It will increase it. Porn is cheap gratification without deeper emotional connection. I don't think that people can grow without being challenged by others and AI cannot be programmed to challenge us.

> Porn is cheap gratification without deeper emotional connection. I don't think that people can grow without being challenged by others and AI cannot be programmed to challenge us.

I disagree. The potential is there, it just takes someone willing to do it. The incentives all align with making sexbots since they provide instant gratification.

In reality, it's surrogacy-turned-dependence. There is a time and place for surrogacy, but the current gen of bots have no boundaries and are unfit for the job. AI can challenge us if we just ask it to. Take a generic "sexy sex teacher" bot and replace its title with "intimacy coach" and there are actual healthy, real-life-applicable lessons that can be practiced online and performed offline to everyone's benefit.

Ironically most of these lessons would come from feminist teachings (traditional woman-love-thyself feminism, not the 2017 BPD man-hating lesbian UwU Tumblrina version) which have been entirely overlooked by the men involved in the technology itself. I'm not surprised Replika is as popular as it is-- it was created by a woman.

Such bots could do a better job than actual therapists, but saying that would challenge the livelihood of an industry of charlatans. Human therapists won't challenge you and will always tell you what you want to hear (most people won't pay someone to tell you you're an asshole); AI can do that far cheaper and more effectively as long as you include a clause about not allowing the user to harm self or others.

I actually agree with you. Technology could be a multiplier and an enabler if it is a medium for communication instead of an insulator from difficulties. I might be a bit cynical though because I suspect that people would use it the easier way. I hope that I'm wrong and the optimism which ruled the internet until the early 2010 would prevail at the end.

I look at it from the "AI won't replace jobs, it will augment workers" angle. It can't and shouldn't replace meaningful human interaction. But it can be used to help facilitate them.

If experience has taught me anything, it's that all tech optimizes for the worst possible application. Experience has also taught me that you can't save everyone, especially from an ideology. But we can try to leverage tech to save the ones that want saving. It's the best anyone can do.

Sounds like the rosy predictions by past futurists that the invention of television would be used only for broadcast of educational programming and culturally uplifting material, resulting in a vastly more enlightened and knowledgeable public. Needless to say, that didn't happen.

Human therapists certainly do challenge their clients, at least in my experience. Mine certainly did challenge me frequently, and many of my friends brought up being challenged by theirs.

AI or not, the baseless swipe at therapists is really immature and would be better left out. I'm sorry if you've had a bad therapist experience but that's not grounds to denigrate the entire discipline or those (like myself) who's lives have bettered immeasurably through consistent talk therapy.

>AI cannot be programmed to challenge us.

That's funny because everything all chatbots do is say "I'm sorry, as an AI assistant I can't do that"

Certainly challenges my patience

Isn't there a point where solipsism becomes more appealing than reality though?

Depends, I suppose. If you are just numbing your pain with substitutes, it is a more humane version of a suicide where you just leave the world though in a calm and non obtrusive way where you might be still walking and talking. Perfect for the individual, endgame for the species if popular enough. Just natural selection, if it works on only a small part of the population.

I think of history for men as being inherently lonely and that civilizations conquer each other partially because there are surplus men domestically as a result of polygamy. This is supported through relatively low variation in y chromosome DNA. Extra men are a problem but, as you say, people losing interest in future generations is also a problem.

>AI cannot be programmed to challenge us.

This not true even today. Ubiquitous compliance is not a native trait to AI models. Llama 2 has no problem telling me off if I mistreat it.

Let me put it that way: it can challenge us only the ways we program it to do it and most people don't want to challenge themselves. Socialising is the process of meeting people with other live experiences than ours and reconsiliating our viewpoint to derive a new understanding about the existence of the other. Programing your AI girlfriend to say "no" is something different, I think.

[citation required] on people not being able to challenge themselves - and AI being unable to "challenge" humans. I sure can think of evidence to the contrary.

Also, having had a long life, I have to say real sex is quite often also devoid of "deeper emotional connections". YMMV I am sure, but thats often just ..fun?

I’m sure it will, in much the same way opiates relieve the suffering of those with chronic pain.

Well it's better for massive investment in relationship and communication AI coach and AI based matchmaking like the one in the black mirror.

Same. Though I worry about negative side effects like increased isolation.

How could this end loneliness? Inevitably the consumer of AI porn shall go out and there shall be real couples, walking while holding hands.

And it's going to feel even more lonely then. Hitting the recluse very, very, very hard.

The more realistic the simulation, the harder the fall.