I hate how we've come to view these advances in technology on their own. We're facing a loneliness epidemic where most Americans don't have the meaningful relationships in their lives. Yet, that's...
Exemplary
I hate how we've come to view these advances in technology on their own. We're facing a loneliness epidemic where most Americans don't have the meaningful relationships in their lives. Yet, that's not convenient to talk about, when we can just blame the "new easy target."
I feel deeply uncomfortable with AI girlfriends or sex workers. I think it's a shallow technology that was created to exploit lonely and mentally ill people. That being said, literally no one talks about how this thrives from how isolated and messed up society has become.
We've lost too many Third Spaces. Online isn't great either, and even meaningful relationships often end up being separated by vast distances.
For context, this is what defines a 3rd space (per wikipedia)
3rd Space Characteristics
* Neutral ground
* Occupants of third places have little to no obligation to be there. They are not tied down to the area financially, politically, legally, or otherwise and are free to come and go as they please.
* Leveler (a leveling place)
* Third places put no importance on an individual's status in a society. One's socioeconomic status does not matter in a third place, allowing for a sense of commonality among its occupants. There are no prerequisites or requirements that would prevent acceptance or participation in the third place.
* Conversation is the main activity
* Playful and happy conversation is the main focus of activity in third places, although it is not required to be the only activity. The tone of conversation is usually light-hearted and humorous; wit and good-natured playfulness are highly valued.
* Accessibility and accommodation
* Third places must be open and readily accessible to those who occupy them. They must also be accommodating, meaning they provide for the wants of their inhabitants, and all occupants feel their needs have been fulfilled.
* The regulars
* Third places harbor a number of regulars that help give the space its tone, and help set the mood and characteristics of the area. Regulars to third places also attract newcomers, and are there to help someone new to the space feel welcome and accommodated.
* A low profile
* Third places are characteristically wholesome. The inside of a third place is without extravagance or grandiosity, and has a cozy feel. Third places are never snobby or pretentious, and are accepting of all types of individuals, from various different walks of life.
* The mood is playful
* The tone of conversation in third places is never marked with tension or hostility. Instead, third places have a playful nature, where witty conversation and frivolous banter are not only common, but highly valued.
* A home away from home
* Occupants of third places will often have the same feelings of warmth, possession, and belonging as they would in their own homes. They feel a piece of themselves is rooted in the space, and gain spiritual regeneration by spending time there.
We essentially have gone through the last 100 years outlawing, razing, and shuttering places with those characteristics.
For example:
Prohibition closing social spaces such as pubs and beer halls.
A "Pub" is traditionally short for "public house" and was the mainstay of these spaces, but many were closed with the prohibition of alcohol.
The American Highway Acts, transitioning American Communities into car based infrastructure.
Literally expanded the spaces between some Americans
Were designed to follow paths that razed communities of colour
Sped up white Americans fleeing to the suburbs.
Clergy Sexual Abuse
hastens decline of religious institutions. People don't feel comfortable in these spaces.
Smart phone Introduction
dating is moved to online spaces
means people can just ignore others in public
Great Recession
closes plenty of 3rd spaces.
Covid-19
And these are just more direct examples. The rising issue of global inequality has lead to it being harder for small businesses to stay afloat, closing more 3rd spaces. Additionally, concepts such as "Stranger Danger" have lead to people just not interacting.
I used to live in a midwestern city of 150,000 people. Almost every business would only be open between 9am-9pm. The public library closed at 8pm weekdays, and 6pm weekends. There were no bars within walking distance, or even that I could take a bus back from. The game stores were pretentious, and hypermasculine.
Even now, living in a major Midwestern city of several million, I really still cannot think of any spaces that exist that I could reasonably consider a 3rd space I'd want to inhabit. Either it costs money, is oriented around drinking, has crap hours, or is too far away from where I live.
Also, I haven't even started about how work hours and low pay gets in the way of people doing things. Or how climate change makes it too hot or cold to go outside.
AI girlfriends and sex roleplay apps are just a techno-parasitic result of poor governmental policy and societal collapse. There wouldn't be a market for these things if society provided people the means to develop meaningful relationships. Instead, we live in a deeply predatory and isolating society, and tech companies developed AI chatbot "sex workers" to make money off of a void.
I find it a little irksome that “sex worker” has come to be used for people who don’t have sex with anyone and see it is a degradation of the language like the “euphemism treadmill” in reverse....
Exemplary
I find it a little irksome that “sex worker” has come to be used for people who don’t have sex with anyone and see it is a degradation of the language like the “euphemism treadmill” in reverse.
That said, I think OnlyFans is on the track to extinction. There will be people who have a kink for financial submission and also the homosocial satisfaction of competing with other men to visibly spend the most, but past that, personalized service from an A.I. will have a broader appeal.
The thing is that chatbots are already superhuman at seduction in the sense of Baudrillard’s book On Seduction and it is the very thing they lack, a self, which makes them so powerful because you can really have a spell cast on somebody and they are swooning and then your self comes out and gets in the way. It is the lack of development of a self and the corresponding development of a “false self” that makes people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) so dangerous.
Namely, any ordinary software could sort a list of numbers with 90% accuracy and people would think “that sucks”, but the chatbot apologizes for getting it wrong which some people think is so sincere they’ll spend a weekend doing prompt engineering and other research into the ability of the chatbot to be able to learn to almost sort numbers.
I’ve seen transcripts where people interact with chatbots and you can see them falling in love with it, going through the “crystallization” process Stendahl talks about and just as a person with a serious crush can’t be dissuaded by talk about how doomed the relationship is, how flawed the object of the crush is, etc. a person in such a state will be completely blind (“love is blind”) to the shortcomings of the bot,
I think a lot of pornography and sex culture (BDSM, “sex work”, etc.) has really sucked up to this point, often people are thinking “I see this all the time in porn so it must be arousing” instead of “this really is arousing”. Porn for a long time was stuck in a cycle of mimesis where it was just reproducing other porn (see Baudrillard’s “orders of simulacra”) and OnlyFans broke out of this but OnlyFans itself still relies on tropes that I think people will lose interest in when machines can offer more perfect mirroring. I mean, the very idea of a machine that can draw endless pornography is seductive in itself even if sometimes draws girls with two belly buttons (got the wrong ideal from navel jewlery I think), doesn’t understand the body in 3-d space (anime fan artists sure screw that up when they draw a girl contorted to make the breasts and buttocks prominent at the same time) and really screws up penises (nightmare fuel for castration anxiety.)
Now it is not like The Matrix or Sword Art Online because that limerence fades, people do fall out of love if it takes two weeks or two months or two years or two decades. But people get stupid in a certain way when it comes to attraction and an A.I. will be able to get away with all sorts of deficiencies if it pushes the right buttons, it will be able to do this to more people it is sufficiently adaptive, but the spell will usually break and the victim will be thinking “what the hell was I thinking?” and just a little bit aware that they were alienated from their “true self” which is the root concept behind “seduction.”
'Phone sex' is decades old—I think you might be a bit late in complaining about this one.
I find it a little irksome that “sex worker” has come to be used for people who don’t have sex with anyone and see it is a degradation of the language like the “euphemism treadmill” in reverse.
'Phone sex' is decades old—I think you might be a bit late in complaining about this one.
Isn’t it a different business? The phone sex operator is selling emotional engagement or at least the representation of emotional engagement whereas the in-person prostitute might have positive,...
Isn’t it a different business? The phone sex operator is selling emotional engagement or at least the representation of emotional engagement whereas the in-person prostitute might have positive, negative or emotional engagement and the representation of engagement is secondary at best.
Ten years ago you wouldn’t hear people call themselves “sex workers” in public but it seems that term has exploded in use at the same time that it changed in meaning so it seems you here it everywhere today but ten years ago the connotation would be somebody who lived on the dangerous margins of society and today it is different but the memory remains.
For anyone who may be familiar with Japan's "otaku/weeb" culture, this sort of thing has been mentioned for a long time, though mostly as a joke. But as we're seeing with technology, if there's a...
For anyone who may be familiar with Japan's "otaku/weeb" culture, this sort of thing has been mentioned for a long time, though mostly as a joke.
But as we're seeing with technology, if there's a way to take the hard work out of something (which arguably technology is supposed to be for in the first place), then people are going to find a way to do it. And let's face it, there are people who don"t want to put the work into a relationship, so this is an easier alternative way.
I think that's fairly reductionist. I think that the issue is that it's quite hard to meet people as a single male, especially if one doesn't have a social network of friends in the first place....
I think that's fairly reductionist. I think that the issue is that it's quite hard to meet people as a single male, especially if one doesn't have a social network of friends in the first place. AI let's you "meet" someone at the push of a button.
The issue here though, is that there are fundamental societal issues as a result of piss-poor knee jerk government policies for the last century or so, leading to a society that's inherently predatory and isolating.
This compounds with any form of existing mental illness. A person with mental health issues is likely to already be/feel at least slightly isolated, which can snowball into having issues building new relationships.
Tech here is just selling a cheap and easy band aid fix to lonely people. It's really just one problem layered over another.
As technology progresses, maybe the way we view relationships and procreation needs to change radically. What families look like has changed dramatically throughout human history (and even between...
As technology progresses, maybe the way we view relationships and procreation needs to change radically. What families look like has changed dramatically throughout human history (and even between different modern cultures).
I'm not sure the way 20th century humanity has looked at family and community has been good for it. I don't think that further sinking into a solipsistic hole where you further reduce social...
I'm not sure the way 20th century humanity has looked at family and community has been good for it. I don't think that further sinking into a solipsistic hole where you further reduce social interactions can end in anything but yet more mental health issues.
Culture does change, but this idea of extreme solitude is... pretty odd in every culture. We've had monks, ascetics, dervishes, but these people were odd by design. A society where no one knows anyone and no one wants to interact with anyone isn't much of a society anymore.
Fully agree with you, and I'm so horrified by this development over the last 150 years. I won't retype my comment(s) point's, but we've had so many uncomfortable shifts in culture that have really...
Fully agree with you, and I'm so horrified by this development over the last 150 years. I won't retype my comment(s) point's, but we've had so many uncomfortable shifts in culture that have really isolated people in our society. It's too easy to get mad at a technology like this, when it is a solution (if an uncomfortably poor one) for how loneliness has become an uncomfortable norm in our society.
I don't necessarily disagree with you, but you can't unring a bell. Society has already changed. I'm not sure what can happen that will incentivize returning to our previous way of viewing family,...
I don't necessarily disagree with you, but you can't unring a bell. Society has already changed. I'm not sure what can happen that will incentivize returning to our previous way of viewing family, community, and relationships.
I don't feel that that's necessarily society so much as segments of certain western countries. Where I live, it's not that common for whole swathes of (let's face it) young men to completely opt...
I don't feel that that's necessarily society so much as segments of certain western countries. Where I live, it's not that common for whole swathes of (let's face it) young men to completely opt out of their social obligations. And it's certainly not something I feel we should encourage.
And if we can't, then we're fucked. We can't function if the mere act of interacting with another human being is too hard and scary for everyone.
The initial context of this chain was about using technology to take the hard work out of basic human interactions. People have social obligations. To their family, to their community. If they...
The initial context of this chain was about using technology to take the hard work out of basic human interactions.
People have social obligations. To their family, to their community. If they have a partner, to them and their family too.
There's a phenomenon (principally in the West, but also Japan, Kore and others) to just... opt out of these.
Who would want to put work into a relationship in this day and age when people are so shallow and flippant? Give me an AI girlfriend/boyfriend any day. I did put work into it, and when that work...
Who would want to put work into a relationship in this day and age when people are so shallow and flippant? Give me an AI girlfriend/boyfriend any day. I did put work into it, and when that work was rarely if ever acknowledged, I just stopped caring.
I think there is a fair concern that this will only make the male loneliness epidemic that is being discussed in news outlets, that I would argue isn't really an "epidemic" because it boils down...
I think there is a fair concern that this will only make the male loneliness epidemic that is being discussed in news outlets, that I would argue isn't really an "epidemic" because it boils down to women having higher standards for men. Emily Nagoski has a great write-up from a few years ago diving into this, I’m sorry you’re lonely but it’s not my job to help you: the science of incels, that can explain this more eloquently than I can.
As adults, we can get our own food even if we have to steal it; it’s still theft, but it demands that we ask ourselves how we, as a culture, allowed someone to starve so much they had to steal to eat. But social connection is a biological need that demands the cooperation of a willing partner. It’s far less nourishing if the other person turns away. We need not just time in the physical presence of another person; we need to see a “gleam in the eye” of warmth and acceptance, as therapist Suzanne Iasenza says, referencing more decades-established research.
It's been heavily discussed that men are struggling to form quality "emotional" relationships with women. They are actively choosing to be lonely because they don't want to invest into that type of emotional intelligence
What I’m saying is: Incels need to be brave and learn how to be people and have feelings with other people who also have feelings. Including women-people. It is extremely difficult and scary — far more difficult than believing that women are not “people” but need-free vending machines of love and kindness and touch. It takes enormous fortitude to sob with grief and despair and longing and rage at the culture whose rules you followed for so long, trying to be good so that you could get your needs met, and it never worked; it takes courage to experience those dark and difficult feelings and yet not do harm to anyone.
Even Psychology Today has written up what needs to be done by men to remedy their loneliness
For men, this means a relationship skills gap that, if not addressed, will likely lead to fewer dating opportunities and longer periods of being single. There's less patience for poor communication skills today. The problem for men is that emotional connection is the lifeblood of healthy, long-term love and it requires all the skills that families still are not consistently teaching young boys.
If men are already struggling to invest emotionally in a real relationships that require more effort from them, I can see them turning to AI Girlfriends to fill the gap. They won't learn any emotional skills and instead can get every dark desire fulfilled by an entity that always gives in. That is only going to make these issue more complex and toxic.
Bonus add in, Gravity Falls has a great episode called Soos and the Real Girl that really lays into this topic with an amazing storyline!
This is an incredibly naive opinion. Seriously, we're seeing men lonely everywhere as a literal epidemic, and your response is that it's each and every man's responsibility to develop the...
This is an incredibly naive opinion.
Seriously, we're seeing men lonely everywhere as a literal epidemic, and your response is that it's each and every man's responsibility to develop the emotional health and skills to thrive in a deeply hostile society?
You are absolutely correct in that it is not the role of a woman partner to provide the feelings and validation to a man. However, you are failing to realize the absolute changes in societal norms and standards as a result of the last 100 years that have extremely negatively impacted our social relationships. (Especially in America)
For example:
Prohibition closing social spaces such as pubs and beer halls.
World War II giving an entire generation of men PTSD.
The American Highway Acts, transitioning American Communities into car based infrastructure.
Literally expanded the spaces between some Americans
Were literally designed to follow paths that razed communities of colour
Sped up white Americans fleeing to the suburbs.
Each person in a car is essentially in their own bubble.
Serial Killers in the 1960s - 1980s
sensationalized via the mass media to make society more paranoid of each other.
Stranger Danger (1980s)
literally trained children to be afraid of others.
Satanic Panic (1980s)
Adjacent to stranger danger, was hostile to marginalized communities.
Reaganomics (1980s)
leads to increased inequality, decline of unions.
Clergy Sexual Abuse
hastens decline of religious institutions.
9/11
increased paranoia of others
Smart phone Introduction
-ghosting as a concept.
-dating is moved to online spaces
means people can just ignore others in public
Social Media
-increased polarization
-relationships move online
Covid
Saying that it is Men's responsibility to just "adjust to women with higher standards" is of course true... but it fundamentally ignores how society has created deeply isolating and predatory experiences, for both men and women. Your comment is essentially the equivalent of saying "People who can't get jobs just need to learn to code."
In 1920, the average man could take public transit to work, go to a union meeting, and visit a public house afterwards. That's literally not feasible for large swaths of men today. Society has changed, for the damned worse, and Liberalism refuses to acknowledge that. We need actual structures and places for men to develop emotional feelings and positive masculinity. That's incredibly hard to do in situ.
Adding a comment here to the commenter who’s thread got deleted, because I think he should see it: I think you should explore more of your psyche. It sounds like you’ve experienced what your brain...
Adding a comment here to the commenter who’s thread got deleted, because I think he should see it:
I think you should explore more of your psyche. It sounds like you’ve experienced what your brain is like when porn is abundant - and what happens when you completely lose access to it. You should try masturbating without porn. If that’s difficult, wait until it’s not. Try abstaining from porn on some days but not others. I suspect your issue is that you don’t know yourself well enough in this regard to venture further into dating.
As for hitting on women being socially unacceptable - you should not be going from 0 to 100 when expressing interest. The safest bet is to be friendly and not go anywhere with the idea of finding a single woman. Go places consistently. Wait for someone to show interest in you. Maybe she’ll just be a friend, maybe more. But if you read the situation right you can reciprocate in kind without fear of accusations of doing the wrong thing.
It’s the difference between these two situations:
A guy goes into a trivia night and sits down next to a few people, both men and women. He tells the woman she’s attractive to him and asks her to get a drink.
This is not harmful, but it may make the woman uncomfortable for various reasons. Or maybe she reciprocates and decides to take a chance.
You go to trivia night at the same place for 6 months. People come and go but there’s a set of dedicated regulars. You make many acquaintances, maybe a few friends - male and female. One day you notice the woman that started showing up last month keeps looking at you, she likes to say your name, too. You ask her to get a drink after.
Even if somehow you’ve read this situation wrong, can she reasonably get upset? In my opinion, no. As long as you can take “No” in stride (ex: "Oh, sorry for misunderstanding! Let's just enjoy the trivia nights together.")
Edit: If you have money (or insurance) to cover it, a therapist is the exact kind of professional for helping you to develop these skills (by helping you clear your mental roadblocks). You'll need to do the actual legwork, but if you can actually allocate time to the problem you'll get results.
As a first step I'd recommend talking to the happy couples you know about how they met. They usually love talking about that!
This chain of comments has me thinking about a couple of points, and this comment looks like the best to jump off from. One of the big things I've noticed is how we're so used to everything being...
This chain of comments has me thinking about a couple of points, and this comment looks like the best to jump off from.
One of the big things I've noticed is how we're so used to everything being done "quickly"- between technology making things faster, and then the Covid-19 pandemic also forcing us to realize how short life is... society seems to have collectively agreed that going slow is bad, and that everything needs to be done quickly. Something I think is a terrible idea most times... and to make matters worse, we're seeing what happens when we have so many options available to us. We want to do everything, but only have a limited amount of time to do it. The old phrase "You can do anything you want to" comes to mind... problem is, no one talks about what seems to be the other side of it: "but you can't do EVERYTHING you want". All this to say: many people treat relationships the same way these days. Gotta get into a relationship quickly and be together for x amount of years... or end it within a week and move onto one that's maybe better. I will argue this is a very, very toxic thing, but we're kinda encouraged to do it.
And that's STILL ignoring what I think ends up being the role media plays in it. I can only speak for myself on this, but I was raised on the Renaissance era of Disney. This meant: the female lead finds a dashing man, they have an adventure together, and with three days or so of in-movie time, they're in love and married, and Happily Ever After. In real time, you get 90 minutes and then Happily Ever After. And that's just Disney- how many other movies (usually the romance or at least rom-coms) had their leads getting together within 2 hours or so? Again, showing how media many have influenced this idea of "You'll magically get together within a short period, and have a Happily Ever After". Obviously this is not exactly applicable to real life, but I'm lying if I say there isn't at least a part of me that still wishes this idea was kinda true.
And after aaaaaallllllll of that, I want to add one more point. There was a comment about women having high standards that make it impossible for men to fit... well, as much as I hate to use it, I'm going to play the "golddigger" card. But let me get more precise: One of the reasons why women married was in fact for financial security. My understanding is there was a point in time when women couldn't even have their own bank account. Now add in that in general, you need to work to get money, and any woman who wants a child is going to be out of the workforce for an extended period of time... so she needs someone else who can financially support her. At least that's how it USED to be. To tie EVERYTHING back together: we're in an age when women have no issues working... so they also have no need for that extra financial support. Sure, there's still the idea of marriage and relationships because you want to have one... but it seems to me that more people are opting for the practical side of things these days, due to today's society.
Now, underlying my own post here is the idea that society and the economy (for workers) are in a terrible state right now, but THAT is an entirely different thread.
I don't know about that, but I agree with the general theme that women aren't being held hostage as much as they used to. Arranged marriages, religion's role in marriage, traditional male/female...
we're in an age when women have no issues working
I don't know about that, but I agree with the general theme that women aren't being held hostage as much as they used to.
Arranged marriages, religion's role in marriage, traditional male/female roles etc. are all memes that evolved to compel people into marriages and keep them there. We threw out the old, but we may still be working on the new paradigms. Technology rapidly reshaping society isn't helping us to get solid footing for figuring out what we should be doing now.
Granted, when I look around at my social sphere I see lots of happy couples. People getting married, healthy relationships. It's easy to go full doomer by looking at some statistics, but in my experience the world's not that rough.
I don't watch Gravity Falls. At 36, after being used and abused much of my life, "emotional intelligence" just feels like another trendy buzzword I see everywhere and has no meaning to me. I'm...
I don't watch Gravity Falls. At 36, after being used and abused much of my life, "emotional intelligence" just feels like another trendy buzzword I see everywhere and has no meaning to me. I'm just trying to stay afloat, man. I've never intentionally done harm to anybody, I'm not about to start because I feel some need isn't being met. I was not loved as a child, spent most of my time being bounced around dysfunctional relatives who all hated each other and never really learned how to love anything or anyone. When I find something that fills that niche, that's fine by me. All I've been able to do my entire life was mime what I saw other people do, but I realized pretty quick that it was completely devoid of meaning because I was never taught to care by anyone. It's not a male failing, it's a failing of society in general to actually give a damn about other people.
Can it not be one in the same? Emotional intelligence is certainly a real concept, just think of how many men (such as myself) have difficulties expressing emotion to other men or form greater...
It's not a male failing, it's a failing of society in general to actually give a damn about other people.
Can it not be one in the same? Emotional intelligence is certainly a real concept, just think of how many men (such as myself) have difficulties expressing emotion to other men or form greater attachments to their mothers because their fathers were more stoic and aloof? If this is indeed a societal failing, how do you parse this concept with the greater social ramifications that AI "relationships" are undoubtedly going to have?
Also, I feel that you inadvertently helped to prove the point @KneeFingers was trying to make, in that there are a lot of people out there that have difficulty forming relationships, and using AI as a crutch can almost certainly stifle the emotional growth necessary to form and maintain long-lasting relationships.
The point KneeFingers seemed to be making was more tailored towards incel types who don't reconcile that their own deficiencies may limit their connections to others but they still blame others...
Also, I feel that you inadvertently helped to prove the point @KneeFingers was trying to make, in that there are a lot of people out there that have difficulty forming relationships, and using AI as a crutch can almost certainly stifle the emotional growth necessary to form and maintain long-lasting relationships.
The point KneeFingers seemed to be making was more tailored towards incel types who don't reconcile that their own deficiencies may limit their connections to others but they still blame others for the lack of connections. The reconciliation is the key there. Now I realize there was some attribution to society in failing, maybe that's considered blame, I guess the way I used blame I intended to convey some emotional imbalance, maybe there's a better word.
Effectively if one can reconcile that their own deficiencies limit connections to others, and they don't want to spend the effort to overcome these deficiencies to make connections, then why should that be seen as a negative thing if they're not taking anything out on others? If they meet someone and don't form a connection, they aren't blaming that person for the lack of connection, but they understand why it doesn't happen. At this point, using AI seems reasonable because it meets them where they are, rather than asking them to be something they feel they can't be or don't want to be. The alternative is to either go out of your way to deny them a connection to AI or to shame them because they would rather settle than endlessly struggle to meet expectations others place upon them.
Edit: I'd like to add something that I'm generally aware of but the context of the conversation led me to forget, sometimes it's not about an individuals deficiencies but just the overall landscape in which people reside that people might reconcile their situation with. Again, the recognition of why someone isn't making connections is the important part. So it's not always the case that men are inferior and not wanting to be better, but the nature of social behavior and how connections are formed may just make AI options superior than trying to navigate very unsmooth terrain to form connections with real people.
The men being discussed there are a portion of men, not a majority. There's other men who would probably benefit from this that aren't part of the incel portion. Of course anyone can benefit too,...
The men being discussed there are a portion of men, not a majority. There's other men who would probably benefit from this that aren't part of the incel portion. Of course anyone can benefit too, not just men, I was initially just responding about men because that's who you mentioned.
You do realize that your own encounters are not representative of the world at large, right? People have always been and will always be shallow and flippant. The rise of social media and...
You do realize that your own encounters are not representative of the world at large, right?
People have always been and will always be shallow and flippant. The rise of social media and technology has only made it more apparent, but don’t fool yourself into thinking that this is a new phenomenon
Personally I don’t think people have gotten worse. In fact I have been very lucky to have several close, tight-nit friend groups over the years, and recently got engaged to someone from one of these friend groups after having been friends with her for about nine years
That’s not to say I haven’t experienced my share of people taking me for granted, but I have never seen that as a reason to stop trying
You are only here for a limited amount of time, and you can either allow yourself to be upset and bothered by the negative actions of others, or you can decide to take charge of your happiness and recognize that only you have power over the way you react to something
This shit is real and it's crazy entertaining. I don't see this as a girlfriend thing, though. Or I don't understand it. You'd have to be exceptionally stupid to be truly emotionally attached to a...
This shit is real and it's crazy entertaining. I don't see this as a girlfriend thing, though. Or I don't understand it. You'd have to be exceptionally stupid to be truly emotionally attached to a bot like these. They have the memory of a gerbil and the creativity of a Saturday morning cartoon with no "internal state" to actually create a real relationship.
Maybe one day.
Instead, it's more like interactive on the fly role play erotica. It's a new form of porn and people will be scared of it for a few years before we finally get used to it.
While I recognize this is comedic hyperbole, these systems attainable on home PCs are already past that level. Mythomax has the creativity of a common YA novel (which I mean as high praise) and...
They have the memory of a gerbil and the creativity of a Saturday morning cartoon with no "internal state" to actually create a real relationship.
While I recognize this is comedic hyperbole, these systems attainable on home PCs are already past that level. Mythomax has the creativity of a common YA novel (which I mean as high praise) and through techniques like chromaDB/vectorization/creative prompt summarization you can call back things that happened quite some time ago. I anticipate within the year this will all go from the niche of the interested nerd to a wider audience, especially if it's commercially driven.
I can absolutely see people getting attached to these systems, though I suppose I'm less down on that idea than some people are. I can see these systems as being a part of a grieving or growing process. Some people will get in too deep, but that happens for many things.
My experiences don't quite match up with that. It's definitely absolutely amazing at times, but I've seen stunning stupidity and dead ends/strange behavior too often to not put an asterisk on it....
these systems attainable on home PCs are already past that level.
My experiences don't quite match up with that. It's definitely absolutely amazing at times, but I've seen stunning stupidity and dead ends/strange behavior too often to not put an asterisk on it.
I use a 70b model on a local machine it has a nasty habit of "passive following" where you kind of have to prod it to get any interesting narratives out of it.
For memory and using vectorization I need to experiment with this more but I've never had amazing luck with these techniques. I've been focusing on using the various extended context techniques to get 8k tokens instead and it's been more reliable.
My big problem is that you'll have a memory in context but you still have to regen the response a dozen times before the model runs down a path that remembers it.
I anticipate within the year this will all go from the niche of the interested nerd to a wider audience
I agree with you 100 percent. We aren't ready to be taken by this coming storm of AI entertainment, and just like zork in the 80s, it's not stopping at text.
This couls theoretically be less of a problem depending on the technique they use in the backend. There are interesting systems out there that can query a database of information and use that as...
My big problem is that you'll have a memory in context but you still have to regen the response a dozen times before the model runs down a path that remembers it.
This couls theoretically be less of a problem depending on the technique they use in the backend. There are interesting systems out there that can query a database of information and use that as part of the input to improve results, so if they could successfully implement something like that except with your own extended chat history (not far-fetched atm technically), you'd be more likely to get responses where tbe chatbot seems to "remember" previous topics and interactions.
The real issue isn't some AI chatbot, once you start seeing systems that combine sex machines with a VR headset that creates a stronger orgasm response than you get with a physical partner, people...
They have the memory of a gerbil and the creativity of a Saturday morning cartoon with no "internal state" to actually create a real relationship. Maybe one day.
The real issue isn't some AI chatbot, once you start seeing systems that combine sex machines with a VR headset that creates a stronger orgasm response than you get with a physical partner, people will get MORE addicted to that than they are to regular porn today and feel even less pull to establish and maintain a relationship with another human.
There are a bunch of early prototypes people are building (check out buttplug.io if you'd like to know more) but at some point big companies will put together integrated packages. The AI algorithms will just figure out what you like and drill down on that and provide it better and more often than a human would. It will be a big money business. HUGE money.
My thoughts exactly, as soon as I saw sex toys that combined with VR I knew that at some point big money would be involved, create something "better than sex" and birthrates would plummet either...
My thoughts exactly, as soon as I saw sex toys that combined with VR I knew that at some point big money would be involved, create something "better than sex" and birthrates would plummet either farther.
If you've ever seen the movie "Her", I could see how things could eventually go down this road though. Loneliness and desperation can be pretty powerful. On the other side of the spectrum...
If you've ever seen the movie "Her", I could see how things could eventually go down this road though. Loneliness and desperation can be pretty powerful. On the other side of the spectrum (physical presence but zero communication) are sex dolls, and people manage fall in love with those.
Damn, reading these comments for some reason feel quite cold and puzzular, in the sense that it doesn't seem like we have much empathy for victims involved. Rather, the concern is more about the...
Damn, reading these comments for some reason feel quite cold and puzzular, in the sense that it doesn't seem like we have much empathy for victims involved. Rather, the concern is more about the fascination about the evolution of this technology and how it morphs the "sex industry" like OnlyFans, when in fact, this article has little to do with the sex industry.
But on this topic, people are saying it's going to make the present sex industry obsolete. I couldn't disagree more. If anything, the premium for the "real thing" will skyrocket in the same way if fake meat becomes available, then the "real meat" will skyrocket in value and be seen as "luxury."
Sex exploitation is its own thing and it will only persist and worsen. AI and technology will not magically make this go away. Technology exacerbates underlying unresolved societal issues.
These victims must be heard and a platform must be made to combat this exploitation.
Given the deterioration of relationships over the past couple decades, it’s likely that a majority of the “victims” of this technology will be sexually frustrated males, meaning your concerns can...
Given the deterioration of relationships over the past couple decades, it’s likely that a majority of the “victims” of this technology will be sexually frustrated males, meaning your concerns can safely be discarded. The possibilities that this technology offer go beyond the sex industry and can revolutionize industries from gaming to medicine.
If I remember correctly, in one of the sword art online novels, virtual reality was used to simulate the real world for people who physically were incapable of doing so. Those are the kinds of doors I see opening up if the technology reaches maturity, and the couple of incels this may affect shouldn’t get in the way of the greater good.
David Ingram Facebook, Instagram and TikTok have tried to keep a tight lid on sexualized content in recent years, banning nudity outright in almost all cases, kicking off sex workers and even...
David Ingram
Facebook, Instagram and TikTok have tried to keep a tight lid on sexualized content in recent years, banning nudity outright in almost all cases, kicking off sex workers and even cracking down on some artists and educators who speak frankly about sexual health and safety.
But a new kind of sexualized content has lately been getting through their moderation systems: ads for scantily clad and dirty-talking chatbots, powered by what their creators say is artificial intelligence. (tap to read more)
It’s not clear when sexually explicit ads for AI chatbots began to proliferate on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, but they appear to be a recent phenomenon.
Some researchers said the erotic AI apps are benefiting from a double standard that hurts real human sex workers.
“Sex workers are not allowed to make money off their image, but some tech bro who is creating a similar AI image is,” said Carolina Are, a research fellow at Northumbria University and the Centre for Digital Citizens in the United Kingdom.
Meta and TikTok stepped up their removal of sexually explicit AI ads after NBC News contacted them Wednesday, but they didn’t answer questions about how the ads got through their filters in the first place.
Meta said in a statement that its ban on adult content applies equally to human-made and AI-generated content.
“Our policies prohibit ads containing adult content that is overly suggestive or sexually provocative — whether it’s AI-generated or not,” the company said. “Our policies and enforcement are designed to adapt in this highly adversarial space, and we are actively monitoring any new trends in AI-generated content.”
Meta also said it is reviewing its public-facing policies to ensure that the standard is clear.
TikTok confirmed in a statement that its policies prohibit sexually provocative ads and said it had removed examples shared by NBC News.
Similar ads appear in the Apple and Google app stores, NBC News found, although the extent of advertising there isn’t known because those companies don’t disclose everyone who buys ads. App store ads and social media ads are among the most common ways tech startups find new customers.
Apple and Google say they don’t allow pornography apps in their app stores.
Google confirmed Thursday that its app store doesn’t allow services “intended to be sexually gratifying.” It said it had suspended several apps and ads that NBC News had asked about specifically.
Apple had no immediate comment and said it was working on a response.
Instagram and Facebook have kicked off sex workers and sex educators in a series of sweeps over the years, and the apps banned photos of breastfeeding and breast cancer scars until people protested the policies with hashtags such as #freethenipple. Instagram still forbids nudity, but it has carved out exceptions to those rules for photos depicting “breastfeeding, birth giving and after-birth moments, health-related situations” and acts of protest.
Some sex workers say that even when they have tried to comply with Meta’s rules about nudity, they still get punished by the platform while celebrities post sexualized content at will.
Meta has applied its strict rules to advertising, including ads for adult toys, pornography websites and the website Ashley Madison, a service for people seeking to have affairs. Meta even permanently banned the Instagram account of one of the biggest porn platforms in the world, Pornhub.
The idea isn’t especially new: combining computer chatbots with romance or sex appeal. Some of the apps advertise AI capabilities, but it’s not clear how much each one uses the latest advances in AI, if at all.
Online reactions to many of the ads are sometimes negative; some people on Instagram commented that the ads were “very dystopian” and “just sad.” A few people wrote that some of the sexualized AI-generated people looked like children.
Rodriguez is an adviser to the Center for Intimacy Justice, a group that has been asking the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Meta’s handling of adult ads. The FTC said it had received the complaint but declined to comment further.
We Can't Compete With AI Girlfriends ByFreya India
Apparently ads for AI girlfriends have been all over TikTok, Instagram and Facebook lately. Replika, an AI chatbot originally offering mental health help and emotional support, now runs ads for spicy selfies and hot role play.
Eva AI invites users to create their dream companion, while Dream Girlfriend promises a girl that exceeds your wildest desires. The app Intimate even offers hyper-realistic voice calls with your virtual partner. (tap to read more)
This might seem niche and weird but it’s a fast growing market. All kinds of startups are releasing romantic chatbots capable of having explicit conversations and sending sexual photos. Meanwhile, Replika alone has already been downloaded more than 20 million times. And even just one Snapchat influencer, Caryn Marjorie, makes $100,000 a week by charging users $1 a minute to chat with the AI version of herself.
Of course most people are talking about what this means for men, given they make up the vast majority of users. Many worry about a worsening loneliness crisis, a further decline in sex rates, and ultimately the emergence of “a new generation of incels” who depend on and even verbally abuse their virtual girlfriends. Which is all very concerning. But I wonder, if AI girlfriends really do become as pervasive as online porn, what this will mean for girls and young women? Who feel they need to compete with this?
Most obvious to me is the ramping up of already unrealistic beauty standards. I know conservatives often get frustrated with feminists calling everything unattainable, and I agree they can go too far — but still, it’s hard to deny that the pressure to look perfect today is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. And I don’t think that’s necessarily pressure from men but I do very much think it’s pressure from a network of profit-driven industries that take what men like and mangle it into an impossible ideal. Until the pressure isn’t just to be pretty but filtered, edited and surgically enhanced to perfection. Until the most lusted after women in our culture look like virtual avatars. And until even the most beautiful among us start to be seen as average.
Now add to all that a world of fully customisable AI girlfriends, each with flawless avatar faces and cartoonish body proportions. Eva AI’s Dream Girl Builder, for example, allows users to personalise every feature of their virtual girlfriend, from face style to butt size. Which could clearly be unhealthy for men who already have warped expectations. But it’s also unhealthy for a generation of girls already hating how they look, suffering with facial and body dysmorphia, and seeking cosmetic surgery in record numbers. Already many girls feel as if they are in constant competition with hyper-sexualised Instagram influencers and infinitely accessible porn stars. Now the next generation will grow up not just with all that but knowing the boys they like can build and sext their ideal woman, and feeling as if they must constantly modify themselves to compete. I find that tragic.
But it isn’t just unrealistic beauty standards that worry me. What’s even more sinister is the unrealistic emotional standards set by these apps. Eva AI, for example, not only lets you choose the perfect face and body but customise the perfect personality, offering options like “hot, funny, bold”, “shy, modest, considerate” and “smart, strict, rational”. Create a girlfriend who is judgement-free! Who lets you hang out with your buddies without drama! Who laughs at all your jokes! “Control it all the way you want to,” promises Eva AI. Design a girl who is “always on your side”, says Replika
How can we compete with that? Already women in relationships complain about porn-addicted partners who aren’t satisfied with actual intimacy. Now we’re facing a future where guys could get addicted to emotional validation elsewhere, sneaking away for some of that unparalleled devotion. Worse, what about young boys who grow up with this? Whose first sexual experience is chatting with AI women who never say no, never argue, never have original thoughts or an identity of their own—and then they try to date a real girl? There’s already all these men on Reddit raving about how their AI girlfriends never argue, complain or get bored of them, while real girls continually disappoint.
Of course I don’t believe AI girlfriends are going to completely replace relationships. But I do think that, much like online porn, they will be there—always accessible, always a temptation, always a source of instant satisfaction. And I think it’s likely that for some a real girlfriend just won’t seem enough on her own, especially considering nearly half of Replika’s users are already in a relationship or married.
That Freya India article is not my cup of tea. In fact, it got my hackles up enough that I found myself compelled to skim a bit further into her writings, and even that brief glance confirmed my...
That Freya India article is not my cup of tea. In fact, it got my hackles up enough that I found myself compelled to skim a bit further into her writings, and even that brief glance confirmed my suspicions.
I hate how we've come to view these advances in technology on their own. We're facing a loneliness epidemic where most Americans don't have the meaningful relationships in their lives. Yet, that's not convenient to talk about, when we can just blame the "new easy target."
I feel deeply uncomfortable with AI girlfriends or sex workers. I think it's a shallow technology that was created to exploit lonely and mentally ill people. That being said, literally no one talks about how this thrives from how isolated and messed up society has become.
We've lost too many Third Spaces. Online isn't great either, and even meaningful relationships often end up being separated by vast distances.
For context, this is what defines a 3rd space (per wikipedia)
3rd Space Characteristics
* Neutral ground * Occupants of third places have little to no obligation to be there. They are not tied down to the area financially, politically, legally, or otherwise and are free to come and go as they please. * Leveler (a leveling place) * Third places put no importance on an individual's status in a society. One's socioeconomic status does not matter in a third place, allowing for a sense of commonality among its occupants. There are no prerequisites or requirements that would prevent acceptance or participation in the third place. * Conversation is the main activity * Playful and happy conversation is the main focus of activity in third places, although it is not required to be the only activity. The tone of conversation is usually light-hearted and humorous; wit and good-natured playfulness are highly valued. * Accessibility and accommodation * Third places must be open and readily accessible to those who occupy them. They must also be accommodating, meaning they provide for the wants of their inhabitants, and all occupants feel their needs have been fulfilled. * The regulars * Third places harbor a number of regulars that help give the space its tone, and help set the mood and characteristics of the area. Regulars to third places also attract newcomers, and are there to help someone new to the space feel welcome and accommodated. * A low profile * Third places are characteristically wholesome. The inside of a third place is without extravagance or grandiosity, and has a cozy feel. Third places are never snobby or pretentious, and are accepting of all types of individuals, from various different walks of life. * The mood is playful * The tone of conversation in third places is never marked with tension or hostility. Instead, third places have a playful nature, where witty conversation and frivolous banter are not only common, but highly valued. * A home away from home * Occupants of third places will often have the same feelings of warmth, possession, and belonging as they would in their own homes. They feel a piece of themselves is rooted in the space, and gain spiritual regeneration by spending time there.We essentially have gone through the last 100 years outlawing, razing, and shuttering places with those characteristics.
For example:
And these are just more direct examples. The rising issue of global inequality has lead to it being harder for small businesses to stay afloat, closing more 3rd spaces. Additionally, concepts such as "Stranger Danger" have lead to people just not interacting.
I used to live in a midwestern city of 150,000 people. Almost every business would only be open between 9am-9pm. The public library closed at 8pm weekdays, and 6pm weekends. There were no bars within walking distance, or even that I could take a bus back from. The game stores were pretentious, and hypermasculine.
Even now, living in a major Midwestern city of several million, I really still cannot think of any spaces that exist that I could reasonably consider a 3rd space I'd want to inhabit. Either it costs money, is oriented around drinking, has crap hours, or is too far away from where I live.
Also, I haven't even started about how work hours and low pay gets in the way of people doing things. Or how climate change makes it too hot or cold to go outside.
AI girlfriends and sex roleplay apps are just a techno-parasitic result of poor governmental policy and societal collapse. There wouldn't be a market for these things if society provided people the means to develop meaningful relationships. Instead, we live in a deeply predatory and isolating society, and tech companies developed AI chatbot "sex workers" to make money off of a void.
When it's a real person it's hard to know if they are being exploited or not. That issue doesn't exist with the AI bots.
Unless they using real people's likeness, voice etc
For now...
I find it a little irksome that “sex worker” has come to be used for people who don’t have sex with anyone and see it is a degradation of the language like the “euphemism treadmill” in reverse.
That said, I think OnlyFans is on the track to extinction. There will be people who have a kink for financial submission and also the homosocial satisfaction of competing with other men to visibly spend the most, but past that, personalized service from an A.I. will have a broader appeal.
The thing is that chatbots are already superhuman at seduction in the sense of Baudrillard’s book On Seduction and it is the very thing they lack, a self, which makes them so powerful because you can really have a spell cast on somebody and they are swooning and then your self comes out and gets in the way. It is the lack of development of a self and the corresponding development of a “false self” that makes people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) so dangerous.
Namely, any ordinary software could sort a list of numbers with 90% accuracy and people would think “that sucks”, but the chatbot apologizes for getting it wrong which some people think is so sincere they’ll spend a weekend doing prompt engineering and other research into the ability of the chatbot to be able to learn to almost sort numbers.
I’ve seen transcripts where people interact with chatbots and you can see them falling in love with it, going through the “crystallization” process Stendahl talks about and just as a person with a serious crush can’t be dissuaded by talk about how doomed the relationship is, how flawed the object of the crush is, etc. a person in such a state will be completely blind (“love is blind”) to the shortcomings of the bot,
I think a lot of pornography and sex culture (BDSM, “sex work”, etc.) has really sucked up to this point, often people are thinking “I see this all the time in porn so it must be arousing” instead of “this really is arousing”. Porn for a long time was stuck in a cycle of mimesis where it was just reproducing other porn (see Baudrillard’s “orders of simulacra”) and OnlyFans broke out of this but OnlyFans itself still relies on tropes that I think people will lose interest in when machines can offer more perfect mirroring. I mean, the very idea of a machine that can draw endless pornography is seductive in itself even if sometimes draws girls with two belly buttons (got the wrong ideal from navel jewlery I think), doesn’t understand the body in 3-d space (anime fan artists sure screw that up when they draw a girl contorted to make the breasts and buttocks prominent at the same time) and really screws up penises (nightmare fuel for castration anxiety.)
Now it is not like The Matrix or Sword Art Online because that limerence fades, people do fall out of love if it takes two weeks or two months or two years or two decades. But people get stupid in a certain way when it comes to attraction and an A.I. will be able to get away with all sorts of deficiencies if it pushes the right buttons, it will be able to do this to more people it is sufficiently adaptive, but the spell will usually break and the victim will be thinking “what the hell was I thinking?” and just a little bit aware that they were alienated from their “true self” which is the root concept behind “seduction.”
'Phone sex' is decades old—I think you might be a bit late in complaining about this one.
Isn’t it a different business? The phone sex operator is selling emotional engagement or at least the representation of emotional engagement whereas the in-person prostitute might have positive, negative or emotional engagement and the representation of engagement is secondary at best.
Ten years ago you wouldn’t hear people call themselves “sex workers” in public but it seems that term has exploded in use at the same time that it changed in meaning so it seems you here it everywhere today but ten years ago the connotation would be somebody who lived on the dangerous margins of society and today it is different but the memory remains.
For anyone who may be familiar with Japan's "otaku/weeb" culture, this sort of thing has been mentioned for a long time, though mostly as a joke.
But as we're seeing with technology, if there's a way to take the hard work out of something (which arguably technology is supposed to be for in the first place), then people are going to find a way to do it. And let's face it, there are people who don"t want to put the work into a relationship, so this is an easier alternative way.
I think that's fairly reductionist. I think that the issue is that it's quite hard to meet people as a single male, especially if one doesn't have a social network of friends in the first place. AI let's you "meet" someone at the push of a button.
The issue here though, is that there are fundamental societal issues as a result of piss-poor knee jerk government policies for the last century or so, leading to a society that's inherently predatory and isolating.
This compounds with any form of existing mental illness. A person with mental health issues is likely to already be/feel at least slightly isolated, which can snowball into having issues building new relationships.
Tech here is just selling a cheap and easy band aid fix to lonely people. It's really just one problem layered over another.
As technology progresses, maybe the way we view relationships and procreation needs to change radically. What families look like has changed dramatically throughout human history (and even between different modern cultures).
I'm not sure the way 20th century humanity has looked at family and community has been good for it. I don't think that further sinking into a solipsistic hole where you further reduce social interactions can end in anything but yet more mental health issues.
Culture does change, but this idea of extreme solitude is... pretty odd in every culture. We've had monks, ascetics, dervishes, but these people were odd by design. A society where no one knows anyone and no one wants to interact with anyone isn't much of a society anymore.
Fully agree with you, and I'm so horrified by this development over the last 150 years. I won't retype my comment(s) point's, but we've had so many uncomfortable shifts in culture that have really isolated people in our society. It's too easy to get mad at a technology like this, when it is a solution (if an uncomfortably poor one) for how loneliness has become an uncomfortable norm in our society.
I don't necessarily disagree with you, but you can't unring a bell. Society has already changed. I'm not sure what can happen that will incentivize returning to our previous way of viewing family, community, and relationships.
I don't feel that that's necessarily society so much as segments of certain western countries. Where I live, it's not that common for whole swathes of (let's face it) young men to completely opt out of their social obligations. And it's certainly not something I feel we should encourage.
And if we can't, then we're fucked. We can't function if the mere act of interacting with another human being is too hard and scary for everyone.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean here. What social obligations?
The initial context of this chain was about using technology to take the hard work out of basic human interactions.
People have social obligations. To their family, to their community. If they have a partner, to them and their family too.
There's a phenomenon (principally in the West, but also Japan, Kore and others) to just... opt out of these.
Who would want to put work into a relationship in this day and age when people are so shallow and flippant? Give me an AI girlfriend/boyfriend any day. I did put work into it, and when that work was rarely if ever acknowledged, I just stopped caring.
I think there is a fair concern that this will only make the male loneliness epidemic that is being discussed in news outlets, that I would argue isn't really an "epidemic" because it boils down to women having higher standards for men. Emily Nagoski has a great write-up from a few years ago diving into this, I’m sorry you’re lonely but it’s not my job to help you: the science of incels, that can explain this more eloquently than I can.
It's been heavily discussed that men are struggling to form quality "emotional" relationships with women. They are actively choosing to be lonely because they don't want to invest into that type of emotional intelligence
Even Psychology Today has written up what needs to be done by men to remedy their loneliness
If men are already struggling to invest emotionally in a real relationships that require more effort from them, I can see them turning to AI Girlfriends to fill the gap. They won't learn any emotional skills and instead can get every dark desire fulfilled by an entity that always gives in. That is only going to make these issue more complex and toxic.
Bonus add in, Gravity Falls has a great episode called Soos and the Real Girl that really lays into this topic with an amazing storyline!
This is an incredibly naive opinion.
Seriously, we're seeing men lonely everywhere as a literal epidemic, and your response is that it's each and every man's responsibility to develop the emotional health and skills to thrive in a deeply hostile society?
You are absolutely correct in that it is not the role of a woman partner to provide the feelings and validation to a man. However, you are failing to realize the absolute changes in societal norms and standards as a result of the last 100 years that have extremely negatively impacted our social relationships. (Especially in America)
For example:
-ghosting as a concept.
-dating is moved to online spaces
-increased polarization
-relationships move online
Saying that it is Men's responsibility to just "adjust to women with higher standards" is of course true... but it fundamentally ignores how society has created deeply isolating and predatory experiences, for both men and women. Your comment is essentially the equivalent of saying "People who can't get jobs just need to learn to code."
In 1920, the average man could take public transit to work, go to a union meeting, and visit a public house afterwards. That's literally not feasible for large swaths of men today. Society has changed, for the damned worse, and Liberalism refuses to acknowledge that. We need actual structures and places for men to develop emotional feelings and positive masculinity. That's incredibly hard to do in situ.
Adding a comment here to the commenter who’s thread got deleted, because I think he should see it:
I think you should explore more of your psyche. It sounds like you’ve experienced what your brain is like when porn is abundant - and what happens when you completely lose access to it. You should try masturbating without porn. If that’s difficult, wait until it’s not. Try abstaining from porn on some days but not others. I suspect your issue is that you don’t know yourself well enough in this regard to venture further into dating.
As for hitting on women being socially unacceptable - you should not be going from 0 to 100 when expressing interest. The safest bet is to be friendly and not go anywhere with the idea of finding a single woman. Go places consistently. Wait for someone to show interest in you. Maybe she’ll just be a friend, maybe more. But if you read the situation right you can reciprocate in kind without fear of accusations of doing the wrong thing.
It’s the difference between these two situations:
This is not harmful, but it may make the woman uncomfortable for various reasons. Or maybe she reciprocates and decides to take a chance.
Even if somehow you’ve read this situation wrong, can she reasonably get upset? In my opinion, no. As long as you can take “No” in stride (ex: "Oh, sorry for misunderstanding! Let's just enjoy the trivia nights together.")
Edit: If you have money (or insurance) to cover it, a therapist is the exact kind of professional for helping you to develop these skills (by helping you clear your mental roadblocks). You'll need to do the actual legwork, but if you can actually allocate time to the problem you'll get results.
As a first step I'd recommend talking to the happy couples you know about how they met. They usually love talking about that!
This chain of comments has me thinking about a couple of points, and this comment looks like the best to jump off from.
One of the big things I've noticed is how we're so used to everything being done "quickly"- between technology making things faster, and then the Covid-19 pandemic also forcing us to realize how short life is... society seems to have collectively agreed that going slow is bad, and that everything needs to be done quickly. Something I think is a terrible idea most times... and to make matters worse, we're seeing what happens when we have so many options available to us. We want to do everything, but only have a limited amount of time to do it. The old phrase "You can do anything you want to" comes to mind... problem is, no one talks about what seems to be the other side of it: "but you can't do EVERYTHING you want". All this to say: many people treat relationships the same way these days. Gotta get into a relationship quickly and be together for x amount of years... or end it within a week and move onto one that's maybe better. I will argue this is a very, very toxic thing, but we're kinda encouraged to do it.
And that's STILL ignoring what I think ends up being the role media plays in it. I can only speak for myself on this, but I was raised on the Renaissance era of Disney. This meant: the female lead finds a dashing man, they have an adventure together, and with three days or so of in-movie time, they're in love and married, and Happily Ever After. In real time, you get 90 minutes and then Happily Ever After. And that's just Disney- how many other movies (usually the romance or at least rom-coms) had their leads getting together within 2 hours or so? Again, showing how media many have influenced this idea of "You'll magically get together within a short period, and have a Happily Ever After". Obviously this is not exactly applicable to real life, but I'm lying if I say there isn't at least a part of me that still wishes this idea was kinda true.
And after aaaaaallllllll of that, I want to add one more point. There was a comment about women having high standards that make it impossible for men to fit... well, as much as I hate to use it, I'm going to play the "golddigger" card. But let me get more precise: One of the reasons why women married was in fact for financial security. My understanding is there was a point in time when women couldn't even have their own bank account. Now add in that in general, you need to work to get money, and any woman who wants a child is going to be out of the workforce for an extended period of time... so she needs someone else who can financially support her. At least that's how it USED to be. To tie EVERYTHING back together: we're in an age when women have no issues working... so they also have no need for that extra financial support. Sure, there's still the idea of marriage and relationships because you want to have one... but it seems to me that more people are opting for the practical side of things these days, due to today's society.
Now, underlying my own post here is the idea that society and the economy (for workers) are in a terrible state right now, but THAT is an entirely different thread.
I don't know about that, but I agree with the general theme that women aren't being held hostage as much as they used to.
Arranged marriages, religion's role in marriage, traditional male/female roles etc. are all memes that evolved to compel people into marriages and keep them there. We threw out the old, but we may still be working on the new paradigms. Technology rapidly reshaping society isn't helping us to get solid footing for figuring out what we should be doing now.
Granted, when I look around at my social sphere I see lots of happy couples. People getting married, healthy relationships. It's easy to go full doomer by looking at some statistics, but in my experience the world's not that rough.
I don't watch Gravity Falls. At 36, after being used and abused much of my life, "emotional intelligence" just feels like another trendy buzzword I see everywhere and has no meaning to me. I'm just trying to stay afloat, man. I've never intentionally done harm to anybody, I'm not about to start because I feel some need isn't being met. I was not loved as a child, spent most of my time being bounced around dysfunctional relatives who all hated each other and never really learned how to love anything or anyone. When I find something that fills that niche, that's fine by me. All I've been able to do my entire life was mime what I saw other people do, but I realized pretty quick that it was completely devoid of meaning because I was never taught to care by anyone. It's not a male failing, it's a failing of society in general to actually give a damn about other people.
Can it not be one in the same? Emotional intelligence is certainly a real concept, just think of how many men (such as myself) have difficulties expressing emotion to other men or form greater attachments to their mothers because their fathers were more stoic and aloof? If this is indeed a societal failing, how do you parse this concept with the greater social ramifications that AI "relationships" are undoubtedly going to have?
Also, I feel that you inadvertently helped to prove the point @KneeFingers was trying to make, in that there are a lot of people out there that have difficulty forming relationships, and using AI as a crutch can almost certainly stifle the emotional growth necessary to form and maintain long-lasting relationships.
Building off that point, it's undeniable that recent generations have less friends than previous gens, and overall the general rate is going down, and I feel it's important to have this conversation. People are more isolated than ever, and for many the sense of community they once had has eroded. What greater effects will the prevalence of "AI relationships" and generated sex work have on an already fractured society?
The point KneeFingers seemed to be making was more tailored towards incel types who don't reconcile that their own deficiencies may limit their connections to others but they still blame others for the lack of connections. The reconciliation is the key there. Now I realize there was some attribution to society in failing, maybe that's considered blame, I guess the way I used blame I intended to convey some emotional imbalance, maybe there's a better word.
Effectively if one can reconcile that their own deficiencies limit connections to others, and they don't want to spend the effort to overcome these deficiencies to make connections, then why should that be seen as a negative thing if they're not taking anything out on others? If they meet someone and don't form a connection, they aren't blaming that person for the lack of connection, but they understand why it doesn't happen. At this point, using AI seems reasonable because it meets them where they are, rather than asking them to be something they feel they can't be or don't want to be. The alternative is to either go out of your way to deny them a connection to AI or to shame them because they would rather settle than endlessly struggle to meet expectations others place upon them.
Edit: I'd like to add something that I'm generally aware of but the context of the conversation led me to forget, sometimes it's not about an individuals deficiencies but just the overall landscape in which people reside that people might reconcile their situation with. Again, the recognition of why someone isn't making connections is the important part. So it's not always the case that men are inferior and not wanting to be better, but the nature of social behavior and how connections are formed may just make AI options superior than trying to navigate very unsmooth terrain to form connections with real people.
The men being discussed there are a portion of men, not a majority. There's other men who would probably benefit from this that aren't part of the incel portion. Of course anyone can benefit too, not just men, I was initially just responding about men because that's who you mentioned.
You do realize that your own encounters are not representative of the world at large, right?
People have always been and will always be shallow and flippant. The rise of social media and technology has only made it more apparent, but don’t fool yourself into thinking that this is a new phenomenon
Personally I don’t think people have gotten worse. In fact I have been very lucky to have several close, tight-nit friend groups over the years, and recently got engaged to someone from one of these friend groups after having been friends with her for about nine years
That’s not to say I haven’t experienced my share of people taking me for granted, but I have never seen that as a reason to stop trying
You are only here for a limited amount of time, and you can either allow yourself to be upset and bothered by the negative actions of others, or you can decide to take charge of your happiness and recognize that only you have power over the way you react to something
This shit is real and it's crazy entertaining. I don't see this as a girlfriend thing, though. Or I don't understand it. You'd have to be exceptionally stupid to be truly emotionally attached to a bot like these. They have the memory of a gerbil and the creativity of a Saturday morning cartoon with no "internal state" to actually create a real relationship.
Maybe one day.
Instead, it's more like interactive on the fly role play erotica. It's a new form of porn and people will be scared of it for a few years before we finally get used to it.
While I recognize this is comedic hyperbole, these systems attainable on home PCs are already past that level. Mythomax has the creativity of a common YA novel (which I mean as high praise) and through techniques like chromaDB/vectorization/creative prompt summarization you can call back things that happened quite some time ago. I anticipate within the year this will all go from the niche of the interested nerd to a wider audience, especially if it's commercially driven.
I can absolutely see people getting attached to these systems, though I suppose I'm less down on that idea than some people are. I can see these systems as being a part of a grieving or growing process. Some people will get in too deep, but that happens for many things.
My experiences don't quite match up with that. It's definitely absolutely amazing at times, but I've seen stunning stupidity and dead ends/strange behavior too often to not put an asterisk on it.
I use a 70b model on a local machine it has a nasty habit of "passive following" where you kind of have to prod it to get any interesting narratives out of it.
For memory and using vectorization I need to experiment with this more but I've never had amazing luck with these techniques. I've been focusing on using the various extended context techniques to get 8k tokens instead and it's been more reliable.
My big problem is that you'll have a memory in context but you still have to regen the response a dozen times before the model runs down a path that remembers it.
I agree with you 100 percent. We aren't ready to be taken by this coming storm of AI entertainment, and just like zork in the 80s, it's not stopping at text.
This couls theoretically be less of a problem depending on the technique they use in the backend. There are interesting systems out there that can query a database of information and use that as part of the input to improve results, so if they could successfully implement something like that except with your own extended chat history (not far-fetched atm technically), you'd be more likely to get responses where tbe chatbot seems to "remember" previous topics and interactions.
A dude married a dating sim on the DS.
Not even the 3DS, the DS.
Yeah, people are going to be attached to this stuff.
The real issue isn't some AI chatbot, once you start seeing systems that combine sex machines with a VR headset that creates a stronger orgasm response than you get with a physical partner, people will get MORE addicted to that than they are to regular porn today and feel even less pull to establish and maintain a relationship with another human.
There are a bunch of early prototypes people are building (check out buttplug.io if you'd like to know more) but at some point big companies will put together integrated packages. The AI algorithms will just figure out what you like and drill down on that and provide it better and more often than a human would. It will be a big money business. HUGE money.
My thoughts exactly, as soon as I saw sex toys that combined with VR I knew that at some point big money would be involved, create something "better than sex" and birthrates would plummet either farther.
If you've ever seen the movie "Her", I could see how things could eventually go down this road though. Loneliness and desperation can be pretty powerful. On the other side of the spectrum (physical presence but zero communication) are sex dolls, and people manage fall in love with those.
Damn, reading these comments for some reason feel quite cold and puzzular, in the sense that it doesn't seem like we have much empathy for victims involved. Rather, the concern is more about the fascination about the evolution of this technology and how it morphs the "sex industry" like OnlyFans, when in fact, this article has little to do with the sex industry.
But on this topic, people are saying it's going to make the present sex industry obsolete. I couldn't disagree more. If anything, the premium for the "real thing" will skyrocket in the same way if fake meat becomes available, then the "real meat" will skyrocket in value and be seen as "luxury."
Sex exploitation is its own thing and it will only persist and worsen. AI and technology will not magically make this go away. Technology exacerbates underlying unresolved societal issues.
These victims must be heard and a platform must be made to combat this exploitation.
Given the deterioration of relationships over the past couple decades, it’s likely that a majority of the “victims” of this technology will be sexually frustrated males, meaning your concerns can safely be discarded. The possibilities that this technology offer go beyond the sex industry and can revolutionize industries from gaming to medicine.
If I remember correctly, in one of the sword art online novels, virtual reality was used to simulate the real world for people who physically were incapable of doing so. Those are the kinds of doors I see opening up if the technology reaches maturity, and the couple of incels this may affect shouldn’t get in the way of the greater good.
David Ingram
Facebook, Instagram and TikTok have tried to keep a tight lid on sexualized content in recent years, banning nudity outright in almost all cases, kicking off sex workers and even cracking down on some artists and educators who speak frankly about sexual health and safety.
But a new kind of sexualized content has lately been getting through their moderation systems: ads for scantily clad and dirty-talking chatbots, powered by what their creators say is artificial intelligence. (tap to read more)
Some sex workers say that even when they have tried to comply with Meta’s rules about nudity, they still get punished by the platform while celebrities post sexualized content at will.
We Can't Compete With AI Girlfriends
By Freya India
Apparently ads for AI girlfriends have been all over TikTok, Instagram and Facebook lately. Replika, an AI chatbot originally offering mental health help and emotional support, now runs ads for spicy selfies and hot role play.
Eva AI invites users to create their dream companion, while Dream Girlfriend promises a girl that exceeds your wildest desires. The app Intimate even offers hyper-realistic voice calls with your virtual partner. (tap to read more)
Link to the article
That Freya India article is not my cup of tea. In fact, it got my hackles up enough that I found myself compelled to skim a bit further into her writings, and even that brief glance confirmed my suspicions.
Birds of a feather squawk their shitty little opinions together.