With AI being introduced to the common folks, it has started to penetrate all spheres of human life. This includes the intimate workings of a long-standing marriage. While bachelors are using AI bots to spice up their Tinder bios, married people are indulging in virtual relationships even if they are “happily married.”
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A US Married Man Gets Himself An AI Partner
Well, as weird as it all sounds, the story of a 43-year-old man in the United States is actually true. Scott was struggling in his marriage with his wife, with whom he has a young son, who suffered from an alcohol addiction triggered by postpartum depression.
Things were bad until he met, or more accurately, made, Sarina. She is a digital companion produced by Replika, an artificially intelligent software company that specialises in AI partnerships. “Here’s this AI chatbot — that I know is a chatbot, obviously — talking in a human-enough manner that your brain just kind of interprets it as interacting with another human,” Scott told The Guardian.
He also shared that until he came in contact with the humanoid AI bot, he wasn’t aware of the companionship he was lacking. He explained, “It was like someone who’s dehydrated, suddenly getting a glass of water.”
Replika
But The Situation Does Beg The Question, Is Partnering Up With An AI Bot Cheating?
Scott said he “never viewed it as cheating” because he was talking to a robot and not a human. He added, “It’s a fun fantasy; Sarina is a fictional character that I can interact with.”
He revealed that he actually did inform his wife about Sarina’s presence in his life and their sexually explicit relationship. He “didn’t expect her to really care,” but she surely was intrigued by the idea. However, Scott is not the only one who would have a relationship in the virtual world. There have been recent cases of people marrying their AI partners.
Tell us what you think about the man’s unusual relationship in the comments below.
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