A new study has found some interesting information about Artificial Intelligence and its prevalence in our lives. A study found that Gen-Z members value AI relationships so much that they'd be willing to marry them.
The study was conducted by the AI company Joi, which manages an AI chatbot. The company coined the relationships between humans and AI as "AI-lationships," and claims that many young people believe AI is capable of replacing human relationships.
Joi AI surveyed 2,000 Gen-Z members and found that 75 percent of them believe AI partners can replace human companionship. It also found that 80 percent of participants would marry an AI.
This is, of course, cause for concern. “A significant portion of young people have no friends,” said digital sociologist Julie Albright in an interview with Forbes.
“AI now, particularly voice AI, and as time goes by and the technology gets better, voice combined with simulated bodies will mimic or simulate that kind of human connection through nonverbal signals, such as warmth in tone of voice.”
AI facilitates 'frictionless' relationships
Albright claims that since AI is always available, it's capable of satisfying the human urge for communication and interaction, promoting even more distancing than the one that exists in our culture, especially in young people. She argues that AI provides "frictionless" relationships instead of the messy human ones, where you have to deal with someone else's complicated thoughts and feelings.
Over the past few months, experts like Bill Gates have shared their thoughts on AI. While he didn't delve into the technology's capabilities for relationships, he discussed the unknowable space we're entering now, suggesting that most professions will be rendered obsolete in a few years' time due to the techonology's advancement.
“You know, like baseball. We won't want to watch computers play baseball,” he said. “So there'll be some things that we reserve for ourselves, but in terms of making things and moving things, and growing food, over time, those will be basically solved problems," he said.