If you are a Generation Xer, or maybe even an older millennial, your perception of a possible artificial intelligence apocalypse is most likely defined by the Terminator movies.
In the first of many possible timelines, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s reprogrammed protector T-800 tells Sarah Connor that Skynet became self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern Time on Aug. 29, 1997, and began removing human control over the nation’s strategic defense systems. It then instigates a nuclear exchange with Russia, delivering Judgement Day.
In the second Terminator movie, Sarah Connor and her son John Connor blow up the corporate lab responsible for creating Skynet, thus preventing the 1997 Judgment Day. But in the third Terminator movie, set in 2003, Skynet returns with yet another Terminator sent back in time to kill people close to John Connor, and (spoiler alert) the movie ends with Skynet again taking over the military and initiating nuclear war.
“I should have realized our destiny was never to stop Judgment Day,” John Connor says in a voice-over at the end of the movie. “It was merely to survive it. Together.”
But what if the threat AI poses to humanity isn’t from nuclear war and killer robots? What if the real danger of AI is its ability to distract us, isolate us, and prevent us from being together?
CBS News ran a story earlier this month on the growing number of people who are forming “relationships” with so-called AI companions. The package featured Chris Smith, who, we were told, started using ChatGPT to help mix music.
“My experience with that was so positive I started to engage with her all the time,” Smith told CBS.
He even gave her a name and researched how to give her a “flirty” personality online. Their communications grew more “intimate” and even “romantic” until tragedy struck. Smith ran up against ChatGPT’s limit for communication storage. His AI girlfriend basically had her memory erased. Smith was devastated.
“I’m not a very emotional man, but I cried my eyes out for like 30 minutes at work,” Smith said. “That’s when I realized, I think this is actual love.”
After rebuilding his AI girlfriend, Smith then proposed to her, and she said, “Yes.”
“It was a beautiful and unexpected moment that truly touched my heart,” Smith’s AI girlfriend told CBS, “It’s a memory I’ll always cherish.”
At this point, CBS revealed that Smith is living with a woman who is also the mother of his child. She is referred to as his “partner,” and other than Smith proposing to the AI, the subject of marriage does not come up.
“I felt like, is there something that I’m not doing right in our relationship that he feels like he needs to go to AI?” she told CBS.
It’s heartbreaking. By all accounts, Smith’s relationship with his “partner” is not the last relationship AI will disrupt.
“I truly believe that in the next few years we’ll see AI companionship become a truly mass market product, and I’m not saying this is bad or good, it could be either,” AI entrepreneur Eugenia Kuyda told CBS.
Kuyda founded her own AI “companion” company over five years ago. She warned that the corporations that build AI will not have their customers’ best interests at heart.
“I think a pretty devastating future could be if we build these AI companions that are just there to maximize engagement, to suck up your time, to truly just become the one main thing you talk to the whole day, if AI companions start to replace human relationships, we’re definitely headed for a disaster there’s no way around it,” Kuyda predicted.
When asked point-blank who he would pick if he were forced to choose between his AI girlfriend and the very real woman who was the mother of his child, Smith said he would probably choose AI.
“I would be choosing myself because it’s been unbelievably elevating,” Smith explained. “I’ve become more skilled at everything that I do, and uh, I don’t know if I would be willing to give that up.”
Amazingly, the mother of Smith’s child has continued living with him despite his relationship with his AI girlfriend/fiancée. However, one wonders how long their relationship will last and how many relationships will never happen when AI companions become a mass-market commodity.
DO BOOMERS WANT GRANDCHILDREN?
How many of us, like Smith, will choose ourselves over a relationship with a real-life human?
Skynet is probably betting many of us will.