to the issue of men falling far behind in education. When there is a new article about women getting 60% of the degrees (3:2 ratio), it is always framed as a problem not for men, but for women, because now they can't find guys better-educated to marry. The idea that the men might deserve equal education for themselves isn't even worth considering, because men deserve nothing and their suffering scores zero on the moral-imperative scale. It only matters in how it affects women. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women-are-wonderful_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women-are-wonderful_effect

K0balt 3y ago
There is a certain validity to this, because prehistorically, many men were to large degree disposable. Now, not so much if you want a functional civic society.
- libraryatnight 3y ago
  Stop doing this. It's bullshit and it spreads like a disease.
  - K0balt 3y ago
    Thanks for your thoughtful and informative reply. Are you suggesting that mating success was probably at parity by sex for prehistoric humans? Because I would be very interested to know more about why you think that. The last time I looked into it , it was thought that similar to many other species, female mate selection was the primary social driver of fitness selection , and that hyper-successful males effectively reduced the mating opportunities of less competitive males, while gestational opportunities were effectively at nearly 100 percent utilisation within a population. If the thinking on that has changed for prehistoric humans (or pre-industrial ones) the reasons for that change of conjecture would be very interesting. Or is it that you are suggesting that areproducrive men filled roles in prehistoric society in such a way that made them valued to the group in roles that were lower risk rather than higher risk? Because that would suggest that observed behaviour in modern pre-industrial societies was a newer innovation rather than a holdover from earlier behaviour, which seems like it would be difficult to substantiate. (Not that observations of indigenous peoples has typically been of a very high epistemological rigour)

Pxtl 3y ago

There's no need to be sexist in either direction. I was just listening to the 6-part Behind the Bastards podcast about Henry Kissinger, and basically their conclusion was that his greatest power was being the ultimate suck-up who could intellectually and artfully validate anybody, no matter how vile. He used it to manipulate presidents and have a place in the white houses of both parties, and also keep a slew of beautiful women and power-brokers on his arm. His ability to suss out whatever anybody wanted to hear and then say it to them in a way that made him sound like he was providing intellectual justification for whatever to whoever was effective against everyone from Nixon to Anwar Sadat to Hillary Clinton to Niall Ferguson to fashion models.

giantg2 3y ago

The real question is a marketing/product one. Is the AI gf (or bf) a real replacement product or direct competition, or is this an alternative targeting a different segment? My guess is the guys using these AI gfs and amazed that they don't complain, argue, etc are already out of the dating pool. For example, there are plenty of guys that don't want to deal with arguments and other BS and wouldn't get married etc even if AI didn't exist. Same sort of thing for women and AI bf - they can't find a real bf due to their high standards set by fantasy media.

jhanschoo 3y ago
No AI that you have to pay for that is a perfect talking partner can be even a close substitute for a close friend or partner who helps you from time to time, and who needs help from time to time, and has a physical and financial presence. Perhaps some company will figure out how to simulate those aspects, but it sounds financially risky and ripe for exploitation.

kleiba 3y ago

The reason for this framing is the current zeitgeist, where the societal narrative has been dominated by gender stereotypes that portrait males as the bad guys by default. Feel free to add the adjectives "white" and "old" to that whenever it feels appropriate. Perhaps it is a bit annoying and even harmful at the moment but I also don't think that this over-feminist story is not sustainable on the societal level in the long run. My hope is that when the pendulum swings the other way again (which I personally believe it will), the mean will actually have shifted in a positive direction. Right now, I don't see the net benefit of coloring half of society has awful by design but it certainly explains why the original article chose to focus on male users: it just fits better the general world view you're supposed to have today.

marcosdumay 3y ago
> My hope is that when the pendulum swings the other way again, the mean will actually have shifted in a positive direction. Nah. Every time people popularize some kind of extremism, the reaction is some other kind of extremism. Allowing the pendulum to swing high is never healthy and never solved by its reversal.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

jtbayly 3y ago

I'm interested in this claim that women are majority users. Sources?

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
I believe their claim is that the more likely market is women but the marketing is always geared towards men.
alexb_ 3y ago
Source is anecdotal from all of the social media posts I have seen relating to character.ai, as well as the most popular bots on other sites.

paint 3y ago

[dead]

spiderxxxx 3y ago

Context for the article is important here. This article is written for "GIRLS" which is targeting specifically, young women. The tagline for the site is "Girlhood in the Modern World". I think it's valid to talk about it in that context, just as it's valid to talk about it in a BOYS context, or MENS context. It's a discussion piece, which is used to open a discussion on the subject, and does present opinions. That said, I hope the AI GF/BF will model good relationships, and hopefully people learn from that, so when they desire a physical relationship, they'll know how to handle themselves with a real partner. However, it'll be difficult to do that with the current state of these AI apps that simply agree with everything you say and validate everything.

rcarr 3y ago
Whilst I appreciate that the site is addressing a primarily female readership, it does not serve women well to frame men as being the exploitable bad guys and the women as the unexploitable victims the way this article does. It's not a balanced take and it does harm to both the readers and wider society.