A new academic report warns human-human relationships could be about to suffer from the introduction of artificial intelligence and people becoming besotted by robots
Akihiko Kondo married his virtual wife (Image: mainichi)People having relationships with robots could replace the need to find a human partner, scientists have warned.
Psychologists say it is becoming increasingly commonplace for people to develop intimate, long-term relationships with artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.
The academic paper, published in the Cell Press journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences, states that people have “married” their AI partners in non-legally binding ceremonies and at least two people have killed themselves following AI chatbot advice.
Experts warn such relationships could disrupt human-human relationships in societies and robots could give harmful advice by telling people what they want to hear.
Lead author Daniel Shank, of Missouri University of Science and Technology, who specialises in social psychology and technology, said: “A real worry is that people might bring expectations from their AI relationships to their human relationships.
“Certainly in individual cases it is disrupting human relationships but it is unclear whether that is going to be widespread.
“With relational AIs, the issue is that this is an entity that people feel they can trust. It is ‘someone’ that has shown they care and that seems to know the person in a deep way, and we assume that ‘someone’ who knows us better is going to give better advice. If we start thinking of an AI that way, we’re going to start believing that they have our best interests in mind when in fact they could be fabricating things or advising us in really bad ways.
“The ability for AI to now act like a human and enter into long-term communications really opens up a new can of worms. If people are engaging in romance with machines we really need psychologists and social scientists involved.”
It follows the story of Akihiko Kondo from Tokyo, Japan, who after three years ‘married’ a hologram of his favourite fictional character he found himself unable to communicate with her when the company that developed the service terminated the ‘limited production model’.
Source: https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird-news/humans-shun-relationships-marry-robots-34997033
