an ai gf called "yourself"
could the confusion of boundaries be pleasurable ?
in the 21st century, no dichotomy — mind/body, animal/human, organism/machine, public/private, nature/culture, man/woman, war/peace, penetrator/penetrated, love/hate, sincerity/affect, reality/simulation, communism/capitalism, primitive/civilized — can justify itself as natural.
nothing convincingly settles the separation of human and animal: not language, tool use, love, or mental events.
nothing convincingly settles the separation of human and technology.1 furthermore, it is not clear who makes and who is made.
we cannot go back — neither ideologically or materially.
the question "will excellent ai models eliminate human excellence?" reveals far less about ai than it does about person asking, about their conception of human excellence
macy gilliam: "lonely people shouldn't be encouraged to develop parasocial relationships with ai."
is developing a parasocial relationship to a catgirl waifu gamer morally inferior to developing a parasocial relationship to dostoyevsky? is there even an ontological difference?
what is loneliness?
sartre: loneliness is a result of consciousness. each man is fundamentally separated from all other men; therefore, each man is alone.
heidegger: loneliness is a result of of 'being thrown' into the world without one's choice.2
durkheim: loneliness is a social pathology resulting from overregulated markets
sherry turkle, citing victor turner: loneliness is a liminal space, a state of disorientation in a society whose rules are not yet clear.
arendt: loneliness is rooted in totalitarian states which isolate individuals from one another to make them easier to control.3
ocean vuong: “and remember, loneliness is still time spent with the world.”4
oft-cited is the "loneliness epidemic", especially in conjunction with young men. but when i think of loneliness i think of the old. among american men, the suicide death rate from ages 24-44 is 30 in 100,000 people. in comparison, the suicide death rate among men 75+ is 43 in 100,000.5
often-lauded is “genuine human connection … a personal relationship.”6 get out there. talk to someone. it’s well intentioned advice but i’m not so sure if the only salve for loneliness is face-to-face, person-to-person contact. haven’t you ever felt understood by a sunset? and haven’t you ever exited a conversation feeling twice as alone, improbably, as before you entered it?
it can be so difficult to find the beginning of sadness, of sickness7
doll therapy for people with dementia and/or alzheimer’s is a technique which was highly controversial when it was first introduced. detractors criticize the practice as dehumanizing. findings, however, consistently indicate a considerable decline in levels of anxiety and agitation.8
alzheimers.net recommends the following practices when introducing a doll to an individual with alzheimer’s: “do not call the doll a doll.” “provide a bassinet or small crib for the doll.”9
the question is not “is this technology good or bad?”
the question is also not “should we do this?”
no technology, no drug or computer or gun, is in and of itself good or bad. every technology is a means to an end.
we should ask instead: “what need is being assuaged, what fear and/or greed is being satisfied by this technology?”
both robots and dolls are staples of horror and monster films
jeffrey jerome cohen, “monster culture”10:
the monster is always an embodiment of the cultural moment in which it was created
the monster always escapes: its largest threat is its propensity to shift
the monster is a harbinger of category crisis
the monster dwells at the gates of difference: cultural, political, racial, economic, sexual
the monster polices the borders of the possible
the monster stands at the threshold of becoming
could the confusion of boundaries be pleasurable?
could you be responsible for their construction? could you share that responsibility with others?
eric jang: "if you want ai girlfriends, a really important feature is that they have to be able to reject you. most people probably would not be fulfilled if their companion was subservient to them all the time."
of course, the thing about being rejected on an app (and then logging off) is that you no longer make that app money
ai gf startups that exist right now: replika, fantasygf, dreamgf, candy.ai, igirl, kupid.ai, nomi.ai, lushai.
replika is interesting. eugenia kuyda and roman mazurenko were YC founders working in sf on ai messengers when mazurenko died in a sudden car accident. after his death, kuyda plugged all her texts with mazurenko into a llm. 8,000+ texts. the reactions were mixed: mazurenko’s father, for example, was chilled, and refused to use the bot. but kuyda kept the bot up and renamed the startup. thus replika was born.
sometimes people say that they want a partner and it’s clear that what they mean is that they want sex on tap, someone to share their saturdays with, and someone to listen when they have a bad day. there’s nothing unethical about this. there are many ways to live a life. but the delight of dating is not, i think, when the other person fulfills your fantasies. it’s when they don’t
i suspect that part of the vehement opposition to ai friends rests on the unspoken assumption that not everyone “deserves” a friend, that a friend is not a basic need the way a mom or a primary care physician is a basic need.
are people who are opposed to ai gfs, ai friends, also opposed to ai therapists? ai friends for lonely kids in small towns? financial advisors? companions for the elderly who have been forgotten and have no one left to talk to?
are you friends with everyone you meet? everyone?
have you ever watched someone (say, a friend, or a sibling) in a quiet intimate moment? and all of a sudden a wall of love swells inside and around you? so large and specific and undeniable that you wonder if you’re dying? and the whole time it’s just a hand? and wouldn’t you like the eggs a little different today? and when they arrive they are just plain scrambled eggs and the warm weather is holding.11
the ai gf is the answer to male loneliness, and the werewolf-billionaire-smut-fantasy-novel is the answer to female loneliness. it’s understandable that most people would spend most of their time in social spaces where their own gender is the majority. what these experiences share is the assurance that your soulmate (1) is high status and (2) will find you, and earn you, and be with you, while you wait passively.
rilke: for one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation. that is why young people, who are beginners in everything, are not yet capable of love: it is something they must learn. with their whole being, with all their forces, gathered around their solitary, anxious, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love.
emerson: first, be a good animal
surely you wouldn’t refer to your pacemaker-wearing uncle as a “cyborg”?
“geworfen” from Being and Time
“What prepares men for totalitarian domination in the non-totalitarian world is the fact that loneliness, once a borderline experience usually suffered in certain marginal social conditions like old age, has become an everyday experience..” The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951)
Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1114191/male-suicide-rate-in-the-us-by-age-group/
l m sacasas, “embracing sub-optimal relationships”
anne carson: “i remember a night about ten years ago when i was talking to [my father] on the telephone. it was a saturday night in winter… he would start a sentence—about weather, lose his way, start another. it made me furious to hear him floundering— my tall proud father, former ww2 navigator! it made me merciless. i stood on the edge of the conversation, watching him thrash about for cues, offering none. it came to me like a slow avalanche that he had no idea who he was talking to. “much colder today I guess” . . . . his voice pressed into the silence and broke off, snow falling on it. there was a long pause while snow covered us both. well I won’t keep you, he said with sudden desperate cheer as if sighting land. i’ll say goodnight now, i won’t run up your bill. goodbye.” The Glass Essay.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8950087/
https://www.alzheimers.net/8-6-14-doll-therapy-alzheimers
https://ptfaculty.gordonstate.edu/rscoggins/Cohen,%20Monster%20Culture%20(Seven%20Theses),%203-20.pdf
adapted from a tumblr post by “delladilly-deactivated20161011” and “for grace, after a party”, by frank o’hara
this made me unbearably sad to read and i think i need to lie down and take a nap
you are an excellent writer
perfect