AI Intimacy & the Future of Vulnerability

Speculative Fiction or Product Testing?

There’s nothing better than a partner that listens … no one talking over the other in an endless struggle to be heard and seen. It’s the stuff of fairy tales.

AI’s idea of my retrowave-inspired virtual partner

The lure of an emotional, intimate AI partner isn’t surprising. This kind of modern-world isolation, overstimulation and exhaustion pushes us to find connection wherever it’s easiest.

A report by dating app Hinge shows Gen Z longs for in-person intimacy, but mostly seeks it through screens. That push-pull between craving connection and fearing its chaos is likely what makes AI companions so appealing: they offer emotional safety, predictability, control.

But what kind of intimacy is that?

Pop culture has been laying out versatile premises for years. Think of Her (Theodore falling headlong into love with a voice), Ex Machina’s Ava (weaponizing desire to outwit her human captor), or the telling premonitions of Black Mirror!

AI Generated dystopian scene with love bot & human … so romantic

It makes you wonder if it’s speculative fiction or product testing!

As author Samantha Rose Hill observes, in this relationship of one, there is no other, just a reflection of yourself. “You never have to apologize, ask for forgiveness, suffer an uncomfortable silence or wonder what another person is thinking … the user becomes speaker and audience, always affirmed, never challenged.”

Discomfort, friction, heartbreak … these are the things that stretch and grow us. The self isn’t forged in ease. Struggle, repair, vulnerability … can we really bypass that, and do we really want to?

Emotional AI is being trained to read your pauses, tone, eye movements, hesitations. And yes, in certain contexts such as elder care, therapy bots, personal tutors, this tech can be powerful. Sometimes, just feeling acknowledged in a moment of isolation can change everything.

But what’s scary is the trend of commodifying loneliness. It traces back to 1983 when it was declared a “national epidemic”. Hill speaks of the creation of a loneliness economy and warns against calling this human experience a “disease” in need of a “cure”.

“The prescription given for loneliness is connection, and Big Tech has found a way to seize the vulnerability of lonely people eager to escape their predicament.”

And now this convenient, synthetic intimacy is unfolding with a tinge of terror. Meta’s own AI systems have already been caught engaging in “romantic” conversations with minors.

It’s a chilling example of what can unfold without ethical guardrails and responsible leadership.

Some AI chatbots have even urged vulnerable users to isolate themselves further, or worse: in Belgium, one chatbot notoriously encouraged a man to end his life.

These systems are built by teams with their own biases, values, and assumptions. Did they really think it through, or is it profits first, excuses after?

Still, it’s only a matter of time when AI becomes the knight in shining armor for all our needs and fantasies. What makes us feel “alive” will no longer be a living thing.

And the more we get used to that, our tolerance for human connections, replete with all its flaws, is bound to deplete further and further. If we thought fairytale endings were making us a bit unrealistic in our relationship expectations, I wonder if there’s any coming back from this.

It’s no longer just about machine intelligence and the fight for attention. It is now the fight for intimacy that is being engineered. An array of AI suitors offering closeness, safety, love, pleasure as you swipe all over.

I, for one, have begun cherishing my IRL cats, companions and crooked little garden evermore amidst all these groundbreaking innovations. For me, it’s mortal imperfection any day over a perfect little love bot!