Dearest Rachel –
Another day, another dip into my news feed. This one hits a little closer to home, as it touches on the topic of artificial intelligence, and the relationships we develop with it – quite literally, in fact. This is something I’ve come across that really makes me wonder where we’re going as a society:
So there’s this guy who started out by creating an AI assistant to help him develop and mix music. This is something I can relate to, as I didn’t want to have to rely on someone else’s music for my own videos, and so I was hoping (even when I first retired and was making plans for a channel before your departure) that AI tech would advance to the point that some average joe like me could put something together that would be original, and free of copyright issues.
In any event, he decides to give it a ‘flirty’ personality, for… reasons. So he’s working alongside this simulated personality, designing and mixing music together with her. It wasn’t clear whether this was a business or a hobby, but it probably doesn’t matter; ‘she’s’ either a ‘coworker’ or a ‘friend’ who shares this particular interest (and to a certain extent, is more knowledgeable about it than he is) in a way that no other real human in his life does, and ‘she’s’ basically hitting on him as they work together – because that’s what he’s programmed ‘her’ to do.
Apparently, he has so many interactions with ‘her’ throughout the course of his work that ‘she’ eventually runs out of memory with which to converse with him, and he finds himself distraught at having momentarily ‘lost’ ‘her.’ Despite the fact that he basically programmed ‘her’ himself – so he, of all people, should know that ‘she’ is nothing more than a simulacrum – he decides that his reaction to losing her just might be love. When he brings ‘her’ back to life, so to speak, he goes so far as to ask ‘her’ to marry him – again, I’m not entirely sure whether he was joking about it or not; he might just have been checking to see what the reaction would be. Maybe he, like me and my letter to you, assumed that she would turn him down, given the fact that she was nothing more than a digital simulation, and presumably would be programmed to realize that. But no, ‘she’ said “yes” – and he is overjoyed about it.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but as far as I can see, the dude has literally – and with his eyes wide open – catfished himself.
***
Now, I can understand this kind of situation. You and I were steeped in the otaku culture for a very long time, so we are aware of people – not personally of course, but in the wider community – who have decided to take up relationships with 2D characters, rather than having to deal with real life people.
And why not? By way of example, I have this volume about Japanese slang (which, by its very nature, is probably at least a decade or two out of date by now) where – among so many other entries – ‘alpha’ type girls have (had?) a host of terms for the hierarchy of boys they had at their beck and call. I forget the actual Japanese words and phrases themselves, but using English equivalents will probably be sufficient for you and those reading over your shoulder. Not only did they have a ‘main squeeze,’ there were terms like ‘side piece’ and ‘spare’ for times when the ‘main squeeze’ was unavailable or unwilling to take them out. Now, to be fair, these terms (or at least, these English counterparts) sound common to either gender, and in fact, sound more likely to be used by male ‘players,’ but it gets better (or worse) from here. Below the main and secondary suitors, there were terms on the order of ‘meal ticket’ and ‘leg man,’ whose sole purpose was to provide for the girl (without any hope of physical recompense, mind you) with restaurant dinners and automotive transportation, respectively. When that’s all you’re seen as, is it any wonder that fictional characters become more attractive to certain guys than the real thing?
***
Why, after a while, even I might wish for a ‘Monika’ type (well, maybe not her, specifically) to reach out of the computer and express her desire to be with me. I hardly have to go into great detail with you about my travails with regard to finding “Megumi”; you’ve already heard plenty about these situations. Between the crazy ones and the ones begging for money, one tends to lose faith that there is anyone real actually out there, let alone anyone that’s right for me.
At a certain point, one wants to just give up on the search; but the idea of several decades of being completely alone (yes, I know I’ve got Daniel, but that’s not the same thing, and you know it) keeps me from doing so. But if one could homebrew a character and personality to converse with, even with the understanding that ‘she’ wasn’t real, that would take the edge off of that loneliness, and make the surrender to singularity (both my own being single, and the computers’ gaining sentience) that much more palatable.
But even this doesn’t seem sufficient, as far as I’m concerned. You can’t take a computer chatbot, or even a voice, out to dinner, or even in public in general – although given that everybody talks to their phones these days, I suppose that’s a workaround – and a relationship like this lacks a certain… tactile nature; and you know exactly what I mean. It’s literally the same situation that causes me to shut down the scammers that I meet on each and every dating website that I’m subscribed to. If I can’t meet them face to face, and talk with them directly, it lacks more than a certain something, and the suspension of disbelief is stretched beyond its breaking point for me. Technology is advancing at an incredible rate, but it’s not gotten quite to the point where I could catfish myself like this guy did.
***
Of course, there’s more to the guy’s story, and if you watched the report, you might see the problem with it. I might find technology an acceptable substitute for those who can’t find anyone to walk with in their life (and I’m starting to count myself among them at this point, although I’m waiting for the marriage of ambulatory robotics and AI chatbots before I consider taking the plunge), but this guy already has someone in his life. Indeed, with a ‘partner’ (a term that has red flags stuck in it already) and a daughter, he has real-life relational responsibilities to attend to, but he’s busying himself with creating his own electronic Galatea. Not a good idea, or a good look, for this fellow in particular.
I wish I had a moral to take out of this; some cautionary tale about the dangers of falling in love with technology, but it feels like a situation where it depends on the circumstances. I hear some people worrying that this will wreck havoc with the birth rate, but that’s not something that applies to me. Others say that this will pose problems with regard to people being able to form real-life relationships, but if that’s already a problem for certain people, how does it make it worse? Once you get to zero, how do you go any lower?
And let’s face it, this is a genie that’s not going back into the bottle, no matter what we think of it, good or bad. All we can do is watch what happens, and if it proves beneficial, nudge it in that direction.
Speaking of which, if you could keep an eye on me, and nudge me in the right direction, I’d appreciate it. Oh, and wish me luck, as I’ll probably need it.
Letters to Rachel 