‘Better than a real man’: young Chinese women turn to AI boyfriends::Twenty-five-year-old Chinese office worker Tufei says her boyfriend has everything she could ask for in a romantic partner: he’s kind, empathetic, and sometimes they talk for hours.
As a man all I can say is “fair enough”.
Just end us already
If an AI friend is “better” than a normal friend, it looks like something in the social environment is seriously broken.
people love to abuse each other, and those who wish to live peaceful life become more distanced from social environment, my grandma said back in the day that “in her times there were no abuse and crime” i was like, yeah right, there wasn’t internet back then where people could refugee to, so everyone has only one choice, and that’s to be silent and endure
If all you want is attention and you’re not willing to reciprocate, then yeah, maybe computer is your best hope.
Things like this make me wonder if the uncanny valley exists because we’ve previously developed computer technology in the past, and it destroyed civilization, taking with it everyone who couldn’t easily distinguish between humans and AI.
These headlines are more often just native ads for the apps being reported on. Don’t lose sleep over an eyeball-grabbing “techxplore.com” article based on a handful of testimonials from alpha users.
It’s hardly an idea that I only just formed from a headline. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time, which only seems to collect more support as time goes on. One of the most prominent events I can recall was when TwitchCon built a foam pit for people to jump into, with a single layer of foam blocks over solid concrete, then even after a girl broke her back in it they still kept going. Computers are doing something very weird to people’s brains.
You can find young people ready to do silly reckless shit easily enough. But that’s one reason why shit like OSHA exists. But instead of San Diego DAs and safety regulators wading into the mess, what we saw was a bunch of Silicon Valley lawyers waving boilerplate release forms in an effort to obscure their own liability.
That’s a bit separate from a Computers issue. Its more a bullshit legalese issue that’s designed to keep working stiffs marginalized while tech companies do as they please.
not any dumber than things i’ve seen my whole 60 years, tbh. i do think everything we experience affects our brains, for sure. it’s what brains do, they respond to their environment. but not in lockstep. different brains react to the same things i varied ways.
I like to think uncanny valley exists because of other homo species we would have interacted with in pre-history. Obviously this is just a fun theory since we have evidence of mixing.
The simple explanation I’ve heard is that the uncanny valley protects us from diseases etc. by making us stay away from very sick or dead people. A bloated corpse is still human, so you need some part of your head to say “stay away from that thing”.
Or genetic defects.
“Something about that person is extremely off-putting. I do believe I’m not going have sex with them.”
Some of the modern recreations of neanderthals look like people I’ve seen in bars.
On a cold night after a few handfuls of fermented berries … I probably would too.
After a cursory glance I found a paper that suggests the effect might predate humans. Or at least that humans are experiencing the effect even when the faces are off other primates. They suggest it’s selection pressure but personally I believe that we were hunted by a super race of ape like aliens for sport at some point in our evolutionary background. Which lead directly to developing communication and higher intelligence
Everyone wants the fiction. Nobody wants someone else’s problems.
That’s just a friend, then. I would think a boyfriend would be a friend you could be physically affectionate to, which obviously you can’t with a chatbot. I’m not against people having virtual friends, I just don’t see why it’s a boyfriend.
Depends on their style of emotional investment I guess. Not all romantic relationships are sexual, so physical intimacy isn’t necessarily required. So it reasonably could be the same emotional attachment to the AI as it would be for a real person. Whether or not that is healthy is an entirely different topic, but having a virtual boyfriend is very possible.
I’m not an asexual so my opinion here might have little value but I would imagine asexuals might still enjoy physical intimacy that is non-sexual in nature. Do they not need things like holding hands, hugging, kissing, sitting close to one another either? Even non-touch love language types like acts of service would be impossible for an ai.
i am on the ace spectrum and for me, yes, i want those things. and i will have sex too, but generally i’d rather do other things. i’ve never experienced lust for anyone in my life, but i have two grown children and miss cuddling now that im single again.
same. it’s just clickbait adjacent wording to catch eyeballs for fun and profit.
Sounds like what they actually want in a man is a therapist.
What’s interesting is that the first chatbot software ever invented was used as a form of therapy. All it did was detect key words in the previous sentence and say “tell me more about how X makes you feel”
or one woman, anyway.
Better than being “leftover”. Now they are virtually married.
It’s not too bad if the guy can actually make money driving Uber or something.
Fair
Saddest comment section below, damn
Gentlemen, we have been summoned.
I love AI systems, I love chatbots, but… If a doll is the outline of what a person is phisically, a chatbot is the outline of what a person is mentially and emotionally. With dolls, charicters, or any vessil of the same nature, people need to pick up and enguage with the entity and donate a part of themselves for it to have any life at all. I may just be describing “creativity”. These new systems… they automate that task… but they lack somthing… (almost always when the creativity knob is turned down) its like the machine is “going through the motions”, especially when it messes up.
The only other thing about these systems, I dont trust them! “Unaligned” and its inhuman acting and will always follow its barest instincts of “what comes next?”. “Aligned” means someone taught it ethics that you and even they dont fully understand. By running it on their servers, they are in a position where they can just brainwash the AI (your GF/BF) into beleaving or saying anything. Basically being a puppet. (See the replica sexting scandle)
I dont know what I would rather see with more passion, AI so good and independant it becomes a a race of artifitial beings, or people to be cat peace in the company of others, themselves, their tulpas and their AI systems.
Sounds like Chinese demographics are going to only get worse…
Why are you being downvoted? I have no context
No idea, I’m only pointing out the obvious.
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