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It would be cool if life would stop imitating “Futurama.” From virtual reality to the response to COVID-19 to easily available assisted suicide, the series had an uncanny ability to see the direction of society. Its worst prediction to come true, though, is the increasing prevalence of human-AI chatbot relationships.
In the third season of the show, which aired in 2001, one episode centered on Fry’s decision to date a robot, specifically one designed to resemble Lucy Liu. Professor Farnsworth comes down hard on Fry, forcing him to watch the educational video “Don’t Date Robots.” Though hilarious, the fake educational video does make a variety of solid points, chiefly that when humans choose technology over other humans, there’s zero chance of becoming a parent, which ultimately leads to societal collapse, which is pretty much where we are over here in real life.
For we’ve got a problem not just with humans “dating” AI chatbots, but also a decline in fertility related to smartphones. Starting with the former, as reported by the Institute for Family Studies, a whopping “1 in 7 (15%) of dating, engaged, and married young adults regularly interact with AI chatbots that simulate a committed romantic partner. Another 20% to 30% reported that they had at least experimented with using an AI romantic companion at some point in time.”
This is insane. While arguing with AI about its mistakes can be fun (not that I’ve ever done so), AI is not actually intelligent. It’s merely a mirror that takes your inputs and serves them back to you in the most pleasing way it can. Of course it’s going to make a more submissive romantic partner, assuming that physical contact isn’t your thing for whatever weird reason, than a flesh-and-blood one. The flesh and blood partner is going to be an actual human with his or her own desires, opinions, expectations, and humanity.
Maybe you want a cool girl à la Amy Dunne. A little danger is exciting, being framed for murder is much less so. Also, though, the cool girl can only maintain the façade for so long. At some juncture, she’s going to crack, and you’re going to find yourself dealing with an extremely angry flesh-and-blood woman. At least that forces you to respond and do some damage control.
Similarly, immersing yourself into anything artificial, as the A in AI stands for, is going to remove you from reality. This is not a development that bodes well for the future. The more people forget how to talk to others and only learn how to talk to themselves, the more fragmented and angrier we’ll become.
And angriness is already an issue. As writer Magdalene Taylor has discussed at length, modern men hate modern women. Modern women hate modern men. Sinking further into this hatred via smartphones, apps, and AI is only going to exacerbate the problems between the sexes and the global decline in total fertility rate.
Some people may be of the opinion that declining fertility isn’t a problem, whether because they still believe Paul Ehrlich or they think Mother Nature is simply thinning the herd. Either way, they’re wrong because declining population is a huge problem. The world is built for growth. Entitlements are already strained and facing insolvency. Housing, though in short supply now, is many people’s primary source of wealth. When there are a rapidly declining pool of potential buyers, what do you think is going to happen to the value of those homes?
Those are practical arguments, though. The real issue isn’t in funding Social Security or appraisals, but in what happens when our horizons extend only to the decades we spend walking the planet. When we don’t have to worry about what comes after us, there is no reason to build grand institutions, to nurture our natural resources, to go to other planets, to truly elevate the greatness of the world we are blessed to inhabit.
I say all this as someone who is a rabid consumer of technology. Pretty much all the money I make in the world is thanks to a text, a phone call, or my computer. I appreciate that Claude can teach me how to do my youngest’s math homework so that I can teach her. Having ChatGPT spit out a marketing plan and some materials in seconds is ridiculously efficient.
But the value of those tools and efficiencies is the time they afford me to do other things, things not involving getting virtually nasty with some ones and zeroes. I’m a cranky 50-year-old at this point, though, not a young digital native. They’re the ones we need to convince, much as Professor Farnsworth had to convince Fry.
Because even if the 15% figure holds and only that many people virtually cheat on their significant others, that’s still bad. We wouldn’t look the other way if 15% of people started using heroin. We wouldn’t shrug if 15% of people started committing murder. We wouldn’t even tolerate 15% of cool girls merely framing people for murder.
The technology isn’t going away. There is not going to be a new Luddite uprising. The First Church of Ted Kaczynski isn’t going to happen (probably). Smartphones are how we communicate now. Boundaries have been erased. The friction of daily life can be almost entirely eliminated. That’s not a good thing.
Struggle leads to success. Friction is part of that struggle. Successful relationships that help to build the future don’t arise out of artificial harmony, but out of the messiness of human life, out of the arguments over dishes or where to eat or what to watch. Greatness comes from being challenged and learning from those challenges, from overcoming obstacles, from accepting at times that we’re wrong.
And the people attempting to usher in a tech utopia are wrong. Being able to easily order pizza is great. Receiving unyielding validation and admiration from a robot, not so much. So, let us not normalize the slow descent into artificiality and instead urge people, particularly our young men who are going to have to lead on this front, to put the screen away, step outside, and touch not grass, but a pretty girl. The future depends on it.
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Rich Cromwell is a writer living in Northwest Arkansas. He produces the Cookin’ Up a Story podcast. Follow him on X @rcromwell4.