Threats of Evil AI: The threat to human relationships
MIT sociologist Sherry Turkle once wrote that we “expect more from technology and less from each other.” To make matters worse, the smarter technology gets, the more we expect from it.
Consider meeting your romantic partner. In the past, you may have relied on a friend or family member to introduce you to someone, perhaps in the context of Church, a sports club, or a university class. Today, online dating apps are replacing these institutions at a rapid pace. We still do not know how these new relationships compare: do they increase or decrease the quality and longevity or relationships?
There is another, hidden effect of online dating apps. By not requiring the help of a friend or a family member, we lose opportunities for exchanging favors with them. The same goes for many other AI-driven apps. When you visited a new city, you used to ask people for directions. Now we just use a maps app. You used to ask friends for product or restaurant recommendations. Now you just look up online reviews and peruse AI-driven recommendations based on ‘people like you’. Do these opportunities for social exchange disappear, or are they replaced by new ones? In other words, will AI take away from the social capital that human favor exchange generates?
Pushing this idea to its logical conclusion, we end up with the replacement of the romantic partner or the friend themselves with AIs, a prospect that is no longer in the realm of science fiction. We are already witnessing the proliferation of AI-driven virtual companions. Physical companions, including robotic sexual partners, are not far behind. On one hand, these AI companions might help us tackle social isolation and depression, or make psychological counseling more affordable. On the other hand, they may themselves be partly responsible for our social isolation.
References
Turkle, S. Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. (Hachette UK, 2017).
Metz, C. Riding Out Quarantine With a Chatbot Friend: ‘I Feel Very Connected’. NY Times (2020).
Brooks, R. Artificial Intimacy: Virtual friends, digital lovers and algorithmic matchmakers. (NewSouth Publishing, 2021).