Why AI Boyfriends Are a Much Bigger Deal Than AI Girlfriends
The American market has been slow to get the memo.
There is already an alien intelligence present on earth, but it’s not AI. It’s limited liability companies. These entities are the arbiters of political decision-making in modern liberal democracy. So, in a very real sense our civilization is ruled by an alien intelligence. LLCs are alien because they prioritize market demands, cash flows, and profit maximization over human needs. What’s good for humans, is not necessarily good for business. That’s a strange paradox leading to some truly strange outcomes.
Enter human-AI relationships. I expect these will be a much bigger deal in the years to come, especially for young women. In parallel to the crisis of young men, which is often talked about with loud voices in the media, young women are going through a more quiet crisis. Young men are generally escaping their responsibilities through computer games and porn - because they don’t know what else to do – whereas young career women roughly between the ages of 25 and 35 tend to take on too many responsibilities and suffer from stress and burnouts. Besides their lack of time and energy as they climb the corporate career ladders, these women are tired of swiping and disillusioned with modern dating culture. They just don’t have the time to complain and post about it, like young men do.
By the way, this trend of changing gender roles where women take on dual-roles as the family’s caregiver and provider, while men are confined to the living room as dormant couch potatoes may become the norm. Traditional male-dominated jobs are rapidly becoming female, as for example, college women far outnumber men in law and medicine. The American action hero male archetype doesn’t stand a chance against autonomous drones or modern military technology. Masculine qualities such as heroism, courage, and assertiveness are not in high stock either, because any kind of revolution or resistance can so easily be squashed by big corporations, sophisticated intelligence services, and American algorithms. Technology, the changing economy, and other structural developments raise serious questions about the role of men in this hyper-advanced technological society we live in. Men can’t give birth, protect the family, or really provide material support to it. I see the future of men as becoming a kind of luxury good to women like designer bags and silk scarves. There isn’t much of a need for them, but they are nice to have.
Anyway, joking aside. This is not the future I want. It’s probably not the future you want either. But the alien intelligence wants it because it’s looking to improve shareholder value at any cost. Let’s prepare together and try to understand what is really happening. To catch a glimpse of what may happen, we can look to China, which is ahead of the curve.
A growing number of career women in China seek the “emotional value” from AI companions that they struggle to obtain from men in real life. Meanwhile, most American AI companion apps focus on pornographic AI girlfriends for men, but in my paid analysis below, I will argue that they are misreading market demands. The future I describe in this post is far from science fiction; it’s happening right here today.
