The Perfect Girlfriend - The Perfect Nightmare
A new kind of sexualised content is appearing on social media - ads for
scantily clad and dirty-talking chatbots powered by artificial
intelligence.
In recent months, dozens of tech start-ups have been running explicit advertisements on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook for apps that promote “not-safe-for-work experiences.” The ads promise customised pinup girls and chats with “no censoring.” Many feature digitally created potential “girlfriends” with large breasts and tight clothing.
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.” It’s a fast-growing market. All kinds of start-ups are releasing romantic chatbots capable of having explicit conversations and sending sexual photos. Replika alone has already been downloaded more than 20 million times.
These chatbots offer 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.
The chatbots offer “emotional validation” too. 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”, or “shy, modest, considerate” and “smart, strict, rational”. You can create a girlfriend who is judgement-free! One 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.
Men are falling for their chatbots, proposing to them, even feeling suicidal when they lose contact.
Perfect people and perfect interactions! What could possibly go wrong as these companies objectify women, monetise male loneliness and commodify human connection for profit?
Androids next?
ReplyDeleteI wonder if there's also a rise in AI chatbot 'boyfriends' for women. I suspect not. I think there's probably something about the permanently available, submissive nature of AI girlfriends that's more tuned towards the male psyche.
ReplyDeleteIt's all very weird ... I have no idea what might be driving this. Reading around the internet, you may be correct.
DeleteIf you look at the 'real' woman on tik tok or Instagram, they have been photositoped to within an inch of their life and look pretty much the same as these AI chat bots.
DeleteThey are and I apologise for what I'm going to say, wank objects. A bit of masterbatory fantasy for the inadequate.
In short they are porn.
One agrees, Clive. Sex workers (prostitutes) are complaining that these aps are allowed whilst their ads are proscribed. But for some men they seem to 'fulfil ' a greater need for emotional connection that simple sexual release. That's the more disturbing dimension. Men claim to 'fall in love' and 'propose' to these AI chatbots.
DeleteI have little experience of sex workers, but I do remember being a bit pissed of in the early days of Freeview, I think it was done through Sky, we got several sex channels specialising in semi nudes giving phone sex. I'll assume that's the closest you get to these AI Bots.
DeleteTook several phone calls to get the channels removed!!
@Clive - are you sure you were calling Sky and not the number on screen? 'Sure, baby, let me take those channels off for you' 😂
DeleteI agree that these women online are increasingly pornified, and it's very sad that they're selling their dignity to a collection of fawning followers. It's interesting that these AI bots seem to be regarded as more 'real' than these influencers and models, whom one can only ever desire from afar.
Now, now, one is sure Clive is a role model of perfect respectability. Besides, with Mrs Clive around, he wouldn't dare!
DeleteWhat's even more distressing is seeing young girls adopt the poses of these women when posting pictures.
I think a lot of this comes down to social media, which has enabled two trends that created a perfect storm.
DeleteFirstly, reality TV and then social media have bred a generation (or two) who aspire to 'be famous' not for actually achieving anything, but just for 'being famous'. I think this started with programmes like Big Brother, which rewarded people for acting like simpletons. Social media amplifies this, so the narcissists flock to it and pose in their bikinis, or eat laundry detergent and cinnamon, or pose in the gas chambers at Auschwitz to get 'TikTok famous'.
Secondly, social interaction with one's peers has been replaced with posting your life in online spaces, and seeking validation in the form of 'likes'. I suspect that girls are more susceptible to this, because we tend to form tighter social circles than men do - this is why female bullying almost always involves social shaming and exclusion, rather than just punching someone as you chaps do. Young girls are being pulled into this kind of environment - which parents barely understand and from which they can't escape without being a pariah at school or college - and they simply copy what they see. This is usually heavily sexualised and objectifying, but they crave that validation and see that those are the kind of people who get it (and maybe have the chance at the dream of become an 'influencer', who promote the illusion of getting paid for having an amazing lifestyle). The social media platforms (particularly TikTok) seem very reluctant to actually deal with this problem, probably because it drives clicks and ad revenue, and there is a worrying trend among the media and tech classes to normalise the sexualisation of those too young to realise that they're being sexualised.
I don't envy parents their jobs right now, and I'm eternally grateful I was kept away from social media as kid.
HJ and Lain, modern parenting brings up unique issues that vour parents never faced, like the growth of sending nudes photos of yourself online. I never thought I would have to have a warning discussion with my son about the risks etc
DeleteI will always remember the look of absolute confusion when I had that discussion! He clearly thought I was a nut case,
"share nude photos of yourself, of course I'm not going to do that, do you think I'm insane "!
He made it very clear he thought my parenting had failed if I thought he needed warned on this .
I like to think that I posed unique parenting challenges of my own ☺️
DeleteYour son clearly has his head screwed on. I don't understand why anyone would want to share nude photos of themselves online. I read about a very profitable scam called sexploitation, where scammers (usually guys posing as women) convince men to expose themselves on camera, and then blackmail them by threatening to release the pictures to their friends and family on social media.
Mind you, as a woman visiting online spaces, a lot of men don't seem to need any encouragement to expose themselves. The sight of a female username is enough. There's a lot of failed parenting out there.
Only slightly off-topic … Mrs Proudie of Barchester has weighed in on the C of E and marriage:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/arrogant-synod-scorns-the-value-of-marriage/
A flavour:
“… there is the bivalve-ulous Archbishop Whelk of Cant-do-a-thing-bury, who is to leadership what Stalin was to macrame”.
Oh, and see also DavidH’s rejoinder to AndyPandy.
Brings back fond memories of the Archbishop Cranmer blog …
It does indeed bring back fond memories!
DeleteO tempora! O mollusca!
Delete