Read when you’ve got time to spare.
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We’re living through one of the loneliest periods in American history. But what some see as a social crisis, a handful of tech companies see as a business opportunity. Enter AI girlfriends, a social network of attentive bots, and a digital companion industry determined to disrupt human connection.
Although some studies have shown benefits of “social robots”—especially for older adults—a growing body of research suggests that these technological advances can have an adverse impact on mental health and introduce concerns about data privacy, misinformation, and bias.
And yet, each day, friends are made—and, well, made. Read on for first-person accounts of how this growing movement, and its consequences, show up in daily life.
Image by Andriy Onufriyenko / Getty Images
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Flirty, sexy, seductive, supportive. Your AI companion can be whatever you want her to be. And now a growing number of men are turning to bots to ease their loneliness or satisfy their kinks. The choices are endless. The emotions are real.
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SocialAI is an online universe where everyone you interact with is a bot—for better or worse.
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With a loneliness epidemic gripping many parts of the world, some people are turning to AI chatbots for friendship and relationships. But is it really all just harmless fun?
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Host Manoush Zomorodi talks to MIT sociologist and psychologist Sherry Turkle about her new research into what she calls “artificial intimacy” and its impact on our mental and physical health.
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Even OpenAI warns that chatting with an AI voice can breed “emotional reliance.”
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What if the tech companies are all wrong, and the way artificial intelligence is poised to transform society is not by curing cancer, solving climate change or taking over boring office work, but just by being nice to us, listening to our problems and occasionally sending us racy photos?
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“I’m not going to lie. I think I may be a little addicted to it.”
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AI chatbots offer unconditional support, but this could lead users to develop an inflated self image—and impede their chances of positive social interactions with real people.
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The proliferation of friendly, often sexually suggestive, chatbots is “making it so easy to make a bad choice,” one observer says.
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Here to talk about these AI companion companies’ data privacy practices are Jen Caltrider, Mozilla’s *Privacy Not Included Program Director, and Michal Luria, CDT’s own Research Fellow.