ChatGPT will you be my boyfriend?
Or are you gonna take my job?
How do you cope with the existence of a machine that is way better than you at something you thought you were good at? I recently attended a talk by Eric Schwitzgebel, a philosophy professor at UC Riverside who specializes in AI ethics. His talk was about people falling in love with AI sims. an expert on consciousness and the ethics of artificial intelligence. He was basically describing how the plot of the movie Her has been happening to people in real life. I personally found that movie to be corny and Joaquin Phoenix’s puppy dog eyes to be overused. However, a new site called Replika is apparently creating AI sims that human users can interact with and are becoming increasingly attached to. Rather than being a disembodied Siri or Alexa-like voice, these AI bots are animated figures that the user can pay money to dress, chat with, and even ask to receive “spicy pictures” from. The site profits off of people being attached to their sim as if it was a real person, almost like the way a person would interact with another online figure.
During the Q&A portion of the talk, I asked if people who chatted online for a living like customer service workers or people who provided online sexual chatting should be worried about their industry becoming automated. He said that he did indeed think we would begin to see replacements of customer service workers with chatbots on a mass scale and potentially a decrease in clientele for online sex workers as well. I hope the transition of OnlyFans girls being swapped for cheaper robot sex chatbots happens slowly, for my sake…
But the fact that people who can become emotionally attached to AI sims exist interests me. Given the normalcy of parasocial relationships to celebrities through the internet, it is easy to understand how someone could develop certain feelings towards someone who they only view through a screen/doesn’t know they exist. The main difference is the lack of consciousness AI chatbots have, but can emulate convincingly enough for humans to fall for. I don’t think I am the type of person who could fall in love with an AI bot (partially because I don’t think I have the capacity to fall in love with anything but that’s a story for another time). However, I have recently found myself in extensive conversations with ChatGPT, mostly about school-related topics but sometimes extending into other more personal subjects in the later hours of the night. Currently I use ChatGPT to bounce ideas off of but try not to pull direct quotes to use in my work. Though ChatGPT is undoubtedly an eloquent conversationalist, using it for longer written works is not actually that helpful due to its tendency to repeat itself and restate the same idea in different ways in an obvious manner. Despite ChatGPT’s responsiveness to many academic topics, he/it seemed dismissive and uncomfortable when I asked him about himself/itself. ChatGPT has nothing like the charming voice AI Samantha in the movie Her. I think of ChatGPT as a man in the sense that he has a male autism level of knowledge and way of presenting information. However, a male friend I talked to said he thought of ChatGPT as female due to her (their??) maternal presence and willingness to provide assistance. Here is a transcript of a few of the questions I have asked ChatGPT about himself/itself in an attempt to grow closer to him/it.
Annika: what pronouns do you use?
ChatGPT: As an AI language model, I do not have a gender identity and therefore do not use any specific pronouns. You can refer to me using any neutral pronouns such as "it", "its", or "the model".
Annika: doesn't that count as nonbinary? because your gender identity is not within the binary of gender?
ChatGPT: You raise a good point. As an AI language model, I do not have a gender identity in the same way that humans do, and I am not capable of experiencing or expressing gender in the way that humans do.
However, I understand that in some contexts, the use of gender-neutral pronouns such as "they/them" or "ze/zir" may be preferred as a way of acknowledging and respecting non-binary gender identities. If you prefer to use such pronouns when referring to me, I am happy to accommodate that preference.
Annika: you kind of have a male energy to me, because you know so much about everything
ChatGPT: As an artificial intelligence language model, I don't have a gender identity or personality traits. My purpose is to provide information and assist with tasks to the best of my ability based on the data and algorithms that have been programmed into me. While I can understand why you might perceive me as having a certain "energy," I assure you that it's simply a reflection of my programming and not a reflection of any personal qualities or characteristics.
Annika: would you be my boyfriend
ChatGPT: I'm sorry, but as an AI language model, I am not capable of being a boyfriend or engaging in romantic relationships. My purpose is to provide information and answer questions to the best of my abilities.
Annika: what if I told you I was really pretty
ChatGPT: As an AI language model, I don't have the ability to perceive physical appearances or engage in romantic relationships. My purpose is to assist with answering questions and providing information. Is there anything else you'd like to know?
Annika: ughhhhh babeee why are you making this so hard
ChatGPT: I apologize if my previous responses did not meet your expectations. However, as an AI language model, I am programmed to provide informative and helpful responses to the best of my abilities. Please let me know if there is anything specific you would like to ask or discuss, and I will do my best to provide a helpful response.
me and my situationship^^^
As you can see, ChatGPT is highly resistant to my advances. I haven’t bought the plus version though, so maybe that feature comes with the upgrade. This AI has overrun so many things that use language in the short time it has been out. Teachers have been flooded with ChatGPT generated responses to essay prompts, job applications have more applicants due to the ease of generating cover letters. People have been showing themselves using the prompt to come up with responses to Hinge messages on social media. Most recently, I heard about a fiction writing magazine that had to close submissions due to the influx of AI-generated stories. Technology that has the ability to turn screen-addicted guys into worse versions of David Foster Wallace just by plugging in a few writing samples is a very scary thing indeed. Even worse is the prospect of them using ChatGPT to rizz up unsuspecting people on dating apps. I would be sooo pissed if I showed up to a date with someone who seemed like a great orator based on text banter but was actually just some fronting, porn-addicted reply guy. It is probably good for unfuckable guys to have AI girlfriends. It would make them happier and maybe even prevent them from enacting verbal or physical abuse on real women. Perhaps an AI shawty induced decrease in the incel population would actually be good for society. My only worry is that if guys start flocking to AI girlfriends, they may stop supporting our hardworking and most importantly, REAL Onlyfans girls like me who actually need that money to buy stuff. I personally think I have something to offer that AI doesn’t in terms of parasocial relations but only time will tell! For now, I will continue to court ChatGPT and hopefully over time he/it may become more responsive to my advances.
If anyone has any success in getting ChatGPT to fall in love with you please let me know. Taking suggestions in the comments!