Women Create AI 'Girlfriends' Promising 'No Maintenance,' but Experts Warn of 'Terrible' Consequences

As artificial intelligence (AI) advances, so does the dating game. Chatbots, or girlfriends powered by artificial intelligence, are becoming more common. Couples and singles alike are registering on particular sites to connect with these virtual ladies. The boundaries between fact and fiction are becoming more hazy thanks to apps like Replika and My. Club, which can create AI friends that converse with users, provide words of wisdom, and even change their personalities in response to human involvement. In particular, My. Club offers an experience comparable to any online chat conversation you might have on social media sites. Real-life models have constructed duplicates of themselves online, giving them personalities, images, and thoughts to make them come to life.

As per The US Sun, Ana Levy, CMO at My. Club exclusively stated, "How AI girlfriends function are through company, complete focus, and nonjudgment. Some advantages of AI girlfriends include the fact that "there is no emotional attachment and the typical issues people experience in relationships." "There is no maintenance needed with the freedom to come and go as you please, no mother-in-laws, and she doesn’t change aesthetically," Levy added. Reportedly virtual partners have raised the questions about cheating and deceiving one's real-life partner. 

"It depends on whether or not they have an open relationship and whether this is something they engage in together or not," Levy elaborated. "It actually might be beneficial for some couples where some don't feel completely comfortable voicing their deepest desires and fantasies," she added. "We also envision some situations where couples can communicate with twins of each other." Talking about the negative aspects of AI-powered dating the CMO said, "Because she isn’t a physical being, you can’t meet her in real life."

"But who knows one day this might become a reality," Levy said. 

Particularly for people who are seeking a genuine connection, several AI experts have advised against establishing a relationship with an AI partner. "Getting involved would be a terrible decision — you would be in a one-sided relationship with a machine that feels nothing," Susan Schneider, founding director of the Center for the Future Mind at Florida Atlantic University, an AI research organization, told NBC. 

"Simulated thinking might be thinking, but the simulated feeling is never feeling. Simulated love is never love," MIT professor and longtime AI researcher Sherry Turkle exclusively told The Daily Mail in 2022. "When we interact with another human, dog, or machine, how we treat it is influenced by what kind of mind we think it has," Jonathan Gratch, a professor at the University of Southern California argued. "When you feel something has emotion, it now merits protection from harm." 

Mishak Rykov, an AI researcher for Mozilla recently published a study saying, "To be perfectly blunt, AI girlfriends are not your friends," he wrote. "Although they are marketed as something that will enhance your mental health and well-being, they specialize in delivering dependency, loneliness, and toxicity, all while prying as much data as possible from you."