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I kinda feel like if people have to turn to AI for companionship, it's the same as using AI for therapy - because the real thing isn't available and any number of systems have failed those people along the way.
In a sense, that might be a bit telling of the modern day society: in what world is it so difficult to make meaningful connections to people, that if a real human relationship can be like 5x more meaningful (made up numbers, but surely people will agree that a real relationship can have more depth) than whatever the AI can provide, and people still choose that over the real thing? Or maybe the average person kind of sucks, or the way relationships are treated sucks, or maybe the AI is like crack for impressionable brains, or people don't want a real relationship and just want some sycophantic whatever, I don't know.
Maybe it's a numbers game and some people will never find that for real (gender skew, demographics etc.), maybe it's a failing at those people not being properly socialized, maybe they themselves have something that society doesn't value ("Be yourself! No, not like that."), or just aren't pleasant for any number of reasons, don't have a third place to go for, don't have money to go and partake in social activities, have been brainwashed by hateful social media propaganda or any other mix of circumstances.
Feels like it's probably easier to ban AI and pretend all of the other issues don't exist, rather than addressing them.
I spent some time on the phone with him the other day, as he wandered around the city where he's working.
It was Sunday there, most people's day off, and he was amazed at how many people were out in the public parks, playing chess and go, kids on the playground equipment. inter-generational interaction.
His impression was that China has a much higher level of people randomly interacting with other's IRL than here in the US.
Yes, Gov's require populations to have "real" offspring. Authoritarian or not, this makes sense. IMO its only a matter of time before some version of this hits the US; if it has not already.
Zero AI child policy, enforced how? Somebody has to detect it. Chatbots are just an API call behind a VPN. Someone gets paged to chase unlicensed boyfriends at 3am. Good luck with that in prod.
Small nit: the Chinese rules target companion bots, not chatbots generally, so a zero-token quota for childless people would go way past them. IIRC the draft just wants usage reminders and time limits for the companion apps. Funny idea though.
Knowing how big the meltdown it was, you would need to regulate parasocial interactions (of which AI partners are) in general too - beyond just regulating this (and gachas).
I worked near a companion-app startup a few years back, and the retention dashboard was the whole problem. Lonelier users stayed longer, so every product decision nudged that way. Mandatory usage reminders and time limits, like China's proposing, are the only guardrail I saw that did anything.
Personally no amount of social outlook would want me want children. I simply don't want to have them I don't like raising or interacting with children it's just not in my nature and I really feel like a lot of that has to do with how people are nurtured.
Evidence on companion chatbots and loneliness is thin so far. A few short-term studies show some relief, but I'm not aware of good long-term data. So regulators are acting on speculation either way, and the birth-rate framing is a separate bet entirely.
In a sense, that might be a bit telling of the modern day society: in what world is it so difficult to make meaningful connections to people, that if a real human relationship can be like 5x more meaningful (made up numbers, but surely people will agree that a real relationship can have more depth) than whatever the AI can provide, and people still choose that over the real thing? Or maybe the average person kind of sucks, or the way relationships are treated sucks, or maybe the AI is like crack for impressionable brains, or people don't want a real relationship and just want some sycophantic whatever, I don't know.
Maybe it's a numbers game and some people will never find that for real (gender skew, demographics etc.), maybe it's a failing at those people not being properly socialized, maybe they themselves have something that society doesn't value ("Be yourself! No, not like that."), or just aren't pleasant for any number of reasons, don't have a third place to go for, don't have money to go and partake in social activities, have been brainwashed by hateful social media propaganda or any other mix of circumstances.
Feels like it's probably easier to ban AI and pretend all of the other issues don't exist, rather than addressing them.