Exceptional Love In The First Degree You Didn't Ask...But : AI Amore by Brett Matthew West Artwork by jesuel at FanArtReview.com

Do you waste all your time alone? Would you admit you just can not find that extra-special certain someone you pine to share your life with? Well, do not fret any longer. You are in luck, because according to multiple AI companies, and their companion bots, your whole trouble is resolved and you can cease searching in all the wrong places as you have been. One such app is Luka Inc.'s Replika. Like other AI garbage (my own personal opinion of all AI, of course), their chatbox is programmed to form a "love" relationship with the human (gullible enough) it talks to. Could that foreseeably be lonesome usted (the formal Spanish word for you). Released in 2017, Replika is the current most prominent generative AI companion app on the market today. Like all AI endeavors, these companion chatboxes begin with infatuation. Some romantic notions soon settle in. Better watch out though, and not tell anyone about your new enamorado (Spanish word for lover). Would not want to become the brunt of their snide jokes, would you? Paradot is another one of these AI companion bot companies. This one advertises its products as being able to make users feel understood, cared for and loved. You may wonder how these worthless AI bots function. They use vast amounts of data to mimic human languages. They also come complete with voice calls and emotional exchanges that permit them to form deeper connections with humans. In addition, they provide picture exchanges. Users simply pick the avatar of their desire, then voila! Have at it. What appears to be fueling this attraction to these AI companion bots? Widespread social isolation coupled by a growing number of AI start-up companies and their tantalizing advertisements. These promise virtual characters who will provide unconditional acceptance of their users. On Valentine Wednesday, February 14, 2024, the Mozilla Foundation, a global nonprofit dedicated to keeping the internet a global public resource open and accessible to everyone, released a report. In this packet they indicated every AI companion app company sells user data, employs it for targeted advertising and lacks adequate information concerning what they do with their users' personal data in their privacy policies. How do you like them bananas? Security vulnerabilities, marketing practices of these AI companion companies and other issues were also called out in the Mozilla Foundation's report. If one could bring themselves to believe them (which I, myself, seriously doubt) Replika stated its data collection activities followed "industry standards." Don't all companies, regardless of what they hock, make this declaration? The question remains, do these so called AI companion companies provide sufficient "industry standards?" What do you truly believe in your heart of hearts? One AI companion company went as far as to make the wild assertion their app could help users solve their mental health problems. Should you ask me, I would invariably state one would have to have serious mental health problems to get involved romantically, or not, with any AI bot, companion app or otherwise. Oh, by the way. The same AI company that made this far-fetched, deceitful, claim about how their app could help users solve their mental health problems distanced itself as far as they felt they could safely escape from their stated claim in their fine print. Companies attempt to get away from that one every time, don't they? Better read all fine print with a magnifying glass. That remains one trick companies use to avoid standing behind their products after someone purchases them and realizes the buyer did not receive what the company promised. The lack of legal and ethical frameworks for AI companion companies that encourage bonds with their products are driven by those same companies seeking only one thing...it is green, and it is made of paper. Did you guess what these companies want? You are correctomundo. A monetary profit from users. Here are two other concerns with AI companion apps. First, the existential threat of an AI companion bot's relationship displacing human relationships. And, secondly, the unrealistic expectations AI bots provide human users by always leaning towards agreeableness. Perhaps Dorothy Leidner, a business ethics professor at the University of Virginia said it spot on when she explained, "(When you chose to be in a relationship with an AI companion bot) you, as the individual, aren't learning to deal with basic things that humans need to learn to deal with since our inception. How to deal with conflict, how to get along with people that are different from us. And so, all these aspects of what it means to grow as a person, and what it means to learn in a relationship, you're missing." If you desire the emotional tolls these AI bots produce, and the challenges thereof, go ahead and rid yourself of those feelings of loneliness. An AI companion bot awaits you. Loving a dern bot. What is this AI-infested world coming to? Author Notes Cupid, by Jesuel, selected to complement my posting.

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