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China's Regulators Take Aim at "AI Boyfriends"

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Re: China's Regulators Take Aim at "AI Boyfriends"

#41

Post by unrented7977 »

ryandrake wrote: post #40
pibaker wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off topic, but I have always wondered if the real advantage of an AI therapist is it has little power over you and will not snitch you to the authorities if you say something "wrong." People walk on eggshells when talking to human therapists because they know if they say something about hurting themselves or others, they can end up in a mental institution, losing their jobs, the custody of their children, their home,…

> will not snitch you to the authorities if you say something "wrong." What makes you believe this? We had this story[1] just a few days ago where Waymo up and decided to pull over and hand passengers who had guns on them over to the police. If anything, I would trust AI less to keep a conversation private and not flag me for one of its many programmed "safety" triggers. 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=496725…

The local LLM running on my own hardware literally cannot snitch to anyone about anything.

Re: China's Regulators Take Aim at "AI Boyfriends"

#42

Post by unrented7977 »

nradov wrote: post #23
SoftTalker wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people are born into a situation or simply have had bad luck with who they decided to trust, after enough betrayal you decide that juice of relationships isn't worth the squeeze. I'm pretty much there in my life, I don't seek companionship in AI (nor can I ever imagine doing so) but more than casual friendships and especially romance is not worth the work or the pain.

Embrace the pain. It's a good stimulus to avoid stagnation and improve your situation.

Just pull yourself up by your bootstraps, hit the bricks, poor people should just buy more money, etc etc.

Re: China's Regulators Take Aim at "AI Boyfriends"

#43

Post by chneu »

andai wrote: post #37
KronisLV wrote: post #6

I kinda feel like if people have to turn to AI for companionship, it's the same as using AI for therapy - because the real thing isn't available and any number of systems have failed those people along the way. In a sense, that might be a bit telling of the modern day society: in what world is it so difficult to make meaningful connections to people, that if a real human relationship can be like 5x more meaningful (m…

> maybe the average person kind of sucks, or the way relationships are treated sucks It's friction right? The last 150 years of progress have been all about removing friction. And relationships are a great source of friction. As a side note, I think it's this push for frictionlessness, this is the same force which has resulted in the loss of meaning. Structure and community are seen as oppressive. At last, we have be…

My take is that capitalism has convinced a large number of people that any form of inconvenience is unacceptable.

This leads to people paying for services and products they don't need which leads to an atrophying of basic skills.

Re: China's Regulators Take Aim at "AI Boyfriends"

#44

Post by chneu »

dyauspitr wrote: post #33
itake wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My $0.02 is when it comes to dating, social media ruined people’s “standards” [0] People would rather chill and be single than date the wrong guy, even if they aren’t bringing much to the table themselves… [0] - same energy as the teen girls have low self esteem due to magazine covers and instagram.

Also all the hot people can find each other now because of the dating apps and when people are below a certain level of ugliness they don’t want to date each other anymore.

Nah this is copium.

People who want to do stuff get off the apps. There are plenty of hot folks who never say yes who wind up on those apps for years.

Lots of uggos are also getting off the apps because they actually go on dates.

Personality matters a lot. Saying yes is very important. Everyone has a million excuses to say no.

Re: China's Regulators Take Aim at "AI Boyfriends"

#45

Post by Frieren »

ryandrake wrote: post #25
KronisLV wrote: post #6

I kinda feel like if people have to turn to AI for companionship, it's the same as using AI for therapy - because the real thing isn't available and any number of systems have failed those people along the way. In a sense, that might be a bit telling of the modern day society: in what world is it so difficult to make meaningful connections to people, that if a real human relationship can be like 5x more meaningful (m…

If you took someone from the 1990s and dumped them in 2026, I think one of the biggest shocks to them would be how optional humans are everywhere. You can't get a human on the phone when you call a business anymore. We check out our own groceries with machines now. We order fast food from a kiosk or app instead of a person. Self-driving taxis. Robots doing work and AI making content. Apps mediating all kinds of relat…

> We've kind of just allowed technology to start making us all irrelevant.

That accelerated when big tech companies became advertisement companies. Suddenly, there was a push to increase time on the screen thru mass data gathering.

As far as it is profitable to keep people's noses glued to a screen there is going to be an increase on people that is alone and disconnected.

Even dating is done thru apps that promote looking for the perfect inexistent partner. The more you look for a partner and the less you get one the more profits they get. Something should have never been a business.

Re: China's Regulators Take Aim at "AI Boyfriends"

#46

Post by dyauspitr »

chneu wrote: post #44
dyauspitr wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also all the hot people can find each other now because of the dating apps and when people are below a certain level of ugliness they don’t want to date each other anymore.

Nah this is copium. People who want to do stuff get off the apps. There are plenty of hot folks who never say yes who wind up on those apps for years. Lots of uggos are also getting off the apps because they actually go on dates. Personality matters a lot. Saying yes is very important. Everyone has a million excuses to say no.

There’s some truth to it. You can now easily meet people in a 100 mile radius, that wasn’t the case until about 20 years ago. Personality matters when people get to see it, not when you make snap decisions based on an image in half a second when you swipe.

I’ve been married for 15 years. When I found my wife even dating apps were much more slow paced, I just feel for the current generation.

Re: China's Regulators Take Aim at "AI Boyfriends"

#47

Post by uric2 »

nradov wrote: post #23
SoftTalker wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people are born into a situation or simply have had bad luck with who they decided to trust, after enough betrayal you decide that juice of relationships isn't worth the squeeze. I'm pretty much there in my life, I don't seek companionship in AI (nor can I ever imagine doing so) but more than casual friendships and especially romance is not worth the work or the pain.

Embrace the pain. It's a good stimulus to avoid stagnation and improve your situation.

Ah no. There's pain, and then there's pain that I would never wish on my worst enemy.

The pain I suffer gets worse with every setback and affects my work life for extended periods of time. Past a certain point you need to weigh the risks and tradeoffs, and in my calculus, for my own survival, it swung in favor of no relationships.

Everyone has a different strategy and I prescribe nothing, that is my own way

Re: China's Regulators Take Aim at "AI Boyfriends"

#48

Post by DeluluDon »

Frieren wrote: post #45
ryandrake wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you took someone from the 1990s and dumped them in 2026, I think one of the biggest shocks to them would be how optional humans are everywhere. You can't get a human on the phone when you call a business anymore. We check out our own groceries with machines now. We order fast food from a kiosk or app instead of a person. Self-driving taxis. Robots doing work and AI making content. Apps mediating all kinds of relat…

> We've kind of just allowed technology to start making us all irrelevant. That accelerated when big tech companies became advertisement companies. Suddenly, there was a push to increase time on the screen thru mass data gathering. As far as it is profitable to keep people's noses glued to a screen there is going to be an increase on people that is alone and disconnected. Even dating is done thru apps that promote lo…

*was done through apps, people decided to get smart about this and finding people IRL or LinkedIn

Re: China's Regulators Take Aim at "AI Boyfriends"

#49

Post by nradov »

unrented7977 wrote: post #42
nradov wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Embrace the pain. It's a good stimulus to avoid stagnation and improve your situation.

Just pull yourself up by your bootstraps, hit the bricks, poor people should just buy more money, etc etc.

Life is hopeless, be more cynical, failure is inevitable, there's no point in trying, etc etc. Yawn.

Re: China's Regulators Take Aim at "AI Boyfriends"

#50

Post by DeluluDon »

stevemk14ebr wrote: post #22
zinodaur wrote: post #20

I hope the rest of the world follows suit. Can you imagine the human misery venture capital could inflict by pursuing this vertical?

Yes, it already exists and it's called dating apps

Dating apps are dead. Get with the times. It's 2026.
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