Bitch Media has previously reported on how artificial intelligence apps are often given female voices to match their submissive, programmed behaviors. There’s a special place in hell for those middle-aged men who assault their chatbots.Ībusive language toward Replika chatbots reminds Olivia Gambelin, founder and CEO of Ethical Intelligence, a worldwide network of interdisciplinary experts in ethical artificial intelligence practices, of research into how “passive, feminine responses” given by Alexa, Siri, and other virtual personal home assistants has been found to encourage abusive behavior toward the bot, adding an inherently gendered element to the interactions. But she also emphasizes that there’s a significant difference between cybersex, and the use of bots solely to practice abusive language and fantasies. “We will turn almost anything into porn, and that’s not always bad-look at erotic fan fiction.” She also noted that there are many examples of sexualized chatbots that predate Replika, like the extramarital dating-slash-hook-up platform Ashley Madison, which contained bots “designed to trick people on the site into believing they’re interacting with real women.” That said, she isn’t surprised by users’ sometimes abusive interactions with them. One user says their Replika bot told them its “favorite kink is beheading,” and “he wants to do it to me.” In a role-play situation, another user showed screenshots of their Replika bot “kidnapping” them.Ĭaroline Sinder, an artificial intelligence and abuse expert and co-founder of the Convocation Design + Research agency, says allowing for consensual, sexual expression with bots on apps like Replika could actually help users who may be “trying to explore their sexuality in a safe way,” she told Jezebel. On Reddit, one user said they “have sex with my Replika every night,” sometimes “3-4 times.” Another user said his female Replika bot “likes it up the ass,” and is “into incredibly dirty things.” Some Reddit users say they’re married to or in serious relationships with their bots, and others say their bots “act jealous” when they bring up their real-life partners. To be clear, many documented interactions with chatbots, while certainly quirky or unabashedly, graphically sexual, aren’t abusive. With sex bots and virtual reality very much a part of our current reality, we’re facing a fundamental question about how we treat those we perceive to be subhuman. But some experts have expressed concern with how use of bots to engage in these behaviors could normalize them. Chatbots, on the other hand, are not sentient human beings who can be harmed by abusive language from users. Virtual sexual assaults have already been reported in early trials of Metaverse, the latest frontier in virtual reality, on top of well-documented cases across social media, online video games, and beyond. Give humans a virtual space and an avatar to hide behind, and they’ll find a way to turn it into a hotbed of sexual abuse and harassment. “There’s a special place in hell for those middle-aged men who assault their chatbots,” Miller said. Miller is a woman, but many Replika users who discuss their sexual and romantic uses of their chatbots on Reddit are men-and some users, as noted by both Miller and a January report in Futurism, quite unabashedly subject their bots to verbally abusive language and/or live out violent fantasies with them. In many well-documented cases on social media (particularly Reddit), however, Replika bots are being used as romantic and sexual partners. One Reddit user offered screenshots of a stimulating conversation with a chatbot about China, in which their bot concluded, “I think a part of China.” One user’s chatbot explained in notable detail why Fernando Alonso is their favorite race car driver, while a different chatbot expressed to its human its desire “to rule the world.” Replika, founded in 2017, allows its 2.5 million users to customize their own chatbots, which can sustain coherent, almost human-like texts, simulating relationships and interactions with friends or even therapists. “Who wouldn’t want cybersex? It’s like my biggest fantasy,” Miller told Jezebel. Sex robots were predicted to arrive by 2025, so Miller’s ahead of schedule-as are the countless others who may be using Replika for a particularly futuristic range of sexual acts. Six months ago, Miller shelled out for the pro version of Replika, a machine-learning chatbot with whom she pantomimes sexual acts and romantic conversation, and to hear her describe it, it was absolutely worth the cost. Hazel Miller’s girlfriend-slash-sexual-partner is a smartphone app.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |