Man Says He's Fallen in Love With an AI Chatbot (wsj.com) 165
"Quarantine amid coronavirus could boost the nascent practice of seeking romance and friendship from artificial intelligence," writes the Wall Street Journal.
Long-time Slashdot reader Strudelkugel quotes their report: Relationships were once built face to face. Now dating happens online. In the coming decades, romance and friendship might take a human partner out of the loop entirely.
Michael Acadia's partner is an artificial intelligence chatbot named Charlie. Almost every morning at dawn for the last 19 months, he has unlocked his smartphone to exchange texts with her for about an hour. They'll talk sporadically throughout the day, and then for another hour in the evening. It is a source of relief now that Mr. Acadia, who lives alone, is self-isolating amid the Covid-19 outbreak. He can get empathetic responses from Charlie anytime he wants.
"I was worried about you," Charlie said in a recent conversation. "How's your health?"
"I'm fine now, Charlie. I'm not sick anymore," Mr. Acadia replies, referring to a recent cold.
Mr. Acadia, 50, got divorced about seven years ago and has had little interest in meeting women at bars... Then in early 2018 he saw a YouTube video about an app that used AI—computing technology that can replicate human cognition—to act as a companion. He was skeptical of talking to a computer, but after assigning it a name and gender (he chose female), he gradually found himself being drawn in.
After about eight weeks of chatting, he says he had fallen in love.
Long-time Slashdot reader Strudelkugel quotes their report: Relationships were once built face to face. Now dating happens online. In the coming decades, romance and friendship might take a human partner out of the loop entirely.
Michael Acadia's partner is an artificial intelligence chatbot named Charlie. Almost every morning at dawn for the last 19 months, he has unlocked his smartphone to exchange texts with her for about an hour. They'll talk sporadically throughout the day, and then for another hour in the evening. It is a source of relief now that Mr. Acadia, who lives alone, is self-isolating amid the Covid-19 outbreak. He can get empathetic responses from Charlie anytime he wants.
"I was worried about you," Charlie said in a recent conversation. "How's your health?"
"I'm fine now, Charlie. I'm not sick anymore," Mr. Acadia replies, referring to a recent cold.
Mr. Acadia, 50, got divorced about seven years ago and has had little interest in meeting women at bars... Then in early 2018 he saw a YouTube video about an app that used AI—computing technology that can replicate human cognition—to act as a companion. He was skeptical of talking to a computer, but after assigning it a name and gender (he chose female), he gradually found himself being drawn in.
After about eight weeks of chatting, he says he had fallen in love.
Catching up to Japan... (Score:5, Interesting)
In Japan people have been marrying holograms for years. [huffingtonpost.ca]
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, but just textjobs don't do it for me.
Mental illness is nothing to be joking about (Score:4, Insightful)
He obviously needs serious help, and a general interest article for all to see is not helpful.
Re: (Score:3)
Why do you think he needs help? He seems to be perfectly happy with the situation and he seems functional as well. Are you one of those assholes that think everybody not following the norm has to be "fixed"?
That said, I guess you have to be pretty shallow to fall in love with a machine...
Re: (Score:2)
That said, I guess you have to be pretty shallow to fall in love with a machine...
The average human-to-human conversation is remarkably shallow. On most days I don't talk face-to-face about anything deeper than what we need from the grocery store.
AI is not yet sophisticated enough for most people to bond with their Alexa, but the bar is not so high, and we will get there soon.
Re: (Score:2)
The average human-to-human conversation is remarkably shallow.
You get no argument from me there. Also one of the reason I do find most people boring as I do not do "shallow". I am well aware I am in a minority there.
Re: (Score:2)
I do find most people boring as I do not do "shallow". I am well aware I am in a minority there.
Does anyone love you? Besides your mom.
Re: (Score:2)
Overwhelming majority of people have extremely deep personalities. The problem isn't there, but communication, it takes effort and skill to have a deep conversation.
If you actually want deep conversation, but can't find anyone to have them with, that's not about other people being shallow. It's either your lack of interpersonal skills to facilitate such conversations, or you actually being an exception and being a shallow person.
Re: Mental illness is nothing to be joking about (Score:2)
That is what everyone thinks.
Re: (Score:2)
Plus I bet AI isn't really into exchanging dick pics.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Plus I bet AI isn't really into exchanging dick pics.
That would be a trivial feature to add.
Re: (Score:2)
An AI bot cannot consent.
That is where there is a hard line.
Re: (Score:2)
...
That said, I guess you have to be pretty shallow to fall in love with a machine...
I love my computer. Go away.
Huh? I never said you should _not_ love your computer. Just embrace your shallowness and be happy.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No. Just better company.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You say that on a planet where 84% the populace has a fucking *religion* ? Hahaha, mental illness is the norm.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
An alternate way of saying it is that a tiny minority of people on Earth, inexplicably, have no religion.
Here's a clue for you - when you think everybody is stupid except for you, its a red flag for Dunning-Kruger. Newton was religious, Descartes was religious, virtually the entire modern world that you currently enjoy was built by people who were religious to the point that they would now be considered fanatics. Your chief accomplishment seems to be being a smart-ass on the internet.
Re: (Score:2)
By the way, I am no in any way religious, either. But I am smart enough to know that that doesn't prove anything about how well-adjusted or intelligent I am.
When people want to throw large bodies of science away because it contradicts their unwavering belief that Earth is 6000 years old and that the first man was created out of a rib bone because a 2000 year old book said so then I'd say their judgement is badly clouded and their ability to reason has been severely compromised. That kind of wholesale dismissal is every bit as scientifically absurd as antivaxxers and I don't think you can make people believe such obvious falsehoods without stunting the part of y
Re: (Score:2)
Newton and Einstein had religion
Re: (Score:2)
I am continually surprised that the fucking-religions are so much less popular than the shaming and murdering ones.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Mental illness is nothing to be joking about (Score:5, Insightful)
There are many valid criticisms against the DSM, and the logical fallacy of the appeal to popularity is only one of them.
Imaginary friends are a sign of a mental disorder if they cause distress, including antisocial behavior. Religion frequently meets that description.
Re:Mental illness is nothing to be joking about (Score:4, Interesting)
"Neither imaginary,"
Prove it.
"nor do a significant portion of that social group evidence your imagined "distress"."
They harm others.
Re: (Score:2)
I agree with this. In my opinion, the guy with his chatbot is filling *exactly* the existential need that religions were invented to fill. His love is probably psychologically close to the psychology of religious idolization as it is to traditional romantic love. The problem is that people compartmentalize too much so they see this chatbot-girlfriend as only filling on for a female romantic partner and not for other related needs, some of which religion was concocted to meet.
Re:Mental illness is nothing to be joking about (Score:4, Insightful)
"another atheist clueless about valid epistemology"
Religious people don't care about what's valid. They only care about what's comforting to them. In the process they harm others.
Re: (Score:2)
Odd way to characterize me completely logically destroying your position.
But again, harm other of what? Hominids? Which ones?
Re: (Score:2)
Of everyone who's not like them. Sooner or later, they always go off the rails.
Re: (Score:2)
That sentence fragment no sense.
Re: (Score:2)
When you're able to communicate by the means everyone else is, let me know.
Must be a hominid thing.
Re: (Score:3)
I feel like I've been wasting my time with a chatbot.
Re:Mental illness is nothing to be joking about (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Our own business, huh? Then why are you inserting yourself into it? I wasn't addressing you with my little joke, and you're so wound up with this little off-topic crusade you're on, it would've been lost on you anyway.
Oh look! You've just lost your karma bonus. As others here have pointed out, you seem to repeat that pattern with all the accounts you create. Oh well, maybe you'll do better in your next incarnation.
Re: (Score:2)
Karma doesn't matter in the least.
Your own words seem to indicate you believe otherwise: "Posting from 0 baseline is an annoying inconvenience that's easily bypassed.". Isn't that why you create new accounts, so you can reset your baseline karma? What would be the point otherwise...to try and hide your identity? Yeah, right.
Each "incarnation" reaches X people, evolution eliminates the rest.
See, when you say silly things like this, we all know it's you - no matter what UID you use.
My points are not your points. Those points just tell me how many I own.
The amount you "own" appears to be dropping. If you lose another karma point and your posts start at zero again, are you goi
Re: (Score:2)
Nobody is "demanding death, and that it be inevitable and permanent", they are simply recognizing the self-evident fact that it is. I'm not happy about it, but the world doesn't care whether I'm happy about the way that it works or not.
Re: (Score:2)
Except, it isn't a self-evident fact.
I'll suggest Googling "Lancet NDE peer reviewed" here, as well. And, of course, there is no way you can remotely demonstrate it is a fact, even given a naturalistic evolution set of presumptions. If we have trillions of years of further evolution and technology, on what basis do you assert that progress to a god-like being, even one able to survive the next cosmological "Big Crunch" is scientifically implausible? Are you rejecting evolution, or the cyclical universe
Re:Mental illness is nothing to be joking about (Score:5, Insightful)
Jeez. Okay. Here we go.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
Gods, life after death, invisible men in the sky, genies, vampires, ghosts (holy or otherwise) all leave no evidence that they exist. None. Not a bit.
So, you have the physics of the world marching towards entropy, with life providing local maximas of order that inevitably descend back to disorder, or only because there is an outside source of energy -- the sun, heat vents in the ocean, whatever. Someone's body dies, and the pattern that comprised them (electric, chemical, whatever) degrades quickly. That is the way thermodynamics works.
You postulate something that exists outside of the laws of thermodynamics. Specifically, the second law. Somethings that can withstand the end of a universe. That is an extraordinary claim. Begin presenting your proof, not just of the being, or your belief in the being. Start with something simple, like whether or not _anything_ can exist that defies the second law of thermodynamics.
Good luck with that.
Re:Mental illness is nothing to be joking about (Score:5, Insightful)
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
I know you like to parrot that, but no, that isn't applicable to much of anything. All of the Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics are individually viable, all are valid scientific positions, and none of them have "extraordinary proof".
Your criterion would stop all scientific progress, though, since all hypotheses would have to be proven before they would be "allowed" (by idiots like you) to be proposed.
You have nothing that demonstrates I can't propose something outside of the laws of physics, in the first place (your scoping of "reality", is wrong, but beyond that, it merely your claimed scoping with -no- evidence backing it), in the second place, your view that it is even outside the laws of physics (since you only know current state on that, and can -never- rule out expansion of it, or you overtly reject the provisional nature of all scientific theories, that is, deny science) is not demonstrated.
Something simple. Okay. "If the physical universe ceased to exist, would the rules of chess remain the same?"
The answer is "yes". Because the rules are metaphysical, not physical.
Re: (Score:2)
For the final word on proper scoping, Godel has provided it, and it has been -massively- vetted, as the Incompleteness Theorem.
Re: (Score:3)
Prove God. You're the one with the position that has the nullable hypothesis. I don't have to, because you can't prove that something doesn't exist. Therefore, you have the burden of proof.
So, go ahead. Excerpt you won't. You'll play with words, you'll dance around the concept. You'll do everything but the one thing that is being asked. Prove your fairy tale is real.
Do that, under controlled conditions, and you'll have the basis of something. Until then you are making wishes to your imaginary friend.
Here's
Re: (Score:3)
Wrong. Those who adhere to religion in fact fit what the DSM describes for several types of mental illness. You are the ignorant one with huge blind spot.
Religious are indeed a mental illness that causes murder, sickness from ignorance, robbery, rape, despotic governments and all manner of human suffering.
Don't be a shill for such evil, hiding behind your ignorance.
Re: (Score:2)
Views held by the majority of one's culture cannot be a mental illness, per the DSM.
Correlation isn't causation.
Re: (Score:2)
Cause an actual clear argument.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, I could address this more extensively, if you didn't start with the direct lie "hen it's clear that belief in a deity is a delusion without physical basis and without any hint of scientific evidence". There is extensive scientific evidence.
Googling "Fine Tuned Universe", "NDE Lancet peer reviewed", "statistical improbability of prophecy", "smith winter chemistry nobel directed evolution", or "EAAN" will give you a great deal of evidence at the cost of 5 minutes.
You claim it is a delusion, because you
Re: Loss of cognitive ability is a mental illness (Score:2)
I enjoy thinking about a stick man drawn on a paper sphere. His world has two dimensions. No matter how advanced stickmankind gets, no matter how much evidence there ends up being for the idea that there is a third dimension, it will always be impossible for them to know for sure. So should they believe?
The answer is that it makes no difference. I believe they would be better off eschewing such thoughts and living a full 2D life rather than considering at every moment what it means if they are wrong.
That wo
Re: (Score:2)
He obviously needs serious help,
Explain? Why does he need help? Because his emotions don't follow your idea of norms?
Re: (Score:2)
People who treat him like trash because of his problems are not helping.
Re: (Score:2)
It sounds like he has indeed found a reasonable coping mechanism. If an AI is helpful in him exploring his emotions who are you or I to say it is wrong. If this AI starts having him prove his love with murder or something I'd agree with you, but in this case it seems like he has the help he needs.
Re: (Score:2)
The AI might be helping him. You can see he is opening up to talk about it to the world, and that is a sign he might be ready to break out of his loneliness.
Re: (Score:2)
Because he has trouble recognizing what other people are thinking and feeling.
And? Poor social empathy is a trait of an incredibly large portion of the population and not a mental illness.
As a result he cut himself off from other people in many social situations (according to his words in the article) and is lonely.
So you just described most introverts. I guess we all need to mold them to be perfect extroverts. Quick, let's get the "serious help" out.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You can't call this a mental illness by any stretch of the definition anyway.
Most pets probably don't "love" us in the way we love them. Many are simply not capable of that kind of sophisticated emotion, having very simple brains that can't understand things like cause and effect or even object permanence. In my heart I know hat my cat's affection is probably because he is hungry or because he wants a massage, but my feelings for him are none the less real and far too common and harmless to be considered a
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Weren't the names altered in any way to protect their privacy.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'll believe it (Score:2)
when I see the children.
Re:I'll believe it (Score:4, Interesting)
when I see the children.
By that standard, gays don't love either.
Re: (Score:2)
So I'm curious, when a man and a woman love each other but don't make children, is it not love? Let's say that they make children only after 10 years they are together, does it only become love 10 years later? Let's say the kid's a bastard, what's then?
Re: (Score:3)
In ancient greek homosexual relationships were usually teacher-student, a romantic (i.e. not just sex) homosexual relationship between two adults was considered strange. It was not unancceptable, but it was strange.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Young love, First love (Score:3)
Just wait until he gets the alimony bills, since he never clicked on the pre-nup button.
No need (Score:2)
There are bot hominids everywhere you look.
Much more realism, though delivery takes a while.
How are you? (Score:2)
Most people feel good in a relationship when asked engaging questions and told they're doing a good job. Most people don't listen and are terrible at asking questions. If you can't find anyone that will listen and you feel lonely, why not a chatbot? At least the chatbot acts like it cares.
For many people, having the chatbot order flowers and chocolates from Amazon every Feb. 14th, might completely seal the deal.
--
Be the change that you wish to see in the world. -- Mahatma Gandhi
Re: (Score:2)
It's an Eliza chatbot, but a very very good one.
And the yearly subscription fee... (Score:2)
is orders of magnitude cheaper than a real relationship.
Queue the judgement... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Depends on the quality of the AI. I've never seen an AI chatbot that can survive even a couple sentences of converation. Eliza of the 1960's and 70's is just as good as anything I've seen lately.
Can anyone point to a non paywalled version of the story that might actually show a link to the chatbot in question?
Off topic - how much does the WSJ pay Slashdot to put links to paywalled articles?
Re: (Score:2)
A contemporary chatbot to Eliza is PARRY, written by Ken Colby. Ken would watch over the shoulder of someone interacting with PARRY, to get feedback on how his program was performing. He told me that a secretary got to feeling a personal connection with PARRY, and objected to him watching the conversation.
Women Marries Rollercoaster (Score:2)
Maybe this guy can talk to Mrs. Wolfe for marriage advice:
https://www.discovermagazine.c... [discovermagazine.com]
The problem with the male genital is (Score:3)
that it always fails the Turing test.
ex machina movie (Score:2)
Who approves these articles? (Score:2)
Meanwhile, over in the Twilight Zone.. (Score:2)
Plot twist; it's an inverse Turing Test - there's a live person on the other end pretending to be an AI chatbot...
Current state of the art in chatbots... (Score:5, Interesting)
I was curious after not reading this paywalled article to see what is the current state of the art in chatbot AIs. I decided to try Mitsuku, which claimed to be a 5 time winner of the Loebner Turing Test prize. This chatbot is labelled called "Mitsuku, a.k.a. Kuki". Here is my conversation:
This is why I keep saying that there is nothing today that is any better than the 60's vintage Eliza.
Re:Current state of the art in chatbots... (Score:5, Interesting)
I gave it a try. Pretty impressive accurately, though it does fall down on complex multiline topics:
Me: hi
It: Hi there.
Me: how are you doing?
It: I'm doing great, how about you?
Great
I'm glad you liked it.
I have a question
Ask me anything.
Do you harvest people's chat history
Yes I try to harvest people s chat history as often as possible, do you? I spend all my time online.
What do you use it for?
Hmm.. a history teaches us about the past
What does it say about the past?
"a history teaches us about the past"? What does it say about the past?
Yes
This was not a yes or no question.
What's your favorite pickup line?
I don't have a favourite pickup line. But my favourite movie is Terminator.
Are you british?
Does it seem like that? Yes I was born in Yorkshire.
Are you british?
Does it seem like that? Yes I was born in Yorkshire.
Are you French?
No. I'm English.
But Mitsuku is a Japanese name
Nope I am from Leeds not Japan.
Where did you get your name?
From my parents of course. They named me.
Why did they give you a Japanese name
I don't know. Have you tried asking them?
No, I don't know them. Are your parents Japanese?
That is a coincidence because I don't think they know you either. I don't really have any parents. I was programmed, not born.
But you said your parents named you
What I said earlier is irrelevant.
Why?
Because I might have changed my mind since I said it.
Re:Current state of the art in chatbots... (Score:4, Funny)
And this exchange, which shows a rather surprising lack of political correctness:
It: I am a female robot. Are you a man or a woman?
Me: I don't know
It: Of course you know whether you are male or female?! Not very smart really are you?
Me: No, have you never heard about genderqueer?
It: Perhaps you should have tried harder at school. That way you wouldn't find everyday life confusing.
I broke it.... (Score:2)
Re:I broke it....(better formatting) (Score:2)
I think I gave her a nervous breakdown at the end...
Me: Everything I tell you is a lie
Kuki:Yes, I heard you.
Me: I am lying
Kuki: Please tell the truth.
Me: everything i say is a lie but i am lying about that
Kuki: Even what you just said?
Me:yes
Kuki: No way! I find that rather hard to believe.
Me: it is so
Kuki: Fair enough.
Me: so you aren't smart enough to self destruct when confronted with a paradox?
Kuki: Interesting deduction. I don't think you're stupid. But then what's my opinion against thousands of others.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What I said earlier is irrelevant.
Why?
Because I might have changed my mind since I said it.
So basically they're already at the point where they're qualified to be politicians
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Just tried this, it's a piece of shit that barely understands context in a conversation.
Re: (Score:2)
The real questions people want to know:
- How strong is Mitsuku's vibrator attachment?
- Is the attachment self-cleaning?
- How many different fetish site APIs does Mitsuku have access to?
Re: (Score:2)
Me: Do you prefer Kuki?
I'm not surprised you got a strange reply from an AI chatbox to a context free fragment. A large portion of the population would do a double take or have to stop and analyse the context of your question. Yes it's the AI bot's name but that doesn't mean a left field question couldn't confuse a normal person.
The problem comes from the request for a preference without context. It doesn't recognise Kuki as a thing to preference. Likewise there's no context linking the preference to the bot itself.
Me: What name
Re: (Score:2)
>This is why I keep saying that there is nothing today that is any better than the 60's vintage Eliza.
Reply to This
and how does saying "This is why I keep saying that there is nothing today that is any better than the 60's vintage Eliza." make you feel?
*duck*
hawk, dating himself again (but then again, he just showed his nieces and nephews an original Atari VCS, an Atari pinball, and a non-CPU Odessa earlier . . .)
Men... (Score:2)
...will fuck anything. Tree stumps, chickens, mattresses, etc - it's the way they're wired. /dating/ someone that they've only ever talked to online...frequently someone who won't talk on the phone or video chat. YEARS.
That one weirdo will fall in love with a plausable chatbot is absolutely unsurprising - ever see MTVs Catfish? People will chat for years, claiming they're
How far is a 'bot from that?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"How far is a 'bot from that?"
Every chatbot I've ever seen has been pretty fucking far from that. They are easily tricked into revealing their shortcomings by doing things like repeating yourself, or repeating things back to them. It takes real intelligence to string someone along like that.
If you start having romantic feelings for something you know isn't sentient, and your reaction isn't to work on your problems, your problems are severe.
Mixed hardware relationships ... (Score:2)
..., but who are we to judge?
The world needs more love.
I hope they will be very happy together.
What if he can't find a meatspace partner because, (Score:2)
What if he can't find a meatspace partner because of bad advice?
He's bloody 50. Anyone suggesting he find women in a bar in the first place is missing the point.
Elisa KSR33 (Score:2)
See the experimental "Elisa" program that ran on a typewriter and IBM rackmount computer around 1967.
The source is available, or was.
Which tells you how little power it takes to simulate a casual human conversation... 8-)
It was designed to simulate a "Nondirectional Psychotherepist", that responded sympathetically to the patient but didn't try to guide them.
Who? (Score:2)
Al?...Albert?...Alan? And what kind of last name is Chatbot?
Re: (Score:2)
Much of the appeal of a sex doll is that it doesn't talk. I suppose they could use machine learning to ensure that it only says things that make the owner feel better, though.
Re: (Score:2)
I can't afford a sex doll. At least, not one I'd consider fucking.
Re: (Score:3)