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New study finds users are marrying and having virtual children with AI chatbots
- conception 1y agohttps://www.reddit.com/r/MyBoyfriendIsAI/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MyBoyfriendIsAI/ in the wild. Rough stuff.
- qwertytyyuu 1y agoI'm glad to not have seen a r/MyBabyIsAI yet
- netsharc 1y agoMy new startup is named TamagotchAI..
- lotsofpulp 1y agoThe linked study is of 29 “people” (assuming they are real). How do we know if these examples aren’t just the 0.1% of the population that is, for all intend and purposes, “out there”? So much of “news” is just finding these corner cases that evoke emotion, but ultimately have no impact.
- conception 1y agoThe outcry when 4o was discontinued was such that open AI kept it on paying subscriptions. There are at least enough people attached to certain AI voices that it warrants a tech startup spending the resources to keep an old model around. That’s probably not an insignificant population.
- yapyap 1y agoI think it IS 0.1% (or less, hopefully) of the population. But it’s hard to study users having these relationships without studying the users who have these relationships I reckon.
- hluska 1y agoThe Stanford Prison Experiment only had 24 participants and implementation problems that should have concerned anyone with a pulse. But it’s been taught for decades. A lot of psych research uses small samples. It’s a problem, but funding is limited and so it’s a start. Other researchers can take this and build upon it. Anecdotally, watching people meltdown over the end of ChatGPT 4o indicates this is a bigger problem that 0.1%. And business wise, it would be odd if OpenAI kept an entire model available to serve that small a population.
- lotsofpulp 1y agoThe stanford prison experiment is unverifiable. Another example of one of these emotion evoking stories. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31380664/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31380664/ See critiques of validity section: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment
- mothballed 1y ago[flagged]
- hartator 1y agoYou rather have AI relationships instead of actual kids?
- mothballed 1y agoI have actual kids and am pretty happy with my family life. But many aren't, and some people might even have a level of rare self awareness to know that anyone they'd [be able to] marry would hate them.
- Tade0 1y agoThat is: 1. Not a given. 2. Something one can work on so that they're either more likeable or at the very least less defeatist about the whole thing.
- mothballed 1y agoThe only thing that's a given is that it's possible that you'll end up paying child support and alimony to someone that hates you, if you marry in real life and have real children. Choosing you'd rather have AI wife and kids, rather than deal with the potential that many real people will face of paying child support and alimony to someone that hates them -- I don't see as an irrational decision (although not an inevitable one either). In fact, if you don't consider at least the possibility, you are a fool.
- Tade0 1y agoBut you're not actually having this wife and children if they're AI - they're an illusion, a simulation that only superficially resembles the real thing. It's a poor substitute and you out of all people should know that. > I don't see as an irrational decision Here's where it's irrational: the mere possibility is not enough to abandon the prospect because if one wanted to be consistent, they'd have to avoid similar risks, so ultimately hardly do anything. Risks are an inherent part of life and those who avoid them at all costs are universally and consistently miserable.
- theoldgreybeard 1y agoJust send the meteor already.
- grafmax 1y agoExtremely lonely people being exploited by sociopathic corporations for profit. Sounds like a baby and the bathwater scenario to me.
- srameshc 1y agoAI if unregulated could be a lot more worse than social media. My kid after his first chat with AI said, he is my new friend. I was alarmed and explain him but what about the parents and guardians who are unaware how the kids are befriending the AI. Part of the problem is also how it is trained to be nice and encouraging. I am sure there are researchers who are talking about it but the question is are the policy makers listening to them ?
- giuliomagnifico 1y ago“Regulate”? We can’t, and shouldn’t, regulate everything. Policymakers should focus on creating rules that ensure data safety, but if someone over 18 years wants to marry a chatbot… well, that’s their (stupid) choice. Instead of trying to control everything, policymakers should educate people about how these chatbots work and how to keep their data safe. After all, not everyone who played Doom in the ’90s became a real killer, or assaults women because of YouPorn. Society will adapt to these ridiculous new situations…what truly matters is people’s awareness and understanding.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- tossandthrow 1y agoYou are using an incredibly poor rhetoric technique and setting up a strawman. This is not about regulating everything. This is about realizing adverse effects and regulating for those. Just like no one is selling you toxic youghurt.
- potato3732842 1y agoPeople think that we can just magically regulate everything. It's like a medieval peasant who doesn't understand chemistry/physics/etc thinking they can just pray harder to have better odds of something. We literally CAN'T regulate some things for any reasonable definition of "can't" or "regulate". Our society is either not rich enough or not organized in a way to actually do it in any useful capacity and not make the problem worse. I'm not saying AI chatbots are one of those things, but people toss around the idea of regulation way too casually and AI chatbots are way less cut and dry than bad food or toxic waste or whatever other extreme anyone wants to misleadingly project down into the long tail of weird stuff with limited upside and potential for unintended consequences elsewhere.
- TrackerFF 1y agoTurns out Her wasn’t set in such a distant future.
- skylurk 1y agoTurns out there's a Him, too.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ktallett 1y agoIt feels like a more evolved version of those who have what they consider to be relationships with anime characters or virtual idols in Japan. Often treating a doll or lifesize pillow replica of that character as someone the person can interact and spend time with. Obviously like the AI, the fact it is so common does suggest that it must be filling a unmet need in the person and I guess the key focus needs to be how do we help those stuck in that situation to become unstuck and how do we help those feel that unmet need is fulfilled?
- BinaryIgor 1y agoExactly; it's just a much more powerful medium to express one of the oldest and perennial of society problems
- Qem 1y agoI'm sure Skynet could easily win in Terminator by sending a virtual boyfriend to Sarah Connor, instead of sending a trigger-happy cyborg after her.
- lakotamelc 1y ago[dead]
- zug_zug 1y agoOf course the loneliest 5% are going to do something like this. If it weren't for AI they'd be writing twilight fan-fic and roleplaying it on some chatroom, or giving all their money to a "saudi prince." Seems like nothing new, just a better or more immersive form of fantasy for those who can't have the life they fantasize about.
- olivierestsage 1y agoI'd argue it'd be psychologically healthier to roleplay in a chatroom with people who are human on the other end (if that could be guaranteed, which it no longer can).
- vintermann 1y agoHumans can potentially be much nastier than a chatbot. There are lonely vulnerable who can be exploited, but there are also people who get off on manipulating other people and convincing them to make profoundly self destructive and life altering choices.
- awkward 1y agoChatbots enable self destructive manipulation of others at scale.
- vintermann 1y agoSure, but Google and OpenAI aren't going to do this kind of manipulation. And the actual sadists are probably not as satisfied with letting a machine do it.
- yapyap 1y agoI’d agree. at least there’s a possibility of real interaction with real people.
- IAmBroom 1y agoI'd argue it'd be psychologically healthier to get therapy and more friends. So what? We don't live in the "should" universe. We live in this one.
- notepad0x90 1y agoIs this neccesarily a bad thing? I think a lot of people assume these same people would have developed relationships with humans otherwise. How many of these people are better off this way? That'd be an interesting study. I've read a couple of articles on how the "loneliness epidemic" is driving down life expectancy. Could AI chatbots negate that? "It's not real", yeah, that is weird for sure. But I also find wrestling fans weird, they know it's not real and enjoy it anyways. Even most sports, people take it a lot more seriously than they should.
- fragmede 1y ago> Is this neccesarily a bad thing? Yes?
- lakotamelc 1y ago[dead]
- notepad0x90 1y agoFor the sake of discussion, it would be great if you can expand on that.
- fragmede 1y agoOkay, if you want me to write more... The direction we're headed, humanity is going to become utterly isolated pods, never interacting. We're going to end up with humanity being one rich dude, a staff of robots, and some humans under his patronage. The other bit of humanity is a rich woman, with a staff of robots, and some humans under her patronage, because nobody can deal with there being other humans that are as gross and sloppy and suck, just as much as they do. Relationships are hard. They're a lot of work. Not just romantic relationships, but all other kinds of relationships: family, friendship, mentorship, chosen family, colleague, manager, mentee, client, neighbor, teammate, student, citizen, creative partner, audience. Instead of having any kind of relationship with people, I can just hide away, work remote, become hikikomori. Where does that leave humanity? As Ms Deejay says, do you think you're better off alone? Because individual humans no long need to coexist with their neighbors, it means the best and worst will flourish. For every supportive person that accepts gay people, there's another person that wants to stone them. Interacting with lots of other people is the only way to develop nuanced opinions of groups of other people, and without any kind of forced interaction, there won't be any, further isolating everybody from everyone else.
- SJC_Hacker 1y agoVHE has arrived
- causal 1y ago"Study finds..." feels clickbaity to me whenever the study is just "we found some randos on social media doing a thing". With little effort a study could find just about any type of person you want on the Internet.
- jcims 1y agoI have two grandkids, one's 3 years old and one's 9 months old. I feel like I'm not really ready for everything that's going to be vying for their attention in the next couple of decades. My daughter and her husband have good practices in place already IMHO but it's going to be a pernicious beast.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- slumberlust 1y agoDo your best like countless generations before. Perfection is not required.
- hamasho 1y agoI used to despise AIs' ass-kissing responses. It doesn't add any value, and it's so cheap it's almost sarcastic. But now, I feel sad because Codex doesn't praise me even though I come up with a super-clever implementation. I think the part of my brain for feeling flattered when someone praises me didn't exist because no one complimented me. But after ChatGPT and Claude flattered me again and again, I finally developed the circuit for feeling accepted, respected, and loved... It reminds me of when I started stretching after my 30s. First it was nothing but a torture, but after a while I began to feel good and comfortable when my muscles were stretched, and now I feel like shit when I skip the morning stretching.
- theoldgreybeard 1y agoYou should watch this, seems relevant: [ChatGPT Made Me Delusional](https://youtu.be/VRjgNgJms3Q https://youtu.be/VRjgNgJms3Q)
- josefritzishere 1y agoCan someone ask Dante which circle of hell this is?
- 4b11b4 1y agooh man... People are marrying like in world of warcraft... but... with bots?
- kkfx 1y agoAh, ok... I suppose it's very interesting to make them..............
- johnea 1y agoI just find this whole thing so frikin' hilarious! "virtual children"? WTF is that even? Is it sort of like playing with barbie? except you don't even have the barbie doll? Any people able to participate in this delusion, are children, regardless of age. The lost in cyberspace adult-age children are setting themselves up for the greatest consumer exploitation ever experienced in human history...