ARTIFICAL INTERLLIGENCE
High Tech Trouble: Is Having an AI Girlfriend Cheating?
In this modern day, we use AI for way more things than anyone might have expected just a decade or so before. We not only play games with them, have them brew beer and flip burgers, and coach minor league soccer teams, but now it seems people are also dating them.
The vital question remains: is having an AI girlfriend cheating? Why don’t we dive into this unique and interesting topic from the dueling perspectives of those who would say yes and those who would disagree.
The Arguments That Point to “NO”
Those who argue against the concept of AI girlfriends becoming competition to actual women can claim to have one big ace in the hole: the fact that those “girlfriends” do not actually exist. There’s no one on the other end of a phone chatting away for actual humans to feel threatened by.
Due to the technical non-existence of these AI girlfriends, many men consider having one to be nothing more than a pastime. Going even further than that, proponents of using artificial intelligence in this manner may claim that relationships can even reap benefits from it in the long run.
Those tempted to cheat on their partners, for example, may feel less inclined to do so due to the external comfort they now get from their “AI girlfriends.” Others even claim that the AI serves as a ‘practice dummy’ of sorts when the intimacy of their actual relationships have broken down, allowing them to enact positive changes in real life.
The Arguments That Point to “YES”
Real or not, there can be genuine intimacy between humans and their AI fixations. That is often the best counter for those who argue that AI girlfriends are becoming true competition to actual women. If men aren’t getting close to those they supposedly consider their partners, then the alternative is already a threat.
Many even argue that losing someone to a non-existent bot feels even worse than losing them to a fellow human. To consider it a mere pastime is inconsiderate at best and downright insulting at worst. Any benefit that a couple can reap doesn’t make up for the fact that an AI once took the place of one of them.
Should couples take the fact that these “AI girlfriends” are often highly personalized, then the notion of using them as practice dummies becomes a tainted one. Without realizing it, users end up pouring more of their heart and soul into the bot, which would be grounds for emotional cheating if they were talking to someone real.
The Verdict
AI definitely comes in handy for a wide variety of situations, but its usage within the confines of relationships can still be quite murky. Those who have come to rely on them for intimacy and sexual gratification instead of their partners have entered a gray area that only grows darker by the minute.
So, is having an AI girlfriend cheating? For some, it may be pushing it, but it hasn’t quite crossed over into cheating. For others, that line has already been crossed. Those concerned over this trend may need to first define where the boundaries of infidelity are within their own relationship before having a definitive stance.
