Porn is best interpreted as a substitutional tool: it gets the job done, but we’d prefer to experience the real thing. That isn’t exactly how a growing number of people use it today, though. With an unlimited supply of nearly any type of adult content imaginable constantly available on our phones, there are plenty of viewers whose desire for sex has been entirely replaced by a desire for porn.
We’ve reached a point with AI chatbots where we can now talk about it much in the same way. They’ve advanced enough that they’re no longer flimsy, shallow replications of talking with an actual person but a scary-close approximation of a human. With that, there are several critical questions. Is this thing gonna take my job? Is this the end of humanity as we know it? Could dating an AI chatbot be… better than dating a person?
This latter question, at least, was debated recently in the famous West Village basement venue Village Underground. Hosted by nonprofit media organization Open to Debate, the event featured Arizona State University associate professor of psychology Thao Ha arguing in favor of AI dating, and evolutionary biologist, Kinsey Institute executive director and chief scientific adviser to Match.com Justin Garcia arguing against. Journalist Nayeema Raza served as moderator.
Ha took the position that many people are in unfulfilling relationships with partners who do not truly care or listen. An AI chatbot, meanwhile, is carefully designed to ask about your day, remember your interests and develop thoughtful insights. Some might see an AI chatbot as their primary partner, while others use an AI chatbot to become better partners in real-life relationships. She referred to it as “augmented intimacy… not a threat to love,” citing the millions of non-delusional people who are already using them. Garcia, meanwhile, highlighted that “AI cannot beat four million years of evolution,” noting that there is a reason we do not fuck random people on the subway all the time. We are hard-wired to want love with another living, breathing person, and who that person is is not entirely random. While AI might get close at presenting itself as a facsimile of that love, it cannot actually replicate it.
At their core, Ha and Garcia both seem to agree that AI chatbots might serve some romantic utility — even Ha doesn’t believe that AI should replace human relationships, even if it was her task last night to argue as much. But both can see a future in which AI might continue to be a tempting replacement for relationships, much in the same way porn has for sex. When AI chatbots may well soon incorporate a physical reality, allowing their “partners” to experience their touch and feel, maybe they will indeed be capable of being “better” than people to some degree.
But this itself is beside the point. So what if an AI bot can be smarter than an individual, ask better questions or indulge in specific fantasies? At the end of the day, there will always be this one hard truth: none of it is real.
The problem isn’t that AI could become so good that we’d all collectively choose it over a real person. Most people who are able to form real world relationships will continue to do so. But here again, AI may function like porn. It’s worth noting that heavy porn users are more likely than any other group to report being open to AI relationships. Just as some people have chosen porn over sex, there will be people who do choose AI over people — not because it’s better, but because it’s easier. And in turn, they become no closer to achieving the genuine human bonds they crave. The cycle continues.
Theoretically, someone who struggles with forming relationships and therefore turns to AI for companionship could use the experience to foster better social skills. Both Ha and Garcia referenced AI as functioning as a set of “training wheels.” But as Garcia further highlighted, at a certain point, the training wheels have to come off. For all too many, they won’t. Maybe these are the guys who would have socially floundered anyway, guys whose only shot at companionship is the warmth of a computer. Or maybe it’s precisely this type of technological isolation that breeds them. Is dating an AI chatbot better than dating a real person? I’m not sure it’s even worth it to ask.
