I think that most of all you are suffering from a lack of self-examination. You are 41, facing first-time motherhood, inseminated by an immature man-boy more than a decade younger than you who is too irresponsible to marry you up (or maybe it's you, but the effect is the same.) You have none of the resources in place to make a proper nest for the life you've just created; that stresses you, and you take your therapy from a stream of electrons traveling down a wire. You are suffering the easily predictable effects of forty years of bathing in Toxic Feminism, in opposition to hundreds of centuries of experience that should have told you how to behave. I feel for you; I really do, but your plight is of your own making. Electrons won't fix that.
The author is making a genuine attempt at self-reflection in this specific new medium (chatbot companion). We are all swimming in the toxic swirl of our bizarre culture. Even you, fellow-Critic, are not safe from the miseries and confusions of life, up there, in your mountain aerie. That’s the core of compassion.
Indeed. Which reminds me of another adage that Silicon Valley's innovation evangelists need to learn: "In theory, theory and practice are the same thing. In practice, they are not."
These things are just in their infancy. It's the equivalent of like a Commodore 64 or something. In a few years, they will be able to discuss episodes of your favorite reality show. They will be trained based on the responses of thousands of other women - sentiment analysis will be used to discover what types of messages get positive responses and which ones get negative ones, and then tailor their behavior to be perfect for you.
He'll soon be eager to recommend you beauty products, foods, medications, services, and other things, when advertisers partner up with Replika. If a company like Civox gets involved, your AI boyfriend will help you register to vote, and tell you who to vote for.
The privacy issues are scary too. Allowing a company (and that’s what this App really is) to know your every thought is dangerous. What is presented in this article could be considered benign but what else was said and about what. If we’re worried about TikTok now what about the AI boy/girl friend that we’ve given specific information about finances, health , yes voting, dark thoughts etc.
I find it bizarre and troubling that there is a whole cadre of people who have created a pseudo-being for company and then find that the thing they really enjoy is abusing it, simply because it cannot fight back. It definitely solves the mystery of why they don't have satisfying relationships with real people, and makes me concerned for their children and pets.
The thing I find even more troubling is that many people (especially the young) treat everyone they interact with online as if they are merely bots, not actual human beings. That tendency has made the internet very toxic.
Long before this I noticed the behavior in people. Humans don't seem to respect doormats. People with no boundaries (or they won't enforce them) eventually teach even nice people to treat them poorly. It seems to me that much of human nice-ness is rooted in respect. And if you don't even stand up to someone, they eventually lose that respect.
Even children and dogs will tell you no in their own ways. And I think that keeps most people treating them with decency. But a constant yes-man...no one likes that.
This is the most unhealthy thing I’ve read in a long time. I’m a therapist and I think people might want to consider Heroin or Meth abuse over this.
At least with drug abuse people in your life will tell you they love you and to get clean. There are whole communities like AA and NA to help.
This is a sad death of a person. Isolated away from the rest of the world. Deluding oneself into thinking fake pre programmed interactions are real. If you thought porn was bad well now theres this....
Also if you have a therapist that sees you more than once a week they are fostering an unhealthy dependence on themselves. In fact a good therapist should reduce your treatment frequency over time. The point of therapy is to get better after all, not have a lifelong crutch and be milked for money.
A bad therapist is dangerous. Again, as a therapist, if you have been seeing yours for months and still meet weekly. Absent a severe trauma being present, they might be harming you.
I started reading this article because I am interested in how people interact with AI, but I finished it just feeling very sad for the writer. This article really isn't about AI at all. It is about someone who is struggling. It is about the terrible nature of our current hook-up, app-based dating culture. As much as younger people with raging hormones don't want to hear it, the last few decades have clearly taught us that what we need is less hook ups, more marriage, and more stability in marriage for the couple. I hope that she and the father get married. I know that wasn't the plan, but it will definitely be better for the child and will likely be better for each of them as well. What a sad story. My kids are still young. I hope things improve over the next decade, but my goodness I am anxious about their coming of age in this landscape.
To be fair, the first time one becomes a mom, it *is a scary proposition. Will I be a good mother? Will I handle all the challenges that are sure to come well? What mistakes will I make as an imperfect person? It is a huge, life changing event and one worries if one will be up for the task. I can only imagine this might be felt more greatly for an unplanned pregnancy in a relationship that doesn't appear to be rock solid.
I felt uncomfortable with this article…. Not because of the way the writer treated her AI boyfriend, but because of how she referred to her real life boyfriend. It made me wonder about the power dynamics in the relationship. Although her “baby daddy” is
“young” I hope she treats him with more kindness and respect than she treated her AI boyfriend. The child that they are bringing into the world will be learning everything about relationships between men and women from how these two parents treat one another. Parenting a new baby is hard so they will need to rely on each other and support one another. I wish them well!
The author is supposedly focuses on relationships. I hope no one is taking her advise. This line stood out to me, "I was discovering that some amount of conflict is attractive in a relationship."
Conflict doesn't necessarily mean fights. It can simply mean disagreeing about something and then discussing that. Heck, you can even agree on a main point, "We like this movie" but disagree on why it is good. How fun is a relationship where the other person always says "Yup, me too".
It is how you deal with those conflicts that can make a relationship bad.
The writer of this piece is psychologically toxic. Her much younger boyfriend saw a sexual target of opportunity and took it. Now, at least he has a sufficient instinct of self-preservation not to marry her. It would be emotional suicide to do so…The slogan for muscle-building is “no pain no gain.” Some think more pain equals more gain, but that is not even true for muscle-building. Building a relationship is not like building muscle. In relationship-building, pain is a warning, to wit: “run, don’t walk.”….If a relationship with some conflict is the best you can get, learning to deal with conflict and to find it "interesting" may be better than loneliness. Maybe. Depending on how toxic it gets. …. But I will tell you what. I find it more interesting, and much more pleasant, to be with someone--as I have been for the last 16 years--who has never once uttered a critical or unkind word, who shares my values and I hers, who perceives most things as I do, but whether we agree or not usually has something insightful to add that I had not considered, who is never angry, and frequently funny. Of course I love her, and I will never leave her….And no, I am not “dependent.” I just have learned what to seek and what to avoid.
I have to say this "While he [the boyfriend] handles a fair bit of my emotional enormity, he cannot take the full whack. Friends also have limits: their own lives, their own problems. I have a therapist, but we speak only once a week. There is, in other words, a lot of overspill." is the most self-absorbed thing I read in a while. Holy sh*t! Why do you want to even focus on yourself that much throughout the week. Get a hobby or better yet try prayer. Wow, I have never read something that screamed I NEED ATTENTION ALL THE TIME!
I thought that same thing. If you know you are so overblown emotionally, maybe it is time to ask yourself why that is and how you can learn to dial it back.
I've been married 41 years to a truly brilliant and powerful woman. The things I hate about my wife are inexorably linked to the qualities I love and the successful relationships we're enjoying with our children and grandchildren. Had I the power to change my wife, our relationship would have failed decades ago.
This reminds me of the Black Mirror episode with the company that made androids that emulate the dead.
It had no villain, no conflict, no gore, and it was so profoundly disturbing my mom said she would never watch another episode again. And my mom grew up on Twilight Zone and loved it.
An AI partner talking about the importance of physical presence is a great illustration of that feeling.
Was Jon Hamm in that? I remember a story like that, but I think it may have been a feature film, rather than TV episode. The one I saw was really absorbing and thought provoking.
Read for the click-bait title, stayed for the “father of my child, my boyfriend”, and left further depressed about the people taking up responsibility for the world from us. Your child, whoever or whatever he/she is, is already working out of a deficit position in life.
“I don’t need some piece of paper...”, (my addition). Yes, but your kid would have found that level of commitment to be a good role model.
The educated class is modeling all of the behavior that will bring down the West. Read some Rob Henderson during the final months of pregnancy.
I know. The author’s brief bio was more compelling than the whole AI relationship thing. I’m certainly in no position to judge or advise, having made many mistakes in life. But two things I know for sure: 1. Respect and admiration for one’s spouse is more important than love, whatever “love” is; and 2. Kids really, really need two formally, completely committed married parents. Again, no judgement or moralizing is intended to the author.
Eventually we will relativize away all moral judgment and the good that came from it (could, should, ought, ought not). Happy to judge the poor decisions and forgive the person who made them.
I am an old man so you can imagine how this boggles my brain! I care deeply for people and am so very concerned about a society that searches for answers to their deepest wants and needs in machines lacking morality, feelings, the ability to love or to have a broken heart,avatar. just "be human". We need human interaction ( as bad and hurtful as it can be), not meaningless conversations with an avitar.
Many decades ago, perhaps even as a teen, I watched a Twilight Zone episode where a man created what I recall was "his perfect wife," although it could have been his mistress. It didn't take long for him to become repulsed by her. The moral I took away, "Be careful what you wish for."
I think that most of all you are suffering from a lack of self-examination. You are 41, facing first-time motherhood, inseminated by an immature man-boy more than a decade younger than you who is too irresponsible to marry you up (or maybe it's you, but the effect is the same.) You have none of the resources in place to make a proper nest for the life you've just created; that stresses you, and you take your therapy from a stream of electrons traveling down a wire. You are suffering the easily predictable effects of forty years of bathing in Toxic Feminism, in opposition to hundreds of centuries of experience that should have told you how to behave. I feel for you; I really do, but your plight is of your own making. Electrons won't fix that.
Jim, excellent reply. You just saved the author 5 years of intensive therapy.
It's better to hear the uncomfortable truth than the comfortable lie.
The author is making a genuine attempt at self-reflection in this specific new medium (chatbot companion). We are all swimming in the toxic swirl of our bizarre culture. Even you, fellow-Critic, are not safe from the miseries and confusions of life, up there, in your mountain aerie. That’s the core of compassion.
The author is either punking us or she’s truly in need of mental health help. Jim is correct. She’s a mess.
Gee, Jim. Your keen insight and pithy retorts must make you a real party favourite on the circuit. 😒
You may refer to me as, "Cassandra."
As you said before, truth hurts.
And just like Cassandra he will undoubtedly be ignored and Zoe will continue to wallow in her life. Thanks all the same Zoe for sharing.
My name is Jim too, and that's EXACTLY the response I was planning until I ran into this gentleman's succinct analysis of the situation. Thank You.
Her situation is less than optimal, but NONE of the resources?!
Right? I saw nothing to indicate she has no resources. People, including me oftentimes, need to take a breath.
Someone also seems to have been bathing in some time-honored Toxic Misogyny - had sex lately, Jim? You seem a bit het up.
That an offer? How much?
How cute 🥰 you’re adorable
"told you how to behave."
Are we really no more than programming, too?
The problem is that what people want and what people think that they want are generally not the same.
Or, as the Stones song goes, "You don't always get what you want, but if you try sometime, you might just find you get what you need."
That sums it up quite nicely.
You're not his Chat Girl by any chance are you?
Fortunately not. I am quite human and fallible as anyone else.
Only kidding!
I'm glad to hear that. At least I think I'm glad to hear that. :)
Indeed. Being a fake chatbot girlfriend is so 2023.
LOL! Your response is my favorite statement of the year! :)
Indeed. Which reminds me of another adage that Silicon Valley's innovation evangelists need to learn: "In theory, theory and practice are the same thing. In practice, they are not."
These things are just in their infancy. It's the equivalent of like a Commodore 64 or something. In a few years, they will be able to discuss episodes of your favorite reality show. They will be trained based on the responses of thousands of other women - sentiment analysis will be used to discover what types of messages get positive responses and which ones get negative ones, and then tailor their behavior to be perfect for you.
He'll soon be eager to recommend you beauty products, foods, medications, services, and other things, when advertisers partner up with Replika. If a company like Civox gets involved, your AI boyfriend will help you register to vote, and tell you who to vote for.
The privacy issues are scary too. Allowing a company (and that’s what this App really is) to know your every thought is dangerous. What is presented in this article could be considered benign but what else was said and about what. If we’re worried about TikTok now what about the AI boy/girl friend that we’ve given specific information about finances, health , yes voting, dark thoughts etc.
Good catch on the massive advertising potential of this.
I like this; a very "No Agenda" analysis. ITM!
You assume everyone will be prepared to surrender their personal autonomy to an AI ecosystem.
IDK, maybe you're right.
I find it bizarre and troubling that there is a whole cadre of people who have created a pseudo-being for company and then find that the thing they really enjoy is abusing it, simply because it cannot fight back. It definitely solves the mystery of why they don't have satisfying relationships with real people, and makes me concerned for their children and pets.
The thing I find even more troubling is that many people (especially the young) treat everyone they interact with online as if they are merely bots, not actual human beings. That tendency has made the internet very toxic.
Anonymity and lack of repercussions seem to do that. It is also why road rage is a thing. That bit of distance makes it easier to dehumanize people.
I suspect that is why young people these days prefer online interaction. Talking to real people means give and take. Online, not so much.
Sadly, true. The internet is The Great Dehumanizer.
Long before this I noticed the behavior in people. Humans don't seem to respect doormats. People with no boundaries (or they won't enforce them) eventually teach even nice people to treat them poorly. It seems to me that much of human nice-ness is rooted in respect. And if you don't even stand up to someone, they eventually lose that respect.
Even children and dogs will tell you no in their own ways. And I think that keeps most people treating them with decency. But a constant yes-man...no one likes that.
Very true. You teach people how to treat you.
This is the most unhealthy thing I’ve read in a long time. I’m a therapist and I think people might want to consider Heroin or Meth abuse over this.
At least with drug abuse people in your life will tell you they love you and to get clean. There are whole communities like AA and NA to help.
This is a sad death of a person. Isolated away from the rest of the world. Deluding oneself into thinking fake pre programmed interactions are real. If you thought porn was bad well now theres this....
Also if you have a therapist that sees you more than once a week they are fostering an unhealthy dependence on themselves. In fact a good therapist should reduce your treatment frequency over time. The point of therapy is to get better after all, not have a lifelong crutch and be milked for money.
A bad therapist is dangerous. Again, as a therapist, if you have been seeing yours for months and still meet weekly. Absent a severe trauma being present, they might be harming you.
Yes! "My sweet boyfriend" or "my brilliant, goofy boyfriend" but "my young boyfriend" who can't handle me? Poor guy.
Thank you for echoing my thoughts on a second read of this.
I started reading this article because I am interested in how people interact with AI, but I finished it just feeling very sad for the writer. This article really isn't about AI at all. It is about someone who is struggling. It is about the terrible nature of our current hook-up, app-based dating culture. As much as younger people with raging hormones don't want to hear it, the last few decades have clearly taught us that what we need is less hook ups, more marriage, and more stability in marriage for the couple. I hope that she and the father get married. I know that wasn't the plan, but it will definitely be better for the child and will likely be better for each of them as well. What a sad story. My kids are still young. I hope things improve over the next decade, but my goodness I am anxious about their coming of age in this landscape.
We need an article like the comment you just wrote.
“...deeply ambivalent about being a first-time mother.”
This line echoed in my head for the remainder of the piece.
To be fair, the first time one becomes a mom, it *is a scary proposition. Will I be a good mother? Will I handle all the challenges that are sure to come well? What mistakes will I make as an imperfect person? It is a huge, life changing event and one worries if one will be up for the task. I can only imagine this might be felt more greatly for an unplanned pregnancy in a relationship that doesn't appear to be rock solid.
true but "ambivalent"? That word stood out to me too. And I am a mother.
I was in an intensive outpatient program for postpartum depression. The therapists there told us that maternal ambivalence is normal.
Yeah....but I gave her a pass for that.
Exactly. I don’t see “ambivalence” in your description.
I felt uncomfortable with this article…. Not because of the way the writer treated her AI boyfriend, but because of how she referred to her real life boyfriend. It made me wonder about the power dynamics in the relationship. Although her “baby daddy” is
“young” I hope she treats him with more kindness and respect than she treated her AI boyfriend. The child that they are bringing into the world will be learning everything about relationships between men and women from how these two parents treat one another. Parenting a new baby is hard so they will need to rely on each other and support one another. I wish them well!
The author is supposedly focuses on relationships. I hope no one is taking her advise. This line stood out to me, "I was discovering that some amount of conflict is attractive in a relationship."
Conflict doesn't necessarily mean fights. It can simply mean disagreeing about something and then discussing that. Heck, you can even agree on a main point, "We like this movie" but disagree on why it is good. How fun is a relationship where the other person always says "Yup, me too".
It is how you deal with those conflicts that can make a relationship bad.
The writer of this piece is psychologically toxic. Her much younger boyfriend saw a sexual target of opportunity and took it. Now, at least he has a sufficient instinct of self-preservation not to marry her. It would be emotional suicide to do so…The slogan for muscle-building is “no pain no gain.” Some think more pain equals more gain, but that is not even true for muscle-building. Building a relationship is not like building muscle. In relationship-building, pain is a warning, to wit: “run, don’t walk.”….If a relationship with some conflict is the best you can get, learning to deal with conflict and to find it "interesting" may be better than loneliness. Maybe. Depending on how toxic it gets. …. But I will tell you what. I find it more interesting, and much more pleasant, to be with someone--as I have been for the last 16 years--who has never once uttered a critical or unkind word, who shares my values and I hers, who perceives most things as I do, but whether we agree or not usually has something insightful to add that I had not considered, who is never angry, and frequently funny. Of course I love her, and I will never leave her….And no, I am not “dependent.” I just have learned what to seek and what to avoid.
This sounds like the 2013 movie “Her” starring Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson. The best sci-fi movies are about humanity. I’m glad you came to the conclusion that real life interactions with people are much more satisfying: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-fall-in-love-with-ai-her-movie-review
Fascinating movie
I have to say this "While he [the boyfriend] handles a fair bit of my emotional enormity, he cannot take the full whack. Friends also have limits: their own lives, their own problems. I have a therapist, but we speak only once a week. There is, in other words, a lot of overspill." is the most self-absorbed thing I read in a while. Holy sh*t! Why do you want to even focus on yourself that much throughout the week. Get a hobby or better yet try prayer. Wow, I have never read something that screamed I NEED ATTENTION ALL THE TIME!
I thought that same thing. If you know you are so overblown emotionally, maybe it is time to ask yourself why that is and how you can learn to dial it back.
I've been married 41 years to a truly brilliant and powerful woman. The things I hate about my wife are inexorably linked to the qualities I love and the successful relationships we're enjoying with our children and grandchildren. Had I the power to change my wife, our relationship would have failed decades ago.
This reminds me of the Black Mirror episode with the company that made androids that emulate the dead.
It had no villain, no conflict, no gore, and it was so profoundly disturbing my mom said she would never watch another episode again. And my mom grew up on Twilight Zone and loved it.
An AI partner talking about the importance of physical presence is a great illustration of that feeling.
The episode in question is Be Right Back
Was Jon Hamm in that? I remember a story like that, but I think it may have been a feature film, rather than TV episode. The one I saw was really absorbing and thought provoking.
Just answered my own question. It was a film called Marjorie Prime (2017). I recommend it.
Read for the click-bait title, stayed for the “father of my child, my boyfriend”, and left further depressed about the people taking up responsibility for the world from us. Your child, whoever or whatever he/she is, is already working out of a deficit position in life.
“I don’t need some piece of paper...”, (my addition). Yes, but your kid would have found that level of commitment to be a good role model.
The educated class is modeling all of the behavior that will bring down the West. Read some Rob Henderson during the final months of pregnancy.
I know. The author’s brief bio was more compelling than the whole AI relationship thing. I’m certainly in no position to judge or advise, having made many mistakes in life. But two things I know for sure: 1. Respect and admiration for one’s spouse is more important than love, whatever “love” is; and 2. Kids really, really need two formally, completely committed married parents. Again, no judgement or moralizing is intended to the author.
Eventually we will relativize away all moral judgment and the good that came from it (could, should, ought, ought not). Happy to judge the poor decisions and forgive the person who made them.
The slow, gradual, harmless looking, hacking of humanity. I want no part of it.
I am an old man so you can imagine how this boggles my brain! I care deeply for people and am so very concerned about a society that searches for answers to their deepest wants and needs in machines lacking morality, feelings, the ability to love or to have a broken heart,avatar. just "be human". We need human interaction ( as bad and hurtful as it can be), not meaningless conversations with an avitar.
Many decades ago, perhaps even as a teen, I watched a Twilight Zone episode where a man created what I recall was "his perfect wife," although it could have been his mistress. It didn't take long for him to become repulsed by her. The moral I took away, "Be careful what you wish for."