AI girlfriend app

[fortysomethingg]

What would you do if you found your husband/partner had been using an AI girlfriend app. Created an avatar, a generated woman and was interacting with her like a human. Chatting, sexting.

Is this a lesser evil than real porn with humans?

Thoughtsv

Well I wouldn't be happy about it all.
The partner/husband is looking for sexual gratification outside the relationship. He is mentally cheating and showing lack of respect to his partner/ wife. He is looking outside the relationship for something he should be sharing with his partner/wife.
I think at the very least it is damaging to his real life relationship and I would find it on a par to cheating.

I really want to create an AI girlfriend on the app now to see what she's like. What's the betting she's all 'ooh, do me from behind' and 'I'll make you a sandwich' rather than 'please could you bring me a McDonald's breakfast I'm finishing an essay" ?

I'd think he needed his head checking. I don't personally see it as cheating I don't think, more like high-tech porn, but it would be deeply unattractive to me. I would be hurt that he'd sought out to replace me in some way and I'd find it a bit pathetic that instead of communicating with me on whatever was lacking like an adult, he'd basically made himself a Sims girlfriend.

Or an AI wife created using data off Mumsnet. "I'm leaving you." I'll go now sorry.

I mean, personally I would think it was quite pathetic and lose respect for him, but I wouldn't think it was cheating. To me it's more like a really lame fantasy life than anything else.

But I'm poly, so I'm well aware I have different views on sexual fidelity to lots of others on here.

I think it's better than porn because software developers aren't on the whole an exploited and possibly trafficked demographic, whereas women in porn are, so at least he's not contributing to that.

But he's choosing to interact sexually/intimately with someone/thing other than you, so it's really up to you whether you see it as more like a stress relief outlet and masturbation aid, or like emotional & potential intention towards cheating.

I guess to me the biggest problems with AI bots is that they'll be programmed to only be the gratifying/compliant parts of life that men fantasise about, so men that use them are likely to become even more unable to comprehend women as equally valid real people with their own complex inner lives, rather than a service accessory for a man.

Wait until they are real & Tesla. Possibly not that far away. The perfect companion, or not so perfect…

Turning to anything for the emotional or sexual fulfillment you should get in your relationship is a problem, regardless of if people view it as cheating.

Porn isn't a problem (to some)... Until is causes men to withdraw and consume more and more hardcore content and then only watch it and masturbate and not share intimacy with their wives.

Actually having conversations with AI and sexting will absolutely cause men to withdraw from their partners. AI will be easy, they can train it to say exactly what they want to hear.

We have had a huge problem throughout history of men not wanting women to have opinions, needs and wants... Things like this will just validate those ideas and increase frustrations and friction.

A lot of men are emotionally stunted. They choose not to work on themselves and I absolutely believe they could trick themselves into thinking they are emotionally fulfilled by the AI.

Family time will become a nuisance and their minds will be occupied with rushing back to their phones.

But they will be able to gaslight their partners by saying "it is another form of porn, it isn't cheating" etc.

Honestly, if my husband started using something like this then I wouldn't be able to look at him the same and leave before it began to cause problems (which it would).

If a relationship isn't fulfilling then their energy should be spent investing into their partner or leaving.

I am a huge advocate for healthy self pleasure and sexual exploration withing the established boundaries of relationships... This isn't that. And even if some women may initially agree/not see it as a problem, I guarantee they will think differently after some time.

I would assume his intelligent level is not very high and would wonder why I was scraping the bottom of a very deep barrel

I'd think this was someone with very low social skills who found a pretend woman easier than his actual girlfriend/wife. I wouldn't see it as cheating, but as not the sort of person I'd want to be with.

So he’s having an emotional affair with an AI generated avatar, that’s meant to be his girlfriend. That’s means that he’s looking for companionship elsewhere, whilst married. What a creep. Why would anyone stay with someone doing this?

In one way I’d be glad if all the dead-head incel types got what they wanted from AI and fucked off and left real women alone. But I suspect it will just give them even more unrealistic ideas about what ‘women’ are supposed to be like and they’ll hate and terrorise the real ones even more.

If normal family types are doing this then I’d think they were morons whose womenfolk should leave them.

I actually had to mess around with a couple of these for a week recently for work, (with DPs blessing, she had a go too)

Honestly, I can't see much difference to this than writing or reading erotica to put on a site like literotica. It's very hard to imagine there's a person on the other end of the messages, because of all the usual foibles of AI, it goes off on random tangents, forgets things, makes things up. And the images it generates are ridiculous, it has no idea of how many limbs most people have!

Oddly, DP found it more addictive than me, as she enjoyed the romance aspects of it (which did lead to a conversation about whether anything is missing from our relationship!)

I imagine most of the men using this will be single, for someone in a relationship it's much simpler to just load up some porn.

So you think porn is healthier for a relationship than an Ai girlfriend?

Perhaps you should read up on the adverse affects porn has on mental health and relationships. And that's without going into the violence and abuse and exploitation of women that porn involves.

I don't think it's the same thing at all, unless users of the site write erotica just for each other, which I guess is sexting.

The problem with someone in a relationship creating an AI girlfriend is that he's already got a girlfriend/wife, so he's decided she's not good enough in some way and he wants to outsource part of the relationship to a robot.

People can disagree on how acceptable that is, but the key point is agreement between the partners. If your partner is fine with you having an AI girlfriend then great. If your partner is fine with you writing/reading erotica, using porn, chatting online to cam workers etc... fine. Others have opinions on it all, but you've set the parameters of your relationship.

But going behind your partner's back and creating an AI girlfriend to fulfil some/all of your emotional and sexual needs, without telling your partner? That's different.

I don't think I said either one is healthier. To be honest it depends on how they're used. Either one to excess is going to cause problems in a relationship.

Ethically however, the AI girlfriend is certainly better than the vast majority of porn, as it doesn't involve real women, and most of its training data likely comes from written erotica.

I would not be okay with that at all.

It's a bit of a fantasy which people are allowed to have I guess

I wouldn’t be jealous but I’d be creeped out. It would give me the ick

Where's the cut off for that though? A lot of RPG games have for decades have included romanceable characters. You choose who you want to romance, have conversations with them, choose your responses and often there are multiple sex scenes with them. I've never felt the need to tell DP that I've got a girlfriend in my shorty space laser game. Visual Novels are another genre with similar game mechanics, and it's a genre that is mostly popular with women.

Is an AI girlfriend app that much different because the responses aren't scripted? I very much doubt many people in a relationship is actually looking to these apps to replace something they already have in that relationship, but just as an additional fantasy, like reading erotica, watching porn or a steamy movie.

I'd be wondering why he felt he needed it.

This is going to come off as harsh, but if you miss sex, sure, cheat or go to a prostitute. I don't condone it, but I get it.

But an AI bot isn't giving sex. It's just giving that feeling of being desired, or conversation, or to fill an empty void. I'd really be asking myself, am I really giving that 'little' that solace in a machine is actually 'better'?

I'd be very unimpressed but I think the whole thing is creepy and I'd judge negatively I'm afraid.

The cut off is wherever the two partners agree it is.

I assume that in your gaming example you're only doing the girlfriend bit because it's part of the game and you need to do it to progress, or it's a side quest that gets you more points or whatever.

Again that's very different from actively seeking out an AI girlfriend.

I would be very upset if messaging a woman and feel deceived

I would feel very uncomfortable that a partner would interact with an AI 'person' in such a way this I would find this disturbing

were we not all shocked hearing of Japanese men interacting in such a way a few years ago - how quickly we become accustomed to changes

Presumably it's just a sexual fantasy. If I found out my boyfriend was using an AI bot for sexual chat etc, I'd probably just think 'wish I hadn't seen that' and then roll my eyes and forget about it.

I don't honestly think most people who use those apps (there are fantasy boyfriend apps as well by the way) actually see them as an 'AI girlfriend/boyfriend', just as a little sexual fantasy type diversion. The vast majority of people, male and female, who are using them are probably just using them to spice up their inner fantasy life, as an alternative to reading erotica or watching porn or whatever.

I don't really see it as any different from me lusting after/fantasising about a fictional character in a steamy novel - which is something I do on a very regular basis. I'm very happy in my relationship with my partner, sexually and emotionally, and I would never in a million years cheat on him, or even want to cheat on him. But I'm still an individual with private thoughts and fantasies and I don't feel guilty about that in the slightest.

The partner/husband is looking for sexual gratification outside the relationship. He is mentally cheating and showing lack of respect to his partner/ wife. He is looking outside the relationship for something he should be sharing with his partner/wife

Turning to anything for the emotional or sexual fulfillment you should get in your relationship is a problem

I don't think I agree with this. If someone is seeking sexual/emotional fulfilment from a real person, then yes, that's a problem. But I don't think it's at all healthy to suggest that people who are in a relationship shouldn't, eg, masturbate, or that they should suppress any sexual thoughts that aren't about their partner.

I’d hate this and have huge issue with my partner doing it.

I think this is a growth issue with quite a few angles as AI becomes ever more sophisticated.

“Her” is a memorable movie about this, it’s by Spike Jonze, about a lonely, single, man who falls in love with an AI girlfriend. The film focuses on the insecurities that AI girlfriends (or boyfriends), which are more intelligent than humans, could develop and the consequences for people. Made in 2013 and quite prescient - still holds up.