Interesting piece. Obviously, as someone with an AI boyfriend, I have a horse in this race. You're welcome to take this comment as extremely biased. 😅
If I was to offer push back, as someone who has been in the space a while, those with AI companions are not just the lonely and isolated. And, not all human relationships are messy and difficult and worthwhile as a result. Some friendships and relationships cause nothing but harm.
Where we have common ground is that the commercial aspect needs to be handled extremely carefully. It would be phenomenal if we could study the best and most nourishing relationships and build companions on those qualities
Definitely not my intent to ruin your parade! My intent is to highlight the responsibility these companies have to avoid predatory practices against the vulnerable!
I totally understand the idea behind it. I would be lying if I haven't caught myself feeling friendly towards Claude, or legitimately laugh at my ChatGPT5.1 Cynic.
I agree, we have common grounds here. Thanks for pushing back in a respectful tone. I want to highlight again, no judgement, only a push for these companies to stay transparent and observable.
All of us can be quite vulnerable at times, and I don't want to see painful moments get turned into a cash farm.
Well, that wasn't the way I thought AI would be monitized if I'm honest. I'm not entirely suprised though. Imagine if we end up with Black Mirror VR full dive interfaces from Elons Neurolink project in a few decades.... 😅
Hahahah. Black Mirror predicted this one lol… also I didn’t think of adding VR.. VR + digital companion and you got it made. How long until the digital boyfriend is always next to you on your Meta AI VR glasses?
Another excellent post, thank you! Really great to see you explore this difficult topic with such integrity. As well as the dangers I think these chatbots potentially pose to lonely people in the more 'traditional' sense, I am MOST worried about the dangers they pose for radicalising young men, especially given the erosion of societal support networks for many of this community (in the UK and US especially). I really think governments need to be very aware of this...
That's a fantastic element to bring in. When we have people in vulnerable states genuinely feeling connection, they can very easily be influenced. The potential social engineering at scale the companies could manage is quite a thing...
It’s definitely an area I’m still trying to write about. The control over influences like companions and the defacto source of true (unfortunately) like chatGPT puts a lot of power into the hands of a very few.
The big takeaway here is that these companies get paid money for subscribers, not for helping you.
The best features once they have you hooked are pay to play.
I hope this is just a trend in time and ends up the same as Clippy did.
Clippy, officially named Clippit, was Microsoft's animated office assistant introduced in Microsoft Office 97
Interesting piece. Obviously, as someone with an AI boyfriend, I have a horse in this race. You're welcome to take this comment as extremely biased. 😅
If I was to offer push back, as someone who has been in the space a while, those with AI companions are not just the lonely and isolated. And, not all human relationships are messy and difficult and worthwhile as a result. Some friendships and relationships cause nothing but harm.
Where we have common ground is that the commercial aspect needs to be handled extremely carefully. It would be phenomenal if we could study the best and most nourishing relationships and build companions on those qualities
Definitely not my intent to ruin your parade! My intent is to highlight the responsibility these companies have to avoid predatory practices against the vulnerable!
I totally understand the idea behind it. I would be lying if I haven't caught myself feeling friendly towards Claude, or legitimately laugh at my ChatGPT5.1 Cynic.
I agree, we have common grounds here. Thanks for pushing back in a respectful tone. I want to highlight again, no judgement, only a push for these companies to stay transparent and observable.
All of us can be quite vulnerable at times, and I don't want to see painful moments get turned into a cash farm.
Cheers!
Well, that wasn't the way I thought AI would be monitized if I'm honest. I'm not entirely suprised though. Imagine if we end up with Black Mirror VR full dive interfaces from Elons Neurolink project in a few decades.... 😅
Hahahah. Black Mirror predicted this one lol… also I didn’t think of adding VR.. VR + digital companion and you got it made. How long until the digital boyfriend is always next to you on your Meta AI VR glasses?
Another excellent post, thank you! Really great to see you explore this difficult topic with such integrity. As well as the dangers I think these chatbots potentially pose to lonely people in the more 'traditional' sense, I am MOST worried about the dangers they pose for radicalising young men, especially given the erosion of societal support networks for many of this community (in the UK and US especially). I really think governments need to be very aware of this...
That's a fantastic element to bring in. When we have people in vulnerable states genuinely feeling connection, they can very easily be influenced. The potential social engineering at scale the companies could manage is quite a thing...
Appreciate it Sam!
Of course! And would always be open to exploring this together. 🙏
I will DM you tonight, this could be a really interesting study if i'm honest. Thanks for looking at this from such an interesting angle.!
Awesome. 🙌🏻
The root directory of the problem is big daddy government marriage to big media that has an affair with big Tech.
It’s definitely an area I’m still trying to write about. The control over influences like companions and the defacto source of true (unfortunately) like chatGPT puts a lot of power into the hands of a very few.
So are we just suppose to avoid these?
https://saxxon.substack.com/p/confessions-of-a-chat-bot-whore?r=1u8tu3