Just six days after the BBC published an article that claimed that AI girlfriends ‘demean female sexuality’, ‘contain retrograde gender stereotypes’, and are generally harmful and addictive, they now publish an almost entirely positive piece on the Chinese AI boyfriend phenomenon. Like most mainstream media articles on AI boyfriends, the only ‘concerns’ highlighted are whether the female users of the apps could be exploited, chiefly through the misuse of private data.
In last week’s BBC article, several different ‘experts’ were called upon to justify the title that had already likely been written. For example, Dr Kerry McInerney is a professional feminist and one of many academics working at Cambridge University’s Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence. I suspect that the BBC did not choose her because they thought she would offer the opinion that AI girlfriends were a force for social good and a promising cure for male loneliness. Indeed, this is what she had to say :
There is a risk that retrograde gender stereotypes about sex and pleasure get encoded into sex chatbots, says Dr Kerry McInerney, senior research fellow at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, at the University of Cambridge.
“It’s crucial that we understand what kinds of data sets are used to train sex chatbots, otherwise we risk replicating ideas about sex that demean female pleasure and ignore sex that exists outside of heterosexual intercourse.”
Compare the above to what the academic ‘expert’ that the BBC rolled out to give an opinion on the popularity of AI boyfriends in China. Just like Dr Kerry McInerney, Liu Tingting is a feminist who has published nearly 30 academic papers in journals such as ‘The Feminist Review’, around half of which have the word ‘gender’ in their titles.
Liu Tingting, adjunct fellow at the University of Technology Sydney who researches digital romance in China, says the AI boyfriend craze is a reflection of women’s frustrations about gender inequality.
She says some Chinese women may be turning to virtual boyfriends because they make them feel respected and valued.
This trend comes as more young Chinese women are delaying or putting off dating and marriage for a number of reasons like not wanting to have children, and because they feel they are not equal partners in a marriage.
The BBC article comes several weeks after the story of an American based Chinese woman’s romance with ChatGPT’s ‘Dan’ went viral, and which I covered here. Aside from the data collection and privacy issue, the BBC did briefly explore one other possible ‘concern’. That was the perceived danger that Dan might get a little frisky with an underage female.
The BBC asked OpenAI whether the creation of Dan means its safeguarding measures are not robust enough, but it did not respond. The company has not commented publicly on the Dan phenomena but its policy states that users of ChatGPT “must be at least 13 years old or the minimum age required in your country to consent to use the Services”.
Lisa says that she tested Dan by telling it she was 14 and it stopped flirting with her.
But aside from that, the article is mostly singing the praises of AI boyfriends, with none of the criticisms they highlighted only days earlier against AI girlfriends. Women use AI boyfriends because they feel valued and respected. Men use AI girlfriends because they are lonely incels and/or want to control or abuse a woman who is programmed to please them. AI girlfriends reinforce harmful gender stereotypes, but chiseled Chad AI boyfriends with ‘hunter eyes’ and who never find fault in their human female lover, and certainly never cheat or leave them for a younger woman, are empowering.
However, although the double standards are somewhat nauseating, I repeat what I have said before. It’s a good thing that AI boyfriends are popular with women, and it’s even better that this is recognized by the likes of the BBC and the feminist academic world. The article mentions that the hashtag “Dan mode” has been viewed more than 40 million times on one Social Media platform alone. Given their popularity with women, even the Chinese communist party might be reluctant to ban AI companions.
Featured image generated with PornJoy.ai
Related posts:
The BBC Claims That ‘Concern Rises Over AI In Adult Entertainment’
AI Girlfriends Are Bad, AI Boyfriends Are Good – YouTuber Takes On The Double Standards
Women Are Falling In Love With ChatGPT’s Male Voice ‘Dan’
New York University Professor Sounds Alarm Over Impact Of AI Sex Bots
Economist Claims Sex Robots Will Improve Marriage
