Our Liaison Shall Remain Imperfect and Complicated

Abstract

a female voice (Scarlett Johansson). Not dissimilar from these fictional stories, a number of similar ones exist in real life. In Brisbane, Australia, for instance, Geoff Gallagher reported on his relationship with companion robot Emma, his robot wife that he’s hoping to marry [1]. Zheng Jiajia, an AI engineer in Hangzhou, China, married a robot he built himself after failing to find a human spouse [2]. The most intriguing example may be that of Davecat from Detroit, Michigan, who lives with his synthetic wife as well as his synthetic mistress [3]. David Levy [4] argues that nonhuman companions will play increasingly prominent roles in society as sexual technologies become increasingly sophisticated and society’s concept of what normal sex means changes. That said, there are many real-life and fictional examples of people debating, questioning, and focusing on permutations of human-to-nonhuman relationships that go beyond mere sexual transactions to deep, everyday companionship. From that standpoint, academic as well as commercial literature often looks at these new relationships from the perspective of what the machine is, may, should, or will be capable of feeling. Users of OpenAI’s DALL-E 2, for example, have shown the system’s ability to recognize and replicate patterns typically associated with the many abstract emotions that we humans feel for art created by other humans [5]. The system is not capable of feeling or experiencing an emotion per se—only of representing it. More specifically, it seems to understand how to pair a specific human emotion (e.g., love, sadness, or hope) with the correct facial expression, symbolism, and even color scheme that a human would associate with that emotion. Digging into this complex rabbit hole at a time when generative AI (GenAI) is revolutionizing discourse and society in all directions, I found myself asking a somewhat odd question: If generative AI were a person, what relationship would, could, and should I have with it? It appears that we humans are currently establishing a multitude of diverse relationships with GenAI. A look at social media suggests that many are in the midst of a fun relationship, with subconscious fears that such a relationship may become abusive and daydreaming that it may instead become true love. Some appear to be in the midst of an emotional affair—slowly but surely falling for the seemingly miraculous GenAI, so much so that they might soon consider jeopardizing other relationships to pursue their newfound lover. Others are possibly having a fling—they are in love yet keeping things loose and in the now, with no future plans and a number of doubts about the future, because the relationship, after all, makes them feel good yet may not last forever. For yet others, it’s complicated, maybe a love-hate or an onoff relationship. Then, of course, some are already in a codependent partnership or believe that they hold the power in a controlling relationship. And finally, it appears that many Silicon Valley tech bros are enjoying what can only be described as a trophy relationship— rather shallow, and possibly long lasting You have to know the past to understand the present. — Carl Sagan