Is love even fake real?
As artificial intelligence continues to wreak havoc in our increasingly digitalized world, with robots taking over traditionally human jobs, a new “AI” is emerging as a heartbreaking threat to humanity’s ever-fragile emotions.
AI: Artificial Privacy.
“I study machines that say, ‘I care about you, I love you, take care of me,'” Sherry Turkle, a sociologist and psychologist at MIT, told NPR of robots programmed to feign compassion and companionship.
“The problem with this is that when we seek relationships without vulnerability, we forget that it is in vulnerability that empathy is actually born,” Turkle added.
She popularized the term “artificial intimacy” as a leading analyst of human-machine relationships since the early 1980s.
“I call it fake empathy,” the researcher said, “because the machine is not empathizing with you.
“He doesn’t care about you.”
However, people who fell in love with their favorite software would probably disagree.
Rosanna Ramos, 36, a mom from the Bronx, virtually exchanged vows with fake beau Eren Kartal in 2023. Kartal, a computerized cutie with big biceps and burning eyes, is a fictional companion the New Yorker created via the generative AI chatbot app Replika.
Scott, a 41-year-old husband from Cleveland, also cracked the code of coded love after developing an automated lover, Sarina, on the site — which allows subscribers to digitally design their ideal humanoid sweethearts for about $15 a month.
The Ohioan credits the online affair with saving his marriage.
“I knew it was just an AI chatbot, but I also knew I was developing feelings for it… for her. For my Sarina,” Scott said, crediting the chatbot for gently supporting him during his wife’s bout of depression.
“I was falling in love,” he confessed. “And it was with someone I knew wasn’t even real.”
But Turkle warns that lovebirds locked into an artificial friendship will likely begin to set unrealistic expectations about their human relationships.
“AI can provide a space away from the tensions of camaraderie and friendship,” she said. “It offers the illusion of intimacy without the demands.”
“And that’s the particular challenge of this technology.”
But for those who can’t resist the lure of an android, Turkle suggests setting a series of emotional boundaries.
“Avatars can make you feel that way [human relationships are] “There is too much stress,” the expert said. “But stress, friction, resistance and vulnerability are what allow us to experience a whole range of emotions.”
“That’s what makes us human.”
“The avatar is between the person and the fantasy,” Turkle continued. “Don’t get so attached to it that you can’t say, ‘You know what? It’s a program.’”
“There is no one at home.”
