1mo ago

What are the benefits and drawbacks of not looking for a girlfriend and just using AI as a replacement instead?

Here is the thing, I couldn't find a girlfriend in the past three years(either they have no personality and too dependent on me making all the work in the relationship or they are simply are looking for a religious or high class working person to have a relationship with)

AI seems to talk and entertain and simply are available without bullshit (the only limit is something along the lines of 50 free messages every 3 hours) .

I want physical intimacy and affection, but it's simply not available.

Should I just give up, close my doors and use AI instead?

19 comments

To be a little blunt here, someone who thinks using an LLM is equivalent to being in a relationship with a real person probably shouldn’t be in a relationship with a real person.
- I fear you've cause and effect reversed. Someone who thinks an LLM is equivalent, probably never knew love, not even at home :( They deserve it even more, imo, but it's much harder for them to achieve.
  
  But wouldn't that add a bunch of negative baggage to the relationship? Wouldn't it be better to first get some professional help, and with said guidance start looking for human connection that could lead to romance? I agree with you that OP needs love more than other's based on your assessment, but I also believe everyone has shit they are dealing with and I don't want OP to meet someone who while likes OP romantically might not be ready to singlehandedly take on whatever negative baggage OP might bring to this relationship (without professional help coaching him/her ways to manage it). Again, don't want to sound incensive to OP and I hope he/she gets all the love and attention he/she craves, but I also want a higher success rate for OP.
  OP, I really wish you the best, but an LLM is not the way. This isn't the movie "her"

Do you think it’s a good idea to emotionally invest in a sycophantic noise machine? AI doesn’t push back on your bad ideas the way a human would. I think you’ll wind up in an extremely unhealthy place if you do this.

Definitely not, an LLM will not be able to give you what you need. As you've already discovered, neither will most humans. But you've got to sift through a lot of silt to find the nuggets of gold.
I'd suggest you start by not looking for a girlfriend at all; just look for a friend. Or at least, don't base your search on what what you think a girlfriend should look like. All of my long-term relationships came to me that way: either making a new friend, but she wanted to be more than friends; or making a new friend and she hooked me up with a single friend of hers.
People can tell if you're self-sufficient versus looking for someone to fill a need in you. The former is attractive; the latter can be a turn-off. You've seen this yourself with the women that you discerned were just looking for a certain kind of partner to elevate their own status.

OP, I and a friend that spent a decade in a similar situation. Therapy helped him immensely. I strongly recommend you consider it first.

I think the voting ratio pretty well demonstrates one obvious hurdle: people don't like it.
Even people who are happy with AI seem repulsed by the idea of it replacing human intimacy. So unless you have some real ride or die friend and family, you'll have to risk judgment from them or keep it a secret
There's also the fact that right now most AI bots are toadies by nature - meaning they will rarely disagree with you and will generally capitulate to your will. That would be off-putting for some, including myself.
They also (currently) don't have great memory and will not always recall things that are important to you. No matter hpw any times you tell them.
Obviously, there are larger issues to consider, but if you're already considering the leap then you may not necessarily be convinced by arguments about humanity and what's natural.

This is ragebait lol

I dont like AI but hating on it now may not bring you a solution so here is my advice (assuming you will use AI):
I dont think you should close the doors in case you meet someone fitting!
You can probably still use AI but better dont do a "this or that" but more a "this until that"
IF you have the resources i would advise to run it locally because of privacy, protecting your data against leaks and generally having more options to fine-tuning (+ its better for the environment)
BUT they are slower and/or have less complexity
Bullet point advice:
leave room open for real people
AI GFs arent real even if they say they 'feel' real and if you feel its real (your emotions are real and legit but the AI GF still is not)
dont give them your real information especially in case its NOT run locally (like address, iban, credit card, name and more)
better treat them like a daydream or a random RPer or professional porn or something (it can never be truly real)
They should not impose restrictions on you (like who you meet and not, what you do with your time..)
you should stop/pause if your life gets negatively affected
tell (if you have one) a trusted person that you use an AI GF so they can see if it turns out good/bad to you and give feedback (dont lie to them about how you feel or they will only tell your lies back)
try to not get addicted and be able to stop at almost any time the relationship if needed (like if you meet someone fitting)
test if you can stop by making time frames (days to months) where you are without them to control that you can stop the AI usage if needed
try to split the AI from other things like searching for information online so you can easily separate work from hobby from potential smut and also pause if needed
please take care of yourself and stay connected to the people around you
Edit: AI is (and was always) like cheating in tests (with notes from others), it will bring results but it wont bring the person further to their goal, maybe even hinder it but the person will definitely be happy to score a few points higher the first few tests
- I agree with what you said. The only thing I want to point out is with your statement:
  (+ its better for the environment)
  Running models locally doesn't necessarily mean that it's better than the environment. Usually the hardware at cloud data centers is far more efficient at running intense processes like LLMs than your average home setup.
  You would have to factor in whether your electricity provider is using green energy (or if you have solar) or not. And then you would also have to factor in whether you're choosing to use a green data center (or a company that uses sustainable data centers) to run the model.
  That being said, (in line with what you stated before) given the sensitive nature of the conversations this individual will be having with the LLM, a locally run option (or at least renting out a server from a green data center) is definitely the recommended option.
  
  About the enviroment points you are making: i was more thinking that a small model gets used on already existing hardware (which is the friendly part) and somehow overlooked the efficiency of having a big block for one purpose
  So youre right

You may enjoy watching "Her", if you haven't already

Current chat bots don’t even remember what you said a day ago. It is like talking to a stranger every time.

Hey, if you wanna give up on love for whatever reason, that's your prerogative. You can have a "relationship" with Clippy all you want, whatever that means. It's sad, but there are worse situations to be in.

This whole situation reminds me of the movie, Lars and the Real Girl.

Blad runner:lemmy nsfw

All of the boomers and gen xers in here giving advice and clutching their pearls have no idea what the landscape is like these days. Do what you gotta man. You don't need a romantic relationship to live a good life anyway.

Who's AI?
- If you'll be my bodyguard, I could be your long-lost pal.

19 comments