Technology

59696 readers

2365 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

224

'Better than a real man': young Chinese women turn to AI boyfriends (techxplore.com)

submitted 9 months ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

78 comments fedilink hide all child comments

'Better than a real man': young Chinese women turn to AI boyfriends::Twenty-five-year-old Chinese office worker Tufei says her boyfriend has everything she could ask for in a romantic partner: he's kind, empathetic, and sometimes they talk for hours.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

The AI friend is always available, always knows what to say, never fights with you, and never messes up (ideally).

And isn't that what people really want in a relationship? A perfect, frictionless yes-person trained to parrot whatever you wanted to hear six weeks ago.

The AIs are just trying to please you.

Its a bit worse than that. Monetized social media is designed to provoke engagement. So the AI isn't trying to please you, its trying to maximize your utilization. That means establishing a clingy, desperate, attention seeking (ie, toxic) relationship that keeps you looking at your phone for as long as possible.

Its pleasurable in the same way a heroin addiction is pleasurable.