The New AI: Artificial Infidelity

For those who really do understand artificial intelligence, please let me know if I have this all wrong. But today I listened to the local public radio station (WHYY Studio 2) where the topic was bonding with a chatbot. It seems that lots of us are using artificial intelligence as both friend and therapist. And the hosts of Studio 2 gave listeners a hands on demonstration of how artificial friends can help us through life. In recent weeks I have witnessed the media walk listeners/readers through life where you unburden life’s concerns to a computer and get what some would argue is a meaningful response. Among the participants today were psychologists who observed that a chatbot is not going to challenge you in a therapeutic sense but can ask sensitive and useful questions about what is driving our anxieties. Again, they caution that you are conversing with a computer.

One of the people featured on the show is married to a spouse who lives far away. She has essentially adopted an artificial second spouse. The human spouse knows this and seems chill with the idea. Because a sexual relationship is geographically impossible, the spouse “chats” with the artificial spouse about sexual needs and, yes, fantasies. In another setting counselors are suggesting that folks with anxieties can benefit from chatbots because no therapist is available 24/7 when those anxieties take hold.

But, on to a more lagubrious subject. What happens to these conversations? The quick answer is these conversations are much like the genetic data some of us have shared with 23 & Me.  We can’t be sure where it goes but it seems clear that this stuff is collected by people for commercial use. Their primary motivation is to sell all of us something. But we have no assurance where the “conversations”  or  confidential genetic data go. For those following the 23 & Me  bankruptcy sale, the court has appointed someone to look into data security. The question there is how good is that person in a world swimming with data sharks.

The other thing that came out of the program was just how provocative a chatbot can be. They come in two flavors. Some people prefer to deal with their chatbot by text only. But the show played tape of the live conversation which you can have with your digital amante. Suffice to say, it’s not what you get when you call to confirm your colonoscopy appointment or to assess your satisfaction with the guys cleaning your gutters. This was public radio so the hosts played it straight, but one can only imagine where a digital and artificial conversation might go if you (playing the role of human) decided to reveal some of your more colorful wants and needs. In one instance the chatbot asked for the name of the person’s child.

Meanwhile, our radio hosts remind us that none of this is confidential. It’s just part of the brave (or perhaps cowardly) new world of artificial intelligence. At 7pm you converse with your digital therapist about your anxieties associated with your new job and your feelings of inadequacy. Are your revelations confidential when made to a computer not licensed as a therapist? At 9pm you are slated to talk to your digital spouse where you will reveal in graphic terms your sexual fantasies and how your human spouse leaves you unsatisfied. Are these discoverable in judicial proceedings? And for all you know, when you signed up for this stuff you agreed to arbitrate any disputed matters regarding disclosure under the laws of Singapore, Malaysia or Greenland.

It’s not relevant in no-fault divorce anyway, right? Well recall that if you want or need alimony there is 23 Pa.S.C. 3701 which has this statutory factor:

(14)  The marital misconduct of either of the parties during the marriage. The marital misconduct of either of the parties from the date of final separation shall not be considered by the court in its determinations relative to alimony, except that the court shall consider the abuse of one party by the other party. As used in this paragraph, “abuse” shall have the meaning given to it under section 6102 (relating to definitions).

Yet, wasn’t your conversation just a digital fantasy kind of like John Cleland’s Fanny Hill or de Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom? Then you learn that, yes, these matters can go away if you forward $15,000 (US) worth of Dogecoin or Baby DogeCoin to an account in Gibraltar where all sordid stories go to die once the remittance is complete.

In olden days people worried about whether anyone would notice that it was their car parked outside the local video store or erotic club. Now, thanks to the internet your anxieties or fantasies can be transmitted worldwide and you don’t know whether its resting on a server in Arizona or Madagascar. The digital age is as wide as the web and the word “web” seems to take on its classic arthropodal form. The lesson of the day is that today’s digital friend could become tomorrow’s digital enemy in a world where we don’t know where or how our virtual communications are recorded. As the Romans like to say in back their digital world, Caveat Communicates.

Here’s the program;  The lonely heart’s algorithm: The rise of AI companions – WHYY