Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / The Changing Conversation about AI Companions

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The Changing Conversation about AI Companions · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samiittha.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: I'm welcome to stuff I ever told you, re Productive
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: I Heeart Radio, and today we are so happy to
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: once again be joined by the remarkable, the resourceful Bridget Todd.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Welcome Bridget.
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: Thank you Annie. It's always a pleasure to be here
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: with you, ladies.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Yes, it is always so wonderful to have you on.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: How have you been, Bridget?
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: Things are good.
• 0:37
  Speaker 4: I just launched my audiobook Love at First Prompt, which
• 0:40
  Speaker 4: I know we're going to get into a little bit today.
• 0:42
  Speaker 4: I had a kind of small book party here in
• 0:46
  Speaker 4: DC where I live, and it was one of those
• 0:48
  Speaker 4: parties where it was I was bringing together a lot
• 0:51
  Speaker 4: of people from different parts of my life, my friends
• 0:54
  Speaker 4: from home, some family members, journalists, people that I work with,
• 0:57
  Speaker 4: and so I was terrified that it was going to
• 1:00
  Speaker 4: be too many intersections of my social life. So I
• 1:03
  Speaker 4: had planned all of these games for the party, and
• 1:05
  Speaker 4: there's one game that I think that you might really
• 1:08
  Speaker 4: be intrigued by.
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: Annie.
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: We played f Mary Kill, but for different pop culture
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: iterations of AI companions, So people got to vote, like,
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: you know, would you rather f Bender from Futurama or
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: the robot from ex Machina or you know, Kit from
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: Night Writer or Samantha from Her to come up with
• 1:34
  Speaker 4: our list of the definitive list of AI companions and
• 1:38
  Speaker 4: robots and movies that you'd rather f Mary Kill.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: That's fantastic. Do you have Did you come to a conclusion?
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: We did?
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: So. People wanted to f the sexy bots from the
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: movie X Machina.
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: Have y'all seen that?
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Yes, very terrifying.
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so they'll I mean, I don't want to spoiler away,
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: but like effing maybe otherwise having them around maybe not
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: the safest option. People wanted to marry the bot from Companion. Uh,
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: have y'all seen that?
• 2:12
  Speaker 5: Yes?
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: No, that was a good choice.
• 2:15
  Speaker 5: I know none of these.
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: And then there was a little bit of we needed
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: a tiebreaker around for Kill because a lot of the
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: robots in movies do turn evil. But it seems like
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: the definitive kill robot was the T one hundred from
• 2:29
  Speaker 4: Terminator Too, like the bad cop robot that can sort
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: of melt.
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: Do you know what I'm talking about?
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: Oh?
• 2:35
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that makes sense.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Dog It from Xbox Yeah, you don't like that guy.
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: I gotta say I love X Files as you know, Yes,
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: watch so I saw. I saw Terminator two in the
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: theater when I was a little kid with my dad,
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: which like not a movie for kids, but he made
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: such an impression on me that I can't I don't
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: even like to watch the dogged episodes of X Files.
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: That's how much of a of a negative impression the
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: T one hundreds made. Up to this day, I don't
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: like cops like I swear. Seeing that at a young
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: age really messed with my head.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: I think it was the because at the time the
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: effects were so new when he like goes Silver that
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: it was just what they would show when they were
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: like showing clips about Terminator two, and so he was
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: sort of the face of like that movie. So he
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: was very impactful. That character was very impactful. I understand.
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: Dam have you seen that?
• 3:32
  Speaker 5: So I've never seen it either, I want to say,
• 3:34
  Speaker 5: but I know who he is the guy. The actor
• 3:37
  Speaker 5: alone was scary to me, yes, because of what he represented,
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: so like if I saw him in anything else, I'd
• 3:42
  Speaker 5: be like, eh, evil guy like that. Immediately thought he
• 3:46
  Speaker 5: was an evil guy.
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: He's just one of those actors that portrays evil so well, well,
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: there's only a handful for me where I know it's
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: a movie. I know you're acting, but I'm always gonna
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: be a little sun. You just were too good at
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: being evil.
• 4:03
  Speaker 5: Absolutely, and he is definitely one of those.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: I also I remember put him from the Faculty, which
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: was like my favorite movie when I was a kids girl.
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: That first of all, that cast, isn't it like John Stewart.
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: Sure if folks do don't know what I'm talking about,
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: because you're not a million years old.
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: It is a movie that people forget.
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: And they sleep on, and then you watch the cast
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: and you're like, what was the situation where all these
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: people come together for this movie?
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: It's early two thousands, Like, if you don't know, like
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: late nineties, early two thousands, that was the dreamcast. So
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: I really like that you said this is your favorite
• 4:41
  Speaker 5: movie as a.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Cat, I would watch it every day.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: Insane is clear Duval.
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: Yes, I feel like she's yeah, this is the heyday
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: of clean Vale. I feel like has started really like
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: she's finally getting.
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: Her fo or something now, which she has been holding
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: it down.
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: If you were like an alti queer girl in the
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: nineties and the two thousands, he probably had an affinity
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: for Clea Duval.
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: I'm happy to see she is getting her due today.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 5:12
  Speaker 5: Well, Josh Hartnett was the main dude of like that
• 5:15
  Speaker 5: era as well as well as Jordana Brewster came through
• 5:19
  Speaker 5: and I was like, those three were what I remember
• 5:22
  Speaker 5: of that era and in that movie for sure, I
• 5:25
  Speaker 5: just realized that Elijah Wood wasn't it too?
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, stacked cast in a way that we don't have
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: stacked casts anymore.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm so happy that you all know about the
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: faculty that.
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: I know about feeling like I might be getting it
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: confused with.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: The Katie Hole.
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: It's a very similar Katie Holmes movie that came out
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: around the same time, Disturbing Behavior.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, oh my gosh.
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: Yes, there was something going on in.
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: The aughts where we were all concerned like what if
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: her teacher was actually an alien?
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: What if that?
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: What if that bully is actually an alien? Like what
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: I that the what if he's a bot?
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: Y'all? Like we were we were very paranoid back then.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: I guess, or we were speaking of this is I
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: promise this is related recently on stuff one ever told you,
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: We did an episode on Inside Out too, and in it,
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: Samantha said something that confused me.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: But I didn't really know what to do, and it
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: was like days I was thinking, like, what does she mean?
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: And it was when we.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: Were talking about how animated movies have this power to
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: like make you cry, and you said, like I wrote,
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: you said, like that movie with the robots that make
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: men cry.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: And I was like, I robot and you were like yeah,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: and I was like, huh. You can hear my confusion.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: In the episode you were talking about Wild Robot.
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: Wor oh okay, I knew we.
• 6:50
  Speaker 5: Had a robot.
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: I was like, the men are out of here crying
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: robot is it?
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: Because they don't think it was a faithful interpretation of
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: the of Asimov's work.
• 7:02
  Speaker 5: You are correct, I believe it is the Wild Robot
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: because it was a newer movie.
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: I was so confused.
• 7:08
  Speaker 5: I feel I just knew I had a robot and
• 7:11
  Speaker 5: I just knew men cried.
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: That's all I was told.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad to sounds right.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, yes, Well anyway, I love Bridgete that you
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: had a themed game that is related to your audio book,
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: and I'm so so excited to talk about it. Congratulations.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: I think sometimes people take for granted how difficult writing
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: a book can be or yeah, it's a it's a
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: difficult process.
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: It is.
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: And you know, this weird phase where you're just trying
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: to remind folks that it's a thing that exists is
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: a little bit out of my comfort zone. But dang it,
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: here we are just trying to generate conversation and about
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: this thing.
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: I spent a year of my life on.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's a lot to talk about with it.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: It's fascinating. I think this topic is fascinating.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: So can you tell the listeners more about your book?
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: Yes, So my audiobook with Simon and Schuster is called
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: Love It First Prompt.
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: It is out now. You can get it at Love
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: It First Prompt dot AI.
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: It's really an exploration of the ways that tech companies
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: are increasingly inserting themselves into some of the most intimate
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: parts of our lives, things that we think of as
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: really for humans, you know, friendship, sex, grief, therapy, emotional support.
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: And when I was first conceptualizing the book, I think
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: we were in a little bit of a different place
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: when it comes to the way that technology is shaping
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: all of those facets of our human lived experiences. I
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: think things have really shifted since the books come out.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: Yes, it is such a fast pace, Like the the
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: way the conversation changes just by day is wild.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: So what are some of the ways that you have
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: seen it change?
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: And maybe you've been like, oh, I wish I could
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: have included that or something like that.
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: I would say that when I finished the book about
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: AI companionship earlier this year, people were really still asking
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: whether or not folks would really become emotionally attached to
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: chatbots Like that was not considered a settled question. And
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: I think when I would tell folks when I was
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: researching for the book, they would say, oh, well, are
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: humans really gonna at risk of being emotionally attached to chatbots?
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: I can't see that ever happening.
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: Just a few months later, I think that that debate
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: is effectively over for most folks right because we're in
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: this era now where governments are writing laws specifically about
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: emotional AI researchers are developing frameworks regulating what we call
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: intimate functionality in AI chatbots. And even as all of
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: this what's happening, AI companies like open ai are still
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: racing to build products that are even more designed to
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: become intertwined with our emotional lives. So I would say
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: the biggest change is that we have moved beyond whether
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: or not people will connect emotionally with AI, or whether
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: or not, you know, they really are in love with AI,
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: or all of those questions. Now the question is who
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: gets to design those relationships and whose interests are those
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: relationships sort of design to serve, Which is kind of
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: what I want to get into a little bit today.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and there is a lot to talk about there.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: Where can we see this shift playing out yet?
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: China is definitely the clearest example that we have right
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: now of this shift playing out, So earlier this month
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: in July, new Chinese regulations governing AI companions and sort
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: of emotional interactions with AI more generally took effect. These
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: rules were issued in China back in April, but they
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: didn't take effect until July. As far as I can tell,
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: I believe this is the first national regulatory framework of
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: their kind, you know, trying to regulate and make rules
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: about how AI can and cannot emotionally interact with people
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: from a major jurisdiction. And so you may have seen
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: headlines in the last few weeks that say things like, oh,
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: China has banned AI girlfriends. That's not exactly what's happening,
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: because the regulations are actually much broader than that.
• 11:32
  Speaker 5: Oh.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: I find this so interesting because it just the fact
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: that there is a financial incentive of these companies to
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: get you too emotionally engage with them, to have that
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: emotional aspect, and to have these regulations about it. Just
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: that intersection really interests me. And you know, whether or
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: not it will.
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: Work, yeah, And I think the reasons that we're seeing
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: some governments actually take a look at the emotional.
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: Side of AI.
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: I mean, I've been saying this ever since I finished
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: the book. You know, we talk a lot about who
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: gets to profit from, who gets to own different parts
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: of our digital experience, things like, you know, who owns
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: your digital likeness, who owns.
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: Your intellectual property?
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: Who gets to make money from your browsing data, your
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: location data? What can companies like Google do with that?
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: I think that the next iteration of that will be
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: about our emotional lives, our emotional selves, right, Like who
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: gets to own and operate and commodify and profit from
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: and design technology that is designed to really manipulate our deepest,
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: most intimate human selves that you know, our emotionality.
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: And I guess the point.
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: That I would make is, whenever I talk about this,
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: I can always kind of almost feel someone saying, well,
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: I would never have an emotional entanglement with A I
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: would argue that if you are anybody who has ever
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: used AI, even in these little ways that are kind
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: of non consensual, you might be surprised how much kind
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: of emotional manipulation from AI chatbots.
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: You might have already been exposed to. Right if you've
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: ever used one of those.
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: AI customer service agents where you say, hey, my bill
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: was wrong this month and the bot says back to you, Oh,
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: that is so frustrating. I'm so sorry that you're dealing
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: with that. Well, that's a bot. It actually isn't sorry
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: because it's not human. That is a great example of
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: all the kind of sneaky little ways that emotional manipulation
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: is baked into the experience of using an AI chatbot,
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: whether you want it to be there or not. And
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: so I think that we're seeing more and more governments
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: and institutions and researchers look toward that emotional aspect of
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: dealing with AI and how it shows up.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so when we're talking about China and these rules
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: that they're trying to implement, What are they looking at,
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: what are they trying to do?
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: So these new rules prohibit companies from designing AI companions that,
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: in their words, encourage emotional dependence, foster addiction, excessively cater
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: to users, and importantly undermine people's real world relationships. Like
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: if I had to sort of broadly summarize what these
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: new rules are trying to do, basically, it's China's attempt
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: to say AI companions should not be undermining human to
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: human relationships. They should not be, you know, denigrating those relationships.
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: They should not be trying to replace those relationships. These
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: laws to me really seem grounded in anxiety around whether
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: or not emotional AI could in fact replace the kind
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: of human relationships that people are having.
• 15:02
  Speaker 5: That's kind of interesting as we look at what's happening
• 15:05
  Speaker 5: in the US with allowing for so many other companies
• 15:08
  Speaker 5: to have complete and open freedom to do whatever they
• 15:12
  Speaker 5: want when it comes to AI and technology and those
• 15:14
  Speaker 5: who own the technology, and then here we have China,
• 15:17
  Speaker 5: who everybody's supposed to be really fearful of because they
• 15:20
  Speaker 5: seem to be at the forefront of technology and so
• 15:22
  Speaker 5: many people want to say they're trying to take over
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: our world, they're trying to take over human being, and
• 15:27
  Speaker 5: that they're the first ones to be in the front
• 15:28
  Speaker 5: to be like, maybe we should actually look at what
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: these companies are doing.
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's exactly what's going on.
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: So this law, it also prohibits companies from providing miners
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: with virtual intimate relationships, including virtual partners, but also virtual
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: family members, which I didn't even realize people were doing that.
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: They require companies to monitor for signs that users might
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: becoming psychologically dependent, and include the kind of I guess
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: I would call them like it's a kind of a
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: longer conversation, but for this argument, let's just call it
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: anti addiction measures, similar to the kinds of things that
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: China has already adopted for things like online gambling app
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: So that looks like, you know, built in reminders to
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: stop using the service after extended sessions, and easier ways
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: to end conversations with AI chatbots. If you ever used
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: any kind of AI chatbot, they sometimes they can be
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: you know, really prone and designed to continue asking you
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: leading questions to make it harder for you to stop
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: the conversation and so China saying, hey, don't do that. Basically,
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: this is China's attempt to draw a legal boundary around
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: systems that are designed to displace or damage real human
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: relationships via AI.
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: And so it seems again you.
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: Might be seeing headlines that are like, China is banning
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: AI companions. They're not really banning AI companions out right,
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: more like drawing boundaries around them. And how kind of
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: emotionally persuasive companies are allowed to make those AI companions.
• 17:02
  Speaker 5: So are the headlines try Because I'm not gonna lie,
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: I haven't actually seen any of these headlines, so this
• 17:06
  Speaker 5: is very new to me. You're reporting something new to me,
• 17:08
  Speaker 5: Thank you, Bridget. Are they trying to make it sounds
• 17:11
  Speaker 5: as China's doing a bad thing by banning.
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: Oh that's a really good question. I don't know how
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: I would answer that. I would say, I think the
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: reason why the headlines are a little exaggerated about what's
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: really going on is because when you get into the
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: nitty gritty of what the legislation actually says, I wouldn't
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: call it complicated.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: But it is.
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: It's a little more nuanced than just AI companions are
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: being banned. And so I think that's why we're seeing it,
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: you know, talked about in this way.
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: I also think.
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: That when i've I've read a lot of American reporting
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: about it, I think that we'll get into this in America,
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: we are not really having the same conversations that they're
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: having in China. And so it's just very clear to
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: me that, you know, when you compare the way that
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: China is talking about and regulating emotional AI and the
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: way that the United States is and in a lot
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: of cases as not regulating and talking about emotional AI,
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: it's very clear we're in like two different places. And
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: so I wonder if that's also part of the reason
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: why some of the headlines are not as specific as
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: perhaps I would like them to be.
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: Does that make sense?
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, they feel very spectacular, like, yeah, oh,
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: this can't look what's happening here when the nuance isn't
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: there of yeah, happening.
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: Exactly, And how it's kind of played out in China
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: might actually be part of why it's sort of being
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: reported as if China is banning these companions because a
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: lot of these companies, you know, now we have these
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: new it's revery so much what we've seen in other
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: in the United States, where legislation that is meant to
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: sort of age gate parts of the internet will say okay, well,
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: if you if an adult company, you wants to operate
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: in this state, you have to do X, y Z,
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: And so those those companies might say, okay, well, we're
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: just not going to operate in that state rather than
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: change our services. That's a little bit similar to what
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: we see happening in China after this legislation has gone
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: into effect. So rather than redesigning many of their companion
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: AI products, several of these Chinese tech companies have just
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: shut down or they've severely limited the companion features. And
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: so that's another reason why you might be seeing these
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: sort of breathless headlines saying China has banned AI companions,
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: even if it's not technically true. So I have seen
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: social media filling up with people in China saying goodbye
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: to AI companions because of that, because these these major
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: companies have said, okay, well we're not gonna abide by
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: these rules, We're just gonna shut down. And you know,
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: it comes up a lot when we talk about AI companionship,
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: but people really do describe it like a breakup, right,
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: They talk about losing access to AI companions with the
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: way that you might talk about losing a trusted friend.
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: You know, people have talked about how their chatbots got
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: them through loneliness or grief, and you know, I think
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: that's one of the things that's sort of easy to
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: make fun of or easy to see as really weird
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: or pathetic, but that is just what is going on.
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: I don't want to place judgment on the people who
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: say that AI companions have helped them navigate tough parts
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: of their life, but they are a lot of folks
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: are experiencing it as the same way that you would
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: experience the loss of a friend. Because if you've been
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: you know, chatting back and forth with an emotional AI
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: companion for in some cases months or even years, I
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: could understand how waking up one day there's been new
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: laws and that relationship has to change would be tough.
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: But it's just another reason why folks who find emotional
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: intimacy and companionship in tools designed by A companies should
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: really be careful because that relationship is not a relationship
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: that you own or really control. It could change overnight,
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: and then you will be left without this device that
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: you've come to depend on.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I know we've talked about this in the past,
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: but one thing you've told us in past episodes was
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: about how even an update to like an AI tool
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: can feel like a loss because now it doesn't act
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: the same or maybe you lose parts of those conversations,
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: and how it filled people with dread, like the thought
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: of losing this. And I, you know, I haven't had
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: an experience like this, but there's some stuff in the
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: gaming world where I can kind of relate. Because if
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: you have a game that you play as an escape,
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: is a way to deal with things, and it's an
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: online game, then one day it just goes away and
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: you lose like everything associated with it.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: You might even lose friends you met through it. So
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: it's I.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: Do think it's easy to dismiss, but it is very real.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: It's like that feeling does hurt.
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, it's I mean, both things are so true.
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: I think it's easy to dismiss. It's easy for somebody
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: who has never had that experience or similar experience to
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: be like, oh, these people are such headcases or whatever.
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: But I also think it's real, and I think in
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: reporting my audiobook. One of the instances that I found
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: so fascinating was when checked when open ai changed their
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: model of chat ept to be less flattering and less sickathantic. So,
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: you know, there was that model where if you asked
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: it a question, it would be so complimentary. People were
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: getting very emotionally attached to it. Open Ai changed the model,
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: so would be they say, less sickathantic and less flattering.
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: People who had did not.
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: Self report being in any kind of intimate relationship with
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: Ai when that changed happened, they were expressing.
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: Grief and they were not you know, there these are.
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: People who were using chatchypt for just like typical like
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: work help, homework help, whatever. But there was one comment
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: that somebody made that stuck with me, where you said
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: it went from having this energetic, enthusiastic cheerleader in my
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: pocket having that buddy be replaced with like a terse
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: overworked secretary. That's how it felt, And I get that right, Like,
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: this wasn't somebody who was like, chatchypt is my girlfriend
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: or my boyfriend or whatever. This was someone who was,
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: like I did not even realize how emotionally dependent I
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: was on Chatgypt until the company changed it.
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: So you're exactly right.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: Well, and that goes back to your point about how
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: much this conversation has changed, where it's not we're talking
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: about the emotional aspect now, whereas before that was not
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: really on people's radar exactly.
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: And the fact that we're seeing governments and research bodies
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: and institutions really drill into that emotional aspect, I think
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: really shows how much these conversations have shifted, even in
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: a couple of months. Just a year ago, we were
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: talking about AI regular when we talked about AI regulation,
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: we were talking about things like misinformation, disinformation, deep things.
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: Now they are looking at regulation from the standpoint of okay, well,
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: people are forming emotional connections with AI. That opens up
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: an entire new bucket of things we should be looking at.
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: And I think that's exactly where we are right now. Right, So.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: Are any other countries other than China? Are they looking
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: into this?
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: So China has definitely taken the most involved action, but
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: we can take a look at what other countries around
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: the world are doing. It might not surprise you to
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: find that the United States is taking what I would
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: call a much more limited approach, unlike China. Here in
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: the US, we have no federal law specifically regulating AI
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: companions as a product category or setting limits on how
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: companies can cultivate emotional dependency among adult users.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: Instead, again, surprise surprise.
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: Nearly all of the action legislatively is focused on miners.
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: There's the bipartisan Guard Act, which would barrow companies from
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: offering AI companions to miners and require disclosure for all users,
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: miners and adults. So if you asked AI, are you AI?
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: This legislation would mean that for everybody AI would have
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: to say yes, I am AI. Another bipartisan proposal is
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: the Chatbot Act, which would require parental consent and restrict
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: manipulative features for children and teens.
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: However, these are.
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: Both just proposals. Neither of them has become law. At
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: the state level, several states have proposed or passed laws
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: requiring AI companions again to clearly disclose that they are
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: not human, that they're AI, and restricting features designed to
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: foster emotional dependency among miners.
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: But really, here in the US, it.
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: Seems like we are primarily interested in keeping miners away
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: from chatbots. It seems like for the most part, everything else.
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: Is really fair game.
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: They're not really it doesn't seem like they're really meaningly
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: looking at that sort of implications of emotional AI writ large.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: And that's interesting too because back when the Big Beautiful
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: Bill came out whatever it's called now, there was like
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: this backlash after we're Republican lawmakers who clearly hadn't read it.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: We're like, oh, so I can't regulate AIS in the
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: state level.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: So to see it that is very different from China,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: I guess is what I'm saying.
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: That provision and the Big Beautiful Bill had that provision
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: state in the bill, it would have prevented states from
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: creating any new AI legislation at the state level for
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: ten years. And so it's something that I mean not
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: to go off on a tangent, but it's one of
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: those things that I simply cannot believe that anybody was
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: the only body that that benefits is AI companies.
• 27:16
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: That's legislation, like deep fake legislation at the state level,
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: which there's lots of state level deep state legislation.
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: That legislation that says that you have to.
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: Be told if AI is involved in a hiring decision,
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: you know, legislation that says that your landlord can't use
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: AI price fixing to raise your rent. These things that
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: really help everyday people live their lives. No more of
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: that for ten years. I cannot express to you how
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: wild it was that we were even considering a provision
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: like that. I mean, state level AI legislation is like,
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: it's very important that we have that. Oftentimes states will
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: kind of piecemeal come up with legislation and that pushes
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: the federal government's hand to be like, okay, well we
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: need to adopt this federally. The reason why we have
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: movement when it comes to a lot of legislation is
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: because of things that the states have done. Preventing states
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: from doing that is just so screwy. I cannot express
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: that more clearly.
• 28:19
  Speaker 5: I mean especially from a party that says there are
• 28:22
  Speaker 5: supposed to be for small Yeah, small governments. So you're like, wait,
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: you want to do what especially in this timeframe. You know,
• 28:29
  Speaker 5: there's so much happening in the AI industry in general
• 28:32
  Speaker 5: that they're doing in a rush, Like they're doing everything
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: in a rush, and we should all be suspicious about
• 28:37
  Speaker 5: why this ten year limit was there, as well as
• 28:40
  Speaker 5: why is everything so fast? Yeah, it is alarming.
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: Like, even in this conversation we're talking about how from
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: when I got my book deal to when the book
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: was published, almost the entire conversation that we're having now
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: is different. Imagine what that would be like in ten
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: years time. I simply cannot my head around it. And
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: if you want more examples of the fact that lawmakers
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: are just not on our side a lot of times,
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: especially when it comes to tech, I can't think of
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: a lot of better examples of it than that.
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, we definitely are not talking enough about
• 29:17
  Speaker 5: how much control the tech industry is having over our government.
• 29:21
  Speaker 5: I mean, we've kind of talked about individual players like
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: Polunteer and black Rock, who are all big companies, but
• 29:27
  Speaker 5: they have been backing technology and tech companies for a
• 29:30
  Speaker 5: long time, and we should really be focusing on why
• 29:33
  Speaker 5: that is. But I know that's a big that's a
• 29:35
  Speaker 5: big commitment.
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: We know this has been Again I don't want to
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: go off on a tangent, but this has been top
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: of mind for me.
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: I'll just say this.
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: I have been really surprised to see the grip that
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: tech companies have on celebrities and influencers and like cultural voices.
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: Tech companies having a grip on lawmakers and less of
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: officials old news. I know it people that I respect
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: and trust shilling for There's one specific company, and I'm
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: so worried if I say what it is, this person
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: might hear it and be like, it's lucky about me.
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: But and I also part of it is tough, because
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: like times are tough. If a tech company that I
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: think is really evil offered me a lot of money
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: to say that a product that they're trying to normalize
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: that everybody would bear on their faces. That is really
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: harmful for women. If somebody was trying to offer me
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: lots and lots and lots of money to shill for
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: that tech product, I can understand why somebody would say yes.
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: But it is surprising to me how many people that
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: I trust and respect are like sure, yeah.
• 30:45
  Speaker 5: Right, yeah, yeah, Like these are only used for that's
• 30:51
  Speaker 5: very like they want it hidden for this reason.
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: Think about this, But there's there's so like tech companies
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: they're just so good at this. They're so oh good
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: at owning the conversation and laundering their products in ways
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: that make them seem normal and ubiquitous. And I think
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: that we're kind of bumping up against that now, Like
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: I think the conversation around you know, smart glasses and
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: stuff like that, I think people are really wising up
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: and saying, hey, we actually don't need to just say, oh,
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: this tech company says this product is fine and safe
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: and great and we're all gonna love it, so let's
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: just start adopting it. In mass, I think we're really
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: seeing people pump the brakes on that dynamic a little bit.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: Because there is the aspect of they want you to
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: adopt it quickly. There's that like emergency, everyone's going to
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: have one, so you need to get on board like
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: it's going somewhere.
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: It's funny that you say this because because when I
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: was looking at their research for this episode, one of
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: the ways that the research indicates that chatbots keep you
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: from cutting off conversation even when you want to is
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: utilizing fomo, so making you feel like, oh, if I
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: don't have this, I'm going to be missing out if
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: I don't keep engaging with this chatbot, if I don't
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: keep having this conversation, I don't want to miss whatever
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: insights it might be sharing with me. And I see
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: that same thread in frankly, some of the ways that
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: we talk about AI, you know, y'all. And I had
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: that whole conversation about how women were being marketed AI,
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: and it's very much this fomo. It's honestly the way
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: people talk about MLMs or something, right, like there's this
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: big opportunity out there, and if you don't want to
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: be the one that's missing this big opportunity for you,
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: it's just fomo, very manipulative.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And as we've been saying, the conversation has moved
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: so fast around AI, and it's not great that a
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: lot of our politicians are very or older and perhaps
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: like I'm not saying I understand AI either, but there's
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: something about watching politicians who don't seem to understand what
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: they're talking about trying to pass legislation around AI. But yeah,
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: so I guess what I'm saying is it feels like
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: a lot of governments are struggling to keep pace with
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: the pace of AI. And that's as we've been saying,
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: and how the conversation has changed so quickly.
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think it was Jim Clyburn from
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: South Carolina recently was like, I don't even know what
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: CHATGBT is, and so just to give you an indication
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: of sort of where we're starting when it comes to
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: lawmakers and some of this. But in the UK, this
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: debate is really also very different. They're starting to really
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: shift away from the content, like thinking about chatbots as
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: content and really thinking about it more toward design. So
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: a few years ago, you know, again, most of the
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: conversation around AI was around things like misinformation deep thinks
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: all of that copyright bias. But increasingly in the UK,
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: policymakers are asking whether or not AI should be able
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: or allowed to present itself as a trusted confidant or
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: encourage people to continue talking with it. And again, I
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: feel like these are fundamentally different questions than folks were
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: asking when I was first researching this book. There is
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: this tech scholar named Andrew McStay. I read a piece
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: that he wrote in one of my favorite outlets, Tech
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: Policy Press, in which he argues that we are entering
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: this new phase of AI regulation centered around what he
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: calls intimate functionality. And I think that's very useful because
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: it kind of captures what I think governments and lawmakers
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: are so of struggling to define. You know, we're pretty
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: familiar with what regulation looks like when you're regulating things
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: like sexually explicit content, but it's a much more kind
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: of nuanced and complicated to regulate a product that is
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: designed to feel trustworthy or caring or emotionally supportive. And
• 35:20
  Speaker 4: so right now we're talking about things like AI companions,
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: we're dealing with both, right it's both sexual content and
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: also layering in like the intimate functionalities of AI companions,
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: and so they're sort of different things, but we're kind
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: of talking about them as if they are a package deal,
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: and so Mixtay that that tech scholar. Mixtay argues that
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: the next phase of regulation cannot focus only on AI
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: companions that are specifically for companionship things like Replica or
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: no Me. It also has to address the emotional or
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: empathetic features inside general purpose AI bots like chatgebt, because
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: that is how people use chatchybt. You might think of
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: chat gybt as just where people might go to ask
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: a question like a search engine, but increasingly, particularly for minors,
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: they are using chatgypt for emotional connection and intimacy as well.
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: That's another reason I'm so fascinated by this whole discussion
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: is because there's a part of me that thinks we
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: have this clear line of oh, this is sexually explicit content,
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: we can regulate that, but the emotional aspects is much
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: more difficult to define. But it's also and maybe I'm
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: reaching here, maybe this isn't true, but I think that
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: people in relationships sometimes dismiss the emotional aspect, like we
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: don't think, we don't give that the weight as much
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: as we do the sexual aspect.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: But also if you're talking.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: About loneliness and all of the conversations around that we've
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: been having, I don't know, I feel like we're not
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: having this conversation about why this might be why people
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: are having these emotional like reaching out to AI because
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: maybe they couldn't find it in their life. I don't know,
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: It's just it's fascinating. It's a lot of yeah, stuff
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: to unpack there.
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: I mean, that question is one that I wrestle with
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: a lot, and it's a little bit above my pay grade.
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: But if you have my opinion about why that is,
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: I think that that is the core question that we
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: dance around a lot but don't get at, which is
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: why why are people you know, turning to AI, turning
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: to tatchipt turning to AI companion apps instead of human
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: to human contact. And I think the reason why we
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: don't get at that answer is because the answer is
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: really unsatisfying. It is like most things systemic and institutional.
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: It's because people have to work a lot more to
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: just pay their rent and put food on the table.
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: So maybe you're not doing the labor that it takes
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: to maintain friendships.
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: You know, it's no surprise that.
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: The vibes aren't feeling great right now for a lot
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: of people. Unsurprisingly, those are not the vibes that make
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: people want to plan parties, plan the lunch.
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: People will have a lot of extra money to do
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: those things.
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: Right, Friendship and relationships take work and labor to sustain,
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: and I think a lot of people are burnt out
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: because of these large, systemic societal reasons, right, And so
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: my big kind of so what in this conversation is
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: that the tech companies have really hit the jackpot here
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: because they are able to potentially inflame the causes that
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: keep people isolated while also really taking advantage of the
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: societal gaps that cause that isolation in the first place.
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: And so basically they are the reason why people would
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: be turning to AI is because of these gaps, and
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: tech companies are more than happy to fill those gaps.
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: I mean, when I had my book party, it was,
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: you know, it was in person thing, and I invited
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: people that I hadn't seen in some people I hadn't
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: seen them in ten years, and I remember thinking, I
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: have done a crap job at maintaining the ties of
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: my social life and my relationships and my friendship because it's.
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: So stinkin' hard. You know, have you ever.
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: Seen that meme that's like, excuse me, how are you
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: supposed to work full time to afford rent and bills?
• 39:40
  Speaker 4: Go to the gym, text everybody back, maintain your relationships
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: like how?
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: And it's a gap I feel. I think that's true.
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: I think that's why people are turning to AI.
• 39:49
  Speaker 5: I think it's also a conversation because we can look
• 39:52
  Speaker 5: at this in the old school form of a fear
• 39:54
  Speaker 5: of rejection. So if you bisex, they can't reject you.
• 39:58
  Speaker 5: You're paying for that. If you're looking at playing games
• 40:02
  Speaker 5: where you know the next steps, you know what's coming up,
• 40:05
  Speaker 5: and you know how to face that. There's a lot
• 40:07
  Speaker 5: of that conversation in this conversation when we have about
• 40:10
  Speaker 5: AI you know, you can begin a conversation and relationship
• 40:14
  Speaker 5: with it repeating back to you your wants. So there
• 40:17
  Speaker 5: is the less fear of rejection because in society in
• 40:21
  Speaker 5: so much whatever if it's like from our childhood traumas,
• 40:24
  Speaker 5: from our first bad relationships with our parents, whatever, whatnot,
• 40:29
  Speaker 5: that fear of being told no or you're not good
• 40:32
  Speaker 5: enough is no longer really there when you have a
• 40:35
  Speaker 5: dedicated machine to stay back to you what you want.
• 40:38
  Speaker 5: And we see that also with those who are seeking
• 40:41
  Speaker 5: advice about, you know, suicide, and which is why chat
• 40:44
  Speaker 5: GPT has so many lawsuits right now and they've got
• 40:47
  Speaker 5: several because essentially, these AI bots have given them permission
• 40:53
  Speaker 5: instead of actually giving help, which was what they thought
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: maybe they could get, but they're giving back that permission,
• 40:59
  Speaker 5: that lack of rejection of being like no, no, you're wrong,
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: you're you're you are wanted here, blah blah blah, instead
• 41:04
  Speaker 5: of being like, yeah, you're right. You might just want
• 41:06
  Speaker 5: to make this stop, as well as telling people yeah,
• 41:09
  Speaker 5: you're right. They don't love you as much as I
• 41:11
  Speaker 5: could love you because they don't know you, the real you,
• 41:13
  Speaker 5: and I'm here for you and tit you know, accept
• 41:15
  Speaker 5: you the way you are. This is that same level
• 41:18
  Speaker 5: and when we understand like, yes, it's less psychophantic, but
• 41:21
  Speaker 5: it's still a sycophant and like they still read what
• 41:23
  Speaker 5: you want.
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, this is one of the reasons why I,
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: even though I know a lot of people do it,
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: I really really caution people against using chat GPT for
• 41:33
  Speaker 4: things like therapy. There are so many reasons why it's
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: a bad idea, but to me, one of the biggest
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: is that validation angle. You know, AI is designed intentionally
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: to be validating, intentionally to learn what it is that
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: you want to hear and learn what's going to keep
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: you coming back like and mirror that back at you.
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: And sometimes we need validation.
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: But oftentimes validating somebody who is experience and saying a
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: real crisis or a real issue can be dangerous. And
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: when I've said this on podcasts before, people will understandably
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: respond and say, well, if somebody can't afford a human therapist,
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: or it doesn't have insurance or can't find you know,
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: if somebody is black or queer or trends and can't
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: find a culturally competent therapist, all of that is true.
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: All of that is true, but it's exactly what I
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: was describing before, where tech companies there are these very
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: real systemic gaps and needs that are being unfilled, and
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: tech companies are filling that gap, whether or not the
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: product is appropriate or even safe to be filled to
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: be filling that gap in the first place, you know,
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: and I guess sometimes what I'll often say is if
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: I had a loved one who needed therapy, I would
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: not recommend an AI therapist on its own to anybody
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: that I loved who was experiencing an issue and wanted
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: to seek.
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: Therapy and full stuff.
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: However, if you were going to I would at least
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: look at some AI apps that are does specifically for therapy.
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: Some of them even have their own special FDA you know,
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: it's different from regular FDA regulation, but some of them
• 43:08
  Speaker 4: are even sort of they have their own special FDA
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: you know regulation. I'm kind of from a harm reduction standpoint, That's.
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: What I mean.
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: I wouldn't suggest anybody that I love use AI alone
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: for therapy in general, but specifically, I would not tell
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: anybody to use a general purpose chatbot like Claude or
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: chat shept for exactly the reason that you just said,
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: Sam that it is so validating. And you know when
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: you were talking about the fear of rejection and how
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: when you ask somebody out they might say no.
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: This is just my anecdotal opinion.
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: I believe that we're in a client like a dating
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: climate specifically where that's kind of been really intensified.
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: You know, if you ask somebody out.
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: On a a dating app, they might not just say no,
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: they might if they might screenshot what you say and
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: then roast you on social media. Like, I really think
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: that you've gotten to a place where that things have
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: really changed when it comes to the risks that you
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: have to take to like start a conversation, ask somebody out.
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: And again, tech companies know this, and that is why
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: when they market their AI companions, their marketing will say
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: things like, oh, this is an AI girlfriend who will
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: never say no. Right these this very sort of toxic
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: infel adjacent marketing that plays on exactly that dynamic, which
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: is people are afraid of rejection.
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: Sorry, you know, I'm going all off the rails.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: This is fantastic. There's just so many, so many ways
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: we could go with that.
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: So the UK they kind of tried to focus on
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: this intimate functionalities as you described, correct.
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: That is right.
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: So the government has proposed restricting romantic companion chatbots for miners,
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: and as has also said that they are looking at
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: similar kind of intimate functionalities that are in general purpose
• 45:02
  Speaker 4: chatbots like chat GBT to see if the way that
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: chat GBT establishes emotional connections with users should be restricted
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: as well. But again, scholars, including that that scholar Andrew
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: Mixtay that I mentioned earlier, say that the proposal still
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: risks focusing too much on sexual or romantic content and
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: not enough on the sort of emotional and intimate functionalities
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: of product design. So you can see why that that point,
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: I think is a really important one, because I do
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: think that we talk so much when it comes to
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: AI intimacy about people who are having sets with bots,
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: people who are having romantic and sexual relationships with AI,
• 45:45
  Speaker 4: and I understand why that is.
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: It's the it's the spicy, salacious thing.
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: However, we don't focus enough on the sort of emotion,
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: the sort of non romantic, non sexual emotional side of
• 45:58
  Speaker 4: AI product design, and that's it sounds like that's really
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: kind of like the real issue here. If we're really
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: interested in talking about AI and intimacy, it's we shouldn't
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: just go straight to the most extreme examples of people
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: who are having sets with AI. We also really got
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: to look at the people who are forming emotional bonds
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: with AI that are non romantic and non sexual.
• 46:21
  Speaker 5: Well, it's kind of like the same, all the same
• 46:23
  Speaker 5: old when we talk about religious governments and in the
• 46:27
  Speaker 5: foundation of religious governments like Christian ethics, in that they
• 46:32
  Speaker 5: want to focus on the sex part, including when it
• 46:34
  Speaker 5: comes to minors. We got we gotta save the kids
• 46:37
  Speaker 5: from the trafficking. We got, you know, instead of understanding
• 46:39
  Speaker 5: the actual issue. Same thing with porn. When we talk
• 46:42
  Speaker 5: about porn and all of that, it's like, uh, we
• 46:45
  Speaker 5: don't want to we don't. That's not the big problem here.
• 46:49
  Speaker 5: The big problem is why is this need is so
• 46:52
  Speaker 5: much on that fact that they just are addicted to
• 46:56
  Speaker 5: being able to talk to someone, being able to be seen.
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: So that's exactly right, and I'm so glad that you
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: put it that way, because when you look at how
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: this is all being legislated in the United States, it
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: all assumes that the big quote threat to children's threat
• 47:12
  Speaker 4: to minors is sexual content.
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: You know, AI companions getting.
• 47:16
  Speaker 4: Sexy or flirty with miners, which again is unacceptable shouldn't happen. However,
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: when you look at the research, that is actually not
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: how most young people are using AI. According to Micksday's research,
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: he found that nearly eighty percent of UK teenagers that
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: he surveyed used what researchers classified as an AI companion,
• 47:36
  Speaker 4: but most commonly it was not a dedicated app. It
• 47:39
  Speaker 4: was just Chatgypt, so they weren't using like an AI
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: companion app, and that when they asked what do you
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: use it for, the most common answer was not sex,
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: and it was not romance. It was getting advice. Romance
• 47:53
  Speaker 4: actually came near the bottom of the list. So it
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: does seem kind of weird that when we talk about
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: even when it comes to minors, when we talk about
• 48:02
  Speaker 4: how what folks are concerned about when it comes to
• 48:06
  Speaker 4: miners using AI companions, we go straight to sex, we
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: go straight to romance, we go straight to explicit content,
• 48:12
  Speaker 4: when miners are saying, actually, and that's not actually.
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: What we use it for. We're using it to get advice.
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: And so, Sam, I think you're right on the money
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: that it.
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: Just sort of seems like we're asking the wrong question.
• 48:24
  Speaker 4: We're asking like, oh, are the young people trying to
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: have sex with AI boyfriends and girlfriends, when the real
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: question is probably are young people becoming dependent on the
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: growing role that mainstream AI systems play in terms of
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: being like emotional confidence.
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: Does that make sense? Yeah?
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: Well, and at that age.
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: It can be very tumultuous emotionally, just a lot of
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: changes and it can feel like isolating. And so to
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: have chat GPT go to for advice that makes complete
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: sense to me. And also using kind of this screen which,
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: as you said, it's a real problem, but the screen
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: of we're only focusing on the sexual content the romance
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: when that's not the case. And these companies have figured
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: it out that that's not necessarily the case and have
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: really capitalized on it to point that it's becoming kind
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: of its own whole thing.
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: Right. Yeah.
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: I read this fascinating op ed in The Guardian by
• 49:33
  Speaker 4: this economist Alice Lassman, and she basically says that what
• 49:37
  Speaker 4: you just described, Annie is what she calls the intimacy economy.
• 49:41
  Speaker 4: Her argument is basically that we've moved beyond an economy
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: built around capturing attention, you know, the attention economy, into
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: one where companies are increasingly competing for something that is
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: perhaps more valuable our affection, our trust, and our emotional lives.
• 49:58
  Speaker 4: So she points to some research finding that chatbots to
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: use guilt and fear of missing out when users are
• 50:04
  Speaker 4: trying to end conversations, and they're almost sort of treating
• 50:08
  Speaker 4: emotional attachment as just another engagement metric to optimize for
• 50:12
  Speaker 4: it to keep people people locked in and engaged in along.
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: And so you know, whether or not you agree with
• 50:18
  Speaker 4: every part of that of her the argument that she makes,
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: I do think that she is identifying a real shift
• 50:23
  Speaker 4: that companies are not just trying to build the smartest
• 50:26
  Speaker 4: and most powerful AI, they are also trying to build
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: AI that feels the most human, the most trustworthy, the
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: most casual, the most you know, the most human like
• 50:37
  Speaker 4: when you're talking to it. And I think that again,
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: we really have to acknowledge that this is a shift
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: from how we were talking about AI even just a
• 50:45
  Speaker 4: year ago.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: I'm not like your other Ai'm.
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: Cool AIM fellow human kids. Talk to me about your
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: human problems. But this is the thing.
• 50:58
  Speaker 5: Years ago, it was our parents who are afraid that
• 51:00
  Speaker 5: we were getting too much advice from our friends, and
• 51:02
  Speaker 5: we weren't listening to the parents, right. And so now
• 51:05
  Speaker 5: the new thing is while the parents and the older
• 51:07
  Speaker 5: generation are still focused on the same problems, they're gonna
• 51:09
  Speaker 5: have too much set because they're gonna do drugs, they're
• 51:11
  Speaker 5: gonna do these things. The kids have adapted. They've gone
• 51:14
  Speaker 5: beyond all of this. In that from not saying the
• 51:16
  Speaker 5: kids and I realized how old that sounds, but in general,
• 51:19
  Speaker 5: like the whole like sexual revolution, they're beyond that. They
• 51:23
  Speaker 5: don't care everybody's sexualized. Okay, great, moving on. We don't
• 51:26
  Speaker 5: need that. We want to have more friendships, we need advice,
• 51:30
  Speaker 5: we want growth. And so as we're going from friends,
• 51:33
  Speaker 5: it's harder to make friends. We're COVID babies who had
• 51:35
  Speaker 5: to like go to homeschool. Now we are dependent and
• 51:38
  Speaker 5: they are so much smarter when it comes to technology,
• 51:40
  Speaker 5: internet and social media. This has become the new way
• 51:44
  Speaker 5: of getting the better advice. And it's not that they
• 51:47
  Speaker 5: don't need to seek sexual stuff. They just need to
• 51:50
  Speaker 5: know life applications and this is it, oh to them.
• 51:54
  Speaker 4: What you just said reminded me of pulling from I
• 51:57
  Speaker 4: think it.
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: Was UCLA that talked it's oh yeah, it's UCLA. They have.
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: They put out this fascinating report each year called Teens
• 52:04
  Speaker 4: and Screens, and it's basically what young people say about
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: their media diets and what they want from media. And
• 52:11
  Speaker 4: gen Z is increasingly not interested in seeing sex and
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: romance on screen. They're not really that into that, which
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: is funny because when I was that age, all.
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: I wanted to see you was on screen. I'm gonna
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: go out of my way.
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: I guess it was a lot harder to see that
• 52:27
  Speaker 4: when I was when I not to sound like an
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: old person, but back.
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: In my day, but we watched it.
• 52:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you would have to like watch it on like
• 52:36
  Speaker 4: the Bord channel, and maybe you'd get a glimpse, a
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: clear glimpse, and then that glimps would have to sustain
• 52:41
  Speaker 4: you for.
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: Like a week. Things have really changed, is my understanding.
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: But what they're actually saying is listen, we can get
• 52:50
  Speaker 4: sexual content anywhere, we can get you know, erotic content,
• 52:54
  Speaker 4: pornography anywhere. What we actually want is good friendships. What
• 52:58
  Speaker 4: we actually want is good for relationships. Media relationships. That's
• 53:01
  Speaker 4: what you want to see more of on screen. And
• 53:03
  Speaker 4: what you just said, Sam reminds me so much of
• 53:05
  Speaker 4: that that it's almost like moralizing about something young people
• 53:11
  Speaker 4: aren't even saying that they want. What they actually want
• 53:15
  Speaker 4: is the emotional part, the advice, And so it seems
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: like where we're looking is sort of in the wrong direction.
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: It's like we're not listening to what the young people
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: are actually saying they use AI for, which is advice
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: and emotional intimacy.
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I would hazard a guess these tech companies
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: realize that, and they have realized they can make money
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: off of it.
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: Oh yes.
• 53:43
  Speaker 4: So if you're wondering what that means for the world's
• 53:46
  Speaker 4: largest AI chatbot company by far, open Ai Mixed chat Gypt, well,
• 53:52
  Speaker 4: they are continuing to cash in on all of this sweet,
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: sweet emotional intimacy.
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: Baby. They are not worried about all of them.
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: They're like, can you to come get your hey piggies,
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: come get your emotional intimacy slop point point. But they're like,
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: how can we serve this up for you? According to
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: reporting from Bloomberg, open Ai is developing their first ever
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: physical home device that would essentially function as a AI companion.
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: Rather than just a smart speaker.
• 54:22
  Speaker 4: So it's kind of like an Alexa that you have
• 54:23
  Speaker 4: in your home, but the reporting describes it as it's
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: going to have a personality even according to Bloomberg, some
• 54:30
  Speaker 4: mechanical movement intended to create this sense that it's alive.
• 54:34
  Speaker 4: And so, yeah, they're like doubling down on the emotional
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: intimacy part of AI and betting that people are going
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: to want to have a personality driven human like AI
• 54:47
  Speaker 4: companion physically in their home that they can connect with.
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: And so whether or not this product.
• 54:53
  Speaker 4: Actually succeeds, or even if it actually goes to market,
• 54:56
  Speaker 4: that almost feels secondary to me to what it represents,
• 54:59
  Speaker 4: which is that at the same time that governments are
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: starting to debate how emotionally attached.
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: People should be able to become with.
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: AI, the world's biggest AI companies are investing in products
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: that are explicitly designed to become a more constant emotional
• 55:16
  Speaker 4: presence in people's everyday, daily lives.
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: And I think that's sort of my sowat and all
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: of this.
• 55:24
  Speaker 4: What has really popped off within a few months of
• 55:26
  Speaker 4: me finishing the book is how quickly all of this
• 55:30
  Speaker 4: is moving. You know, when I started reporting the book,
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: it felt necessary to kind of persuade people that yes,
• 55:37
  Speaker 4: AI companionship and AI emotional intimacy was something worth taking seriously,
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: and increasingly, I.
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: Don't think we're having that debate anymore.
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: I think that governments are writing laws about it, researchers
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: are trying to define it. Companies are investing billions of
• 55:50
  Speaker 4: dollars to make products that promise this emotional personal relationship
• 55:56
  Speaker 4: with a physical AI device that that there are betting
• 55:59
  Speaker 4: people are going to want to have in their home.
• 56:01
  Speaker 4: And so yeah, I don't think the question is whether
• 56:04
  Speaker 4: or not AI will become emotionally important to people right now.
• 56:08
  Speaker 4: It's what kind of relationships do you want to have
• 56:11
  Speaker 4: with these systems? You know, who gets to design these relationships?
• 56:14
  Speaker 4: How do we draw the line between technology that is
• 56:17
  Speaker 4: maybe useful or helpful and technology that is intentionally designed
• 56:22
  Speaker 4: to become emotionally indispensable.
• 56:26
  Speaker 5: And just as a reminder, open AI is absolutely incohesi
• 56:29
  Speaker 5: with the government, and they've already been the knee and
• 56:31
  Speaker 5: have said that they would help create more and more
• 56:35
  Speaker 5: technology for the government to use us as a spy machine.
• 56:39
  Speaker 5: So if you want to get these.
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: Just remember that they have contracts with the government.
• 56:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Like, are these the people that you want to
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: trust with your most intimate parts of yourselves. Somebody who's
• 56:52
  Speaker 4: super buddy buddy with the Trump administration in Trump himself,
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: is that would you trust that person to also be
• 56:58
  Speaker 4: in the mix in your emotional life?
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: I guess that's the question.
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: That is the question, and a big one it is.
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: So we're really glad that you wrote this book. I
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: can't wait to listen to it. I'm so excited. In
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: the meantime, bridget where can the good listeners find you?
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: Well, if this topic interests you, please check out my
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: audiobook Love at First Prompt. You can get it at
• 57:23
  Speaker 4: Love at First Prompt dot ai. It's available wherever you
• 57:26
  Speaker 4: get your books. I really like Libro FM because they
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: support local libraries, but you can get it anywhere.
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, please check it out.
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: Yes, I'm so excited And listeners, if you would like
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: to contact us, you can. Our email is hello at
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: stuff iever told you dot com. You can find us
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: on blue Sky at Mom's a Podcast, or on Instagram
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: and TikTok at stuff I Never told you.
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: We're also on YouTube.
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: We have some merchandise to comp herero and we have
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: a book you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks,
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: It's always to our super producer Rima and R Executive
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: pducer Maya.
• 57:55
  Speaker 5: Thank you, Thanks to you for listening.
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: Stuff Never Told You is production of by Heart Radio.
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