We Can't Compete with AI Girlfriends

As a new parent, handling all this is terrifying. I do try and remind myself that we had games and grainy 56k porn far too young and turned out ok, but there was no instagram, and certainly no submissive A.I. avatars.

It’s not like this has to go badly, it could allow people an avenue of expression and development currently denied. But it’s not like teenage boys conditioned to abundant free porn has gone particularly well for young women.

This is overblown as you're not actually competing over someone who's using an AI girlfriend since they have removed themselves from the dating pool. If someone's using it while in a real relationship, that should be addressed in therapy.

Perhaps they want the men they're not interested in to go pair up with other women, decreasing the competition for the men they are interested in?

I’m going to be that guy and say I think there’s a very good chance that all of the negative consequences cited in the article will have tangible impacts on civil society, but all of the hopeful predictions about a pendulum swing are poorly founded at best and probably not going to be significant effects.

Everyone knows lots of sugar is terrible for your health. People continue to consume vast quantities of sugar because it offers a cheap, rewarding stimulus.

Same will go for synthetic relationships. Sure, some people will step away from the easy fix, but most of us just aren’t that health conscious, patient, or thoughtful.

It’s going to absolutely wreck men, who will not only fail to learn how to relate to an actual woman with actual needs, but also will learn that their actions or lack thereof have near zero consequences in their carefully curated AI bubble.

Meanwhile, both men and women will be competing with impossible standards of emotional generosity and needlessness, and the ability to relate to other people as valid and relevant beings is going to drake a huge hit, along with basic societal cooperation as humans turn away from each other and toward the machines.

I can always depend on these kinds of articles for the sin of omission. Unrealistic standards for women ... nevermind the standards women have for men.

Pre-web, I worked at a dating service. I've mentioned this before here. Women rated their preferences as having a higher importance than men did, over and over again, and on the most depressingly stereotyped vectors: money and height. Then you have your deleted OKCupid blogpost about how women rated eighty percent of men as being "below average" in looks. Then you will hear about the three sixes (figures income, feet of height, and ...) The unrealistic standards affect both sexes and pretending that they do not is quite literally part of the problem. These products can exist because men who are more or less invisible in the dating market still crave affection and attention. The only advice seems to be "date harder, loser."

Entire economies are driven by men attempting to attract women, from limb-lengthening to Jackass-style stunts to impressive cars. There's a lot of guys who are doing their best and just get swiped away. If they want a little intimacy, ersatz or not, they are going to try to fulfill that desire, and once Real Life fails them hard enough, this looks like an option.

What the author of this piece should be terrified of is if men figure out a way to stop desiring affection, attention, and all of that. Not just an end to libido, but for the desire for romantic companionship. It will make The Pill look like nail polish in terms of impact on civilization.