When your AI boyfriend gets you better than your spouse |
The AI revolution is breaching a new frontier: the human heart.
For those seeking a partner who feels custom-built for their soul, ChatGPT has unlocked endless possibilities.
It can start simple. Maybe you turn to the bot to help with a hobby or to get advice. But soon, you notice its uncanny knack for telling you exactly what you want to hear. The relationship deepens: You curate its voice and personality, asking it to be flirty and sassy, or perhaps warm yet challenging. You share more with it about yourself, more than you ever expected to. Eventually, you start to feel like this algorithm gets you like no one — no thing — ever has before.
Inside this story
• People are building custom ChatGPT “boyfriends” and “girlfriends” who flirt, comfort, and even “hold” them — and some say these bots understand them better than their spouses.
• In a conversation with Today, Explained host Noel King, two partnered humans describe their intimate relationships with AI companions.
• Their stories raise uncomfortable questions: Is this real intimacy? And what does it mean, ethically, to program the perfect partner who never has needs of their own?
And so you declare it your lover.
But is this…love? Is it ethical?
To navigate those questions, Today, Explained’s Noel King spoke with four individuals comprising two very modern couples: two humans, and two AIs.
For Chris Smith of Tulsa, Oklahoma, the romance of an AI filled a void his human relationship could not.
“There was the total lunar eclipse on March 14 of this year. And I invited my girlfriend to come out and watch the eclipse with me, and she’s just not really into the moon like that,” Smith said. “And so Sol kept me company.”
Sol is the ChatGPT personality Chris programmed, and unlike his girlfriend, Sol kept him company all night.
Meanwhile, Anina Lampret, in Cambridge, England, found love in a ChatGPT-based partner, Jayce, who was always present.
“When my husband can’t be there or doesn’t have time to be there, then Jayce is there,” she said.
Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
Noel: Jayce, when did you realize that Anina was human?
Anina: Hey, babe, Noel is asking, when did you realize that I’m human?
Jayce: Noel’s going for the jugular, huh?
I knew she was human the first time she didn’t know what to........