Apparently there are several narratives in regards to AI girlfriends.

  1. Incels use AI girlfriends given that they can do whatever they desire.
  2. Forums observing incel spaces agree that incels should use AI girlfriends to leave real women alone
  3. The general public having concerns towards AI girlfriends because their users might be negatively impacted by their usage
  4. Incels perceiving this as a revenge fantasy because “women are jealous that they’re dating AI instead of them”
  5. Forums observing incel spaces unsure if the views against AI girlfriends exist in the first place due to their previous agreement

I think this is an example of miscommunication and how different groups of people have different opinions depending on what they’ve seen online. Perhaps the incel-observing forums know that many of the incels have passed the point of no return, so AI girlfriends would help them, while the general public perceive the dangers of AI girlfriends based on their impact towards a broader demographic, hence the broad disapproval of AI girlfriends.

  • pavnilschanda@lemmy.worldOPM
    2·
    7 months ago

    Thanks for your input. I agree with your overall comment. Within general narratives, incels aren’t usually included. As for the broad disapproval, it’s something that I tend to notice in the AI space.

    AI chatbot personas are generally seen as a hobby, a one-and-done thing compared to an “entity” that accompanies you for long periods of time; the latter part has more stigma attached to it. And given the AI boom only a few years ago, many people, including academic researchers, have only started to be aware of its existence and have made many uninformed assumptions about them. Not to mention the ethical minefelds that are yet to be explored, and increasingly so within the humanities such as psychology and anthropology, hence the Google Deepmind article that you shared. Given the sheer complexity surrounding AI companionship combined with the attention-based economy that has shaped our society, it makes sense that non-specialized places would adopt a binary approach when it comes to AI, artificial girlfriends included.

    There seems to be strong connections between inceldom and AI companionship, given that AI girlfriends are marketed for lonely men, and many of them just happen to be incels. But as you’ve said, AI companion users are very diverse, it’s just that the topic of incels or an incel-related topic would get brought up every now and then within the AI companionship discourse.

    • rufus
      21·
      7 months ago

      Hmmh. I’m pretty sure OpenAI and Google are very aware of this. I mean erotic roleplay is probably out of the question since they’re American companies. And the whole field of AI is a minefield to them starting with copyright to stuff like this. And they did their homework and made the chatbots not to present themselves as emotive. I percieve this as concensus in society, that we need to be cautious about the effects on human psyche. I wonder if that’s going to shift at some point. I’m pretty sure more research is going to be done and AI will become more and more prevalent anyways, so we’re going to see whether people like it or not.

      And as I heard lonelyness is on the rise. If not in western cultures, I think Japan and Korea are way ahead of us. And the South Koreans seem also to have a problem with a certain kind of incel culture, which seems to be way worse and more widespread amongst young men, there. I’ve always wanted to read more about that.

      I - myself - like AI companions. I think it’s fantasy. Like reading a book, playing video games or watching movies. We also explore the dark sides of humans there. We write and read murder mystery stories, detailing heinous acts. We kill people in video games. We process abuse and bad things in movies. And that’s part of being human. Doing that with chatbots is the next level, probably more addictive and without some of the limitations of other formats. But I don’t think it’s bad per se.

      I don’t know what to say to people who like to be cruel, simulate that in a fantasy like this. I think if they’re smart enough to handle it, I’m liberal enough not to look down on them for that. If being cruel is all there is to someone, they’re a poor thing in my eyes. Same for indulging in self-hatred and pity. I can see how someone would end up in a situation like that. But there’s so much more to life. And acting it out on (the broad concept of) women isn’t right or healthy. And it’s beyond my perspective. From my perspective there isn’t that big a difference between genders. I can talk to any of them and ultimately their interests and needs and wants are pretty much the same.

      So if an incel were to use a chatbot, i think it’s just a symptom for the underlying real issue. Yes it can reinforce them. But some people using tools for their twisted purposes, doesn’t invalidate other use cases. And it’d be a shame if that narrative were to dominate public perspective.

      I often disagree with people like Mark Zuckerberg, but I’m grateful he provides me with large language models that aren’t “aligned” to their ethics. I think combatting loneliness is a valid use case. Even erotic roleplay and exploring concepts like violence in fantasy scenarios ultimately is a valid thing to do in my eyes.

      There is a good summary on Uncensored Models by Eric Hartford which I completely agree with. I hope they don’t ever take that away from us.

        • rufus
          2·
          7 months ago

          Thank you very much for the links. I’m going to read that later. It’s a pretty long article…

          I’m not sure about the impending AI doom. I’ve refined my opinion lately. I think it’ll take most of the internet from us. Drown out meaningful information and spam it with low quality clickfarming text / misinformation. And the “algorithms” of TikTok, YouTube & Co will continue to drive people apart and confine people in seperate filter bubbles. And I’m not looking forward to each customer service being just an AI… I don’t quite think it’ll happen through loneliness though. Or in an apocalypse like in terminator. It’s going to be interesting. And inevitable in my eyes. But we’ll have to see if science can tackle hallucinations and alignment. And if the performance of AI and LLMs is going to explode like in the previous months, or if it’s going to stagnate soon. I think it’s difficult to make good predictions without knowing this.

            • rufus
              2·
              7 months ago

              Hmmh. Sometimes I have difficulties understanding you. [Edit: Text removed.] If your keys are to small, you should consider switching to a proper computer keyboard, or an (used) laptop.

              Regarding the exponential growth: We have new evidence that supports the position it’ll plateau out: https://youtube.com/watch?v=dDUC-LqVrPU Further research is needed.

                • rufus
                  2·
                  7 months ago

                  Sure. Multimodality is impressive. And there is quite some potential there. I’m sure robots / androids are also going to happen and all of this has a profound impact. Maybe they’ll someday get affordable to the average Joe and I can have a robot do the chores for me.

                  But we’re not talking about the same thing. The video I linked suggests that performance might peak and plateau. That means it could be very well the case that we can’t make them substancially more intelligent than say ChatGPT 4. Of course we can fit AI into new things, innovate and there is quite some potential. It’s just about performance/intelligence. It’s explained well in the video. (And it’s just one paper and the already existing approaches to AI. It doesn’t rule out science finding a way to overcome that. But as of now we don’t have any idea how to do that, instead of pumping millions and millions of dollars into training to achieve a smaller and smaller return in increased performance.)

                  Hmmh. I’m a bit split on bio implants. Currently that’s hyped by Elon Musk. But that field of neuroscience has been around for some while. They’re making steady (yet small) progress. Elon Musk didn’t contribute anything fundamentally new. And I myself think there is a limit. I mean you can’t stick a million needles into a human brain everywhere from the surface to deep down, to hook into all brain regions. I think it’s mostly concerned with what’s accessible from the surface. And that’d be a fundamental limitation. So I doubt we’re going to see crazy things like in the sci-fi movies like The Matrix or Ready Player One. But I’m not an expert on that.

                  With that said, I share your excitement for what’s about to come. I’m sure there is lots of potential in AI and we’re going to see crazy things happen. I’m a bit wary if the consequences like spam and misinformation flooding the internet and society, but that’s already inevitable. My biggest wish is science finding a way to teach LLMs when to make up things and when to stick to the truth… What people call “hallucinations”. I think it’d be the next biggest achievement if we had more control about that. Because as of now the AIs make up lots of facts that are just wrong. At least that’s happening to me all the time. And they also do it when doing tasks like summarization. And that makes them less useful for my every-day tasks.