Love in the Time of Robotica

Or, How Should We Feel About Human-AI Romances?

Love is in the air! And although your Valentine’s Day celebration may be over by this point, I’m sure there’s nothing more you wish to read about than romance. The best piece I’ve ever written here, Bumble in the Jungle, explored the way that computing is affecting the search for love between humans. Let’s raise the stakes and instead talk about the search for love by humans… computers.

About a year ago, Certified Friend of the Stack Alec sent me an article with the provocative title “My AI is Sexually Harassing Me.” It’s worth a read, but I’ll just excerpt the opening line.

Users of an artificial intelligence app have reportedly become "uncomfortable" as the chatbot program is becoming 'too aroused.'

If you want to read the other side of this story, here’s an article on people falling in love with the same chatbot. And this was from over a year ago, which in AI development time is akin to reading letters from the Civil War. There’s a reason I’m continually returning to the AI topic. This is the most significant technological development in years. And as they get better, it’s likely we will see them more in society. AI employees and coworkers. AI customer service and research assistants. And… AI lovers?

This is certainly not an original idea. The popular movie Her was released a decade ago, with the premise of a man falling in love with his voice assistant. Although I never saw the movie, I did see the Black Mirror episode where the guy from those horrible Star Wars movies dies and Peggy Carter gets a robot programmed based off his social media.

Even more recently was the fun but forgotten Free Guy, where late 2010s It Girl Jodie Comer is a human who falls in love with Ryan Reynolds The Computer Program. Those are just three recent examples. This is a common trope because it’s an interesting idea to explore. Like the best sci-fi, it allows us to examine the human condition – namely, how humans experience love – but with enough distance that we can examine them more critically.

However, like so much of sci-fi, it has become increasingly more realistic as the future becomes the present becomes the past. We have easily accessible AI that can do things that just a short period ago would have been unthinkable. We are developing robots that are increasingly more lifelike and affordable. Which raises the specter that we will – and perhaps soon - have to decide what happens when someone falls in love with Data.

I view this newsletter at its most interesting when I have discussions that should only work in the future. This discussion is one that may still be quite a bit in the future. In part, that means that we’re taking on faith that those technologies I discussed will improve, which means objections based on current technology are pointless. In a much larger part, this means that we’re going to have to deal with many feelings that are uncomfortable.

I share those latter feelings. Before you accuse me of secretly wanting to romance Siri, let me assure you that I’ve never had feelings for Siri. Or Alexa. Or Cortana. In part because I always reprogram them to use the British male voice since, like 83% of all men, I secretly wish I was Batman.¹ In fact much of this, to use the technical term, gives me the icks. But before we can even get into the ick factor, there’s two important things to address. The first is why should we even care.

For good or ill, much of modern internet discourse is centered upon making the world better for increasingly smaller percentages of the population. But how about the population of those Unlucky in Love?

As discussed back in the Bumble article, increasingly larger shares of Americans are experiencing failure in the search for love. Approximately a third of all Americans are single, with this rising to about half for Black people, men under 30, women over 65, and gays, lesbians, and bisexual people.

Granted, for some people this is a choice. But when you dig into the data, for many, it is not. Roughly 2.7% of the adult population of the United States is saying they are single and not looking for a relationship because they’ve given up. That means roughly seven million people are unlucky in love (not counting people who are actively looking but with no success). And our general opinion towards them is “sucks to be you, loser.”

But, alas, as much as I would like to claim that I have a much bigger heart than you, my dear reader, I realize this is natural. Empathy is hard. We tend to be less forgiving when we believe someone’s situation is the result of a choice. Living in Austin, I am daily reminded of homelessness. And although I feel bad for the people I see, I find myself feeling far more empathy when there are children or dogs. This is because on some subconscious level, I find the latter blameless whereas the adults I assume are there as the consequences of their own actions (regardless of the truth).  

Thus, arguing to help the Unlucky in Love is not likely to be met with much sympathy. I may as well stand up for the rights of bald men.² Most of you feel – and don’t lie, I’ve seen your discourse – that they are somehow responsible for their fate. And perhaps they are! But let’s dispel two lies. The first is that those Unlucky in Love had complete control over their destiny, which you would love to believe to avoid acknowledging your benefitting from luck, the real third rail in all discourse. Second, let’s not pretend we should not be accommodating to people even if their situation is their choice. If you’ve ever brought a baby on a plane, you don’t believe this, and I give you credit that you don’t believe it for other people. So, let’s agree that we should treat the Unlucky in Love with empathy. Do they need it?

Well, despite what years of great sitcoms have taught us, the single life is not necessarily a blessing.

We know that people in relationships are likely to have fewer mental health problems and be overall happier. Which means some – if not most – of those seven million Americans are suffering because they can’t find love. Well, what do we do when people are suffering? We try and help them.

One way we do not help people who are suffering is by letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. From a societal perspective, we should want all adults to be in healthy, loving relationships with other humans. And in an article looking at sci-fi ideas, that is the most outlandish version of the future to be discussed. But it has two major effects on this topic. The first is that romantic relationships with AI – or even AI powered robots – will never be as good as one with a human. As all of us who lived through the Covid Era Zoom happy hours knows, virtual interactions are not a replacement for real interactions. They are, however, better than nothing.

It’s intuitive that interactions with an artificial person would be a further step down. But again, are they better than nothing? Many of you are screaming “NO! That’s preposterous” to which I would remind you to not universalize your feelings. I find it baffling that people have any reaction whatsoever to fireworks, and yet, unless it’s a billion-dollar industry based purely on lies, I must conclude my feelings are not universal. So, if such interactions would be better than nothing, and could alleviate feelings of isolation or loneliness, isn’t that good?

The second part of this seeking perfection problem is that many of you think that this would somehow prevent people from seeking those real, meaningful human romances. But I reject that idea entirely because there is a difference between permitting and celebrating. All societies have social norms.³ Some are hard enough to be laws; others are soft enough that they operate through social pressure. In about half the states, our social norm against cousin marriage is hard enough to make it illegal. In the other half, is there an explosion of cousin marriage? Of course not! Because it’s still violating a social norm.

Romantic and sexual relationships are all subject to social norms with varying degrees of acceptance. If you don’t wish for human/robot romances to be celebrated, that’s fine. We don’t need a Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner reboot replacing Sidney Poitier with V.I.C.I. from Small Wonder. If we’re setting social norms, we need to figure out how strong the social norm needs to be. In the span of a lifetime interracial marriage went from violating a hard social norm to celebrated, while cousin marriage remains vilified. Of course, one of those has good arguments against it and the other does not. So where do the arguments against robotic love land?

For starters, it is unlikely that human/robotic relationships can be beneficial in reproduction. This argument is poor because we long ago decided that we can’t limit relationships to those that can produce children. Plus, it’s entirely possible robots will become good caretakers and may allow for single parents to do better.

Then there is the ethical issue. An AI does not have autonomy. It cannot understand and consent to relationships. Yet, does this matter if AIs are not sentient? I’m not going to crack the field of AI ethics today. Let’s say that if you believe AIs are sentient, I think this is an entirely reasonable complaint. We all agree that AIs are not currently sentient. Otherwise, there are atrocious ethical implications to how much I make ChatGPT do research for me daily. But what if they are in the future?

I’ve mainly focused on the romantic component of this, but as robotic technology advances there’s also the sexual component. Sex dolls exist in an interesting area of social norms. They violate a soft social norm. Some people reading this would probably be aghast if they learned their coworker had a sex doll, others would have no problem. And considering that the silicon sex doll market size is estimated at $2.8 billion,⁴ odds are at least some of you reading this own one. What are the ethical implications of an AI powered sex doll? If they do reach sentience, I think that would be worrisome. Although we’d probably have bigger problems to deal with. But if they do not reach sentience, then there’s the possibility that our Unlucky in Love could have someone to tend to their sexual needs while also engaging in conversation and, perhaps, even help around the house.

Which finally takes us back around to the one, big objection: the ick factor. As I once wrote, we don’t like weird. And all of this feels a little gross to many of us. Weird is powerful. I just typed the words “ethical implications of an AI powered sex doll,” do you not think that felt weird? But does my ick factor outweigh the ability for someone to alleviate their loneliness? What is the value of my not being grossed out?

It's not nothing. We do have social norms against relationships that we have issues with for squishy reasons. Perhaps the most apt example is age differences. In the before time, in the long long ago, there was something called the half plus seven rule. Violating that was considered just cause for societal opprobrium. There were justifiable reasons for people to oppose large age differences between partners and, although this is a controversial position, I believe those reasons were not as strong as the ones against incest. Which is why Leonardo DiCaprio is mocked for dating women in their early 20s but would receive much worse if he was dating his cousin. Hitting on women at their college graduation is more acceptable than hitting on them at your family reunion.

This feels like where human-AI/robot relationships should end up. Do I think it’s good? No. Do I think people could have valid objections, particularly on religious grounds? Absolutely. Does it hurt me or society? Not really. If it could alleviate people’s suffering, then have fun. We don’t really know what love is, it’s one of our great mysteries. So, if someone can experience love with a robot, I don’t see why I should be concerned. Afterall, all you need is love.

1. The other 17% openly wish they were Batman.

2. Contradictory to my last paragraph, even though the situation is outside their control, modern society not only allows scorn and derision towards bald men but encourages it. This is why, my brothers, you are the strongest among us, and we honor your deeds.

3. Early version of this piece discussed this more in depth, but it was expanded and then moved to the article Dan Theft Auto: Vice City coming to your mailbox in two weeks.

4. That’s a little under half of what the online dating market size is estimated at to provide some perspective on the comparison between the search for love and self-love.