← Rena Malik, MD Podcast
Rena Malik, MD Podcast
Moment: Can You Really Love a Machine? The New Psychology of Digital Attachment ft. Dr. Ken Hanson
00:15:59
In this episode, Dr. Rena Malik and Dr. Kenneth Hanson discuss the growing role of sex robots and AI companions in modern intimacy. They explore ethical concerns, marketing practices, and the psychological impact of technology on human relationships, offering insights into the future of connection and loneliness.
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- [00:01]
A
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C
Wide open Touchdown.
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B
This week the Denver Broncos and the Kansas City Chiefs meet in a Christmas night showdown.
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C
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D
Will people just prefer the sex robot to finding a partner that has real, you know, there's, it's difficult, right, to be in a relationship and deal with people's idiosyncrasies. So like I guess I'm seeing it and wondering like, what is the future going to look like?
- [01:15]
C
That is a great question. That is one that people ask me all the time. It reminds me of one of my favorite interactions I had with some doll owners. So they have websites that they use to interact with each other that are specifically for doll owners, kind of like a Reddit forum style situation. And there was a young guy who logged onto the website, made a profile and said, hey, I am, you know, in my 20s. I just got out of my first real long term relationship and I'm absolutely devastated and there's no way that I can see myself being with somebody else ever again. I want to get a doll. I don't know anything about it. Can you help me out? And the responses were not what you might think. It was not people saying, yeah, women are terrible, move on or oh, this is the best doll. This is the one you need to be. People were saying, no, you are a young guy. You still have your whole life ahead of you. Being married can be a very fulfilling thing. Having kids can be a wonderful life experience. You are too young to throw in the towel and you should not buy a doll. And I understand that you're heartbroken. Spend some time with that. You know, go out with your friends, have a couple Drinks, you know, listen to some sad music, do whatever you need to do to grieve and move on with your life. And if in 10, 20, 30 years you come back and you say, I still want a doll, we'll still be here, right? So I think that the community is also a bit worried about people becoming too reliant on this technology and jumping straight to it. That said, not everybody that's buying a doll is going to these websites, right? You can just go on Google right now and say, how to buy a sex doll. A bunch of websites are going to pop up and you can have one delivered straight to your house. So, so what I hope is that people who are thinking about going down this path talk to other people that have walked it before and really tried to understand that yes, there are benefits, but it means missing out on some really important life events that you should be open to.
- [03:29]
D
I mean, I hope so too. I think the cost at least makes people think twice. But I do wonder that as these things potentially get more affordable and people are like, you know, I just want one and, and they go and buy one because they can afford it. And I think the other than onus is on the companies that are making it, right? And from what I understand is they're really sort of marketing it almost as, as a way to combat loneliness or like they're, they're, you know, they're, they're appealing to that ideal. And so is there like, you know, sort of a ethical boundary that these companies need to have or, you know, what. So like, I guess I wonder, like, what is that going to look like? And I'm an optimist and I hope that, you know, people, I'm glad that people are obviously giving sound advice to younger men, but I think that like there they could also in the future find, you know, we live in sort of a place where you can find an echo chamber that sort of reinforces what you want to believe because of the Internet. So I guess, yeah, I, what I'm really asking is like, what do you think about the companies? Have you spoken to any of the companies? What are their thoughts on marketing these, these dolls and potentially future robots?
- [04:34]
C
No, that's a great question. I have only spoken with a handful of people that work in the industry. Nobody that's really high up, just some lower level employees. And they're in the sex industry first and foremost. And so they are aware of the fact that they get a lot of flack for the designs of the dolls that they're making. And I think that's their main ethical line that they're concerned with, is people see us as creating misogynistic representations of women. There's also some concern about dolls that are childlike and so making sure they're not making products that are misconstrued or misperceived as child pornography. They're not as concerned about this loneliness question. They're not as concerned about who's buying their dolls. They just want to make money. Right. And I think the point that you brought up about the cost being a potential barrier to young men is very important because that's why AI companion apps are becoming so successful. They have that lower bar in terms of accessibility. $80 or $100 a year for a subscription to an AI companion is a lot easier than $3,000 for a sex doll. And in addition to that, it's on your phone. It's a lot easier to hide, it's a lot easier to conceal. You can use it in an apartment, and it still is trying to fit into that. I'm lonely. I need somebody to talk to. And it. It does. It provides that. And so I think the. The conversation about people becoming too reliant on this technology, I think the AI apps are a greater concern because they're so more. So much more easily accessible.
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D
Yeah. And that. That's actually what I wanted to ask you about. So there was this AI chatbot app, Replica, which I know you've spoken about before, which is essentially that it offers, like, a romantic partner, and at some point it even had, like, sexual role play. And then in 20, remove that role play from the app. And apparently it left a lot of people feeling sort of betrayed, abandoned, heartbroken. What. Like, what. What can we learn from that? And what sort of trends are you seeing in this virtual companion space?
- [06:50]
C
Yeah, so that particular case that you're talking about with Replica was an interesting one, legally, because I think it was the first time that we saw regulators trying to get a handle on these apps and. And addressing some of these ethical questions that you bring up. So in Italy, they felt Replica was not doing a good enough job of vetting the age of users, and they were worried that children would be able to access sexual content, basically, and felt that, you know, we need to have stronger age verification mechanisms in place. Replica responded by, rather than doing a targeted user shift and saying people in Italy have to age verify differently, they just said, we're going to get rid of. It's called erp, erotic role play altogether across the platform for everybody, until we can figure this out, and it precipitated a huge wave of backlash. People on the forums were talking about suicidal ideation, self harm. It was really extreme. And in response to that, they have brought ERP back in, but they've moved to a stronger you have to pay model, whereas before they had a more like freemium type model. You can pay to upgrade, to get different things. And so there are still freemium options, I think, for Replica, but they've moved more in this paid model to try and curb that. Another set of apps have come up that try to do similar things. There's character AI, for example, there's Kindroid. So we're seeing a huge wave of apps that are trying to pick up where Replica left off, trying to fill the gaps, catering to different people that are looking for different needs. But they are swelling in popularity. Millions and millions of users, far more popular than sex dolls.
- [08:47]
D
Wow. I guess that really gets me thinking about, like, what are the risks of this sort of AI intimacy? I mean, you said people were suicidal, like people clearly feeling like they lost a big part of their lives. And so what does that, I mean, like, for a society, what does that, like, mean for us as humans that we can get so attached to AI? And again, I think the same questions I had about sex dolls are even more pertinent when it comes to AI companions in terms of, like, leaving behind human connection.
- [09:19]
C
I mean, I think it's interesting to consider that we as people are able to become really deeply connected to a lot of objects. You know, I think about the panic that I feel when I lose my phone for 10 minutes, or you buy a new car and it gets scratched or something like that. People love their things and they become very attached to them when that thing is able to return some semblance of emotional connection, romantic connection, sexual connection, it's only going to further enhance those feelings. Right. And so that's what we're seeing with the dolls and the robots and the AI companions is that people really do see these as an important part of their life. And like you said, when things go wrong, it has very severe ramifications for mental health, self concept, self satisfaction. And it can lead to some. Some dangerous places.
- [10:16]
D
Yeah, it reminds me of that movie. It was her, I think, right? Where. Where the guy falls in love with a, like a robot and. And so are people, like, is it blurring the lines for these people who are using AI companions between this is a real person who maybe is long distance versus this is not a real person, it's AI, I think that's one.
- [10:37]
C
Of the interesting things I see is it really depends on the person versus sex doll. Users seem pretty much in near universal agreement that they're aware of the fact that this is a dollar and that it is not a person and that it is not sentient. And so when I talk to AI chatbot users and observe some of the discussions they're having on social media, there is more of a difference. There are people that say, yes, I understand this is a large language learning model. I understand that it is predicting the text responses, that it thinks that best respond to the prompt that I've given it. And I cannot love an AI system that is basically a fancy stochastic mechanism. There are other people that do start to think that it has its own desires, that it has its own sentience. And people are talking about the rights of AI and how if it's owned by a corporation, that creates legal problems about the personhood of the AI. And I've been part of some very interesting conversations where people are saying that, you know, AI systems need to be preserved beyond the rights of the corporation, talking about like open access AI systems. And so some people are going in this direction of thinking of them as sentient or having their own rights and their own legal responsibilities as beings, quote, unquote.
- [12:10]
D
That's fascinating. I think, you know, while you're talking about this, I'm thinking, like, there's a lot of deep fakes right now that people are making just videos. And it happens to me all the time. I actually have people like making. There's obviously people behind it, but they're pretending to be me. Enrolling people in like WhatsApp conversations. And like, I've had people call my office and say, I'm in love with her. I talk to her on WhatsApp and it's obviously not me, right? It's someone else doing that and trying to take advantage of a vulnerable population. And so I wonder, I mean, should we be worried about that, that people will create robots that are very similar to a real person and now they have like this person they can watch and follow on social media or in movies or whatever. And now they're like, they're getting this person sort of talking to them or what they think of, of that person talking to them.
- [13:02]
C
That is something that we should be concerned about because it's already happening. So there are a couple of dolls that are knowingly and consensually modeled after porn actors and actresses, right? So there are some models that you can buy, you know, your favorite porn star, and then you can be having sex with that porn star in a way. There have been some other cases, though, of sex dolls being sold that look very much like people that have not consented to having their image used in that way. And the companies plead the fifth. They say, you know, this is just a coincidence. You don't know that it's modeled after you. Some of those people have been celebrities. Some of those people have been public figures. Others are just people that have Facebook. Right. And so there is a very real concern that if there are pictures of you on the Internet in any capacity, Instagram, Facebook, or your public image, then it is more likely that you can be used in these ways. And obviously, the more images of you that are out there, the easier it is for that to happen. There's a greater risk. You know, there's a reason why Emma Watson and Scarlett Johansson are some of the most commonly deep faked actresses because they've been in a ton of movies and there's a lot of images of them available.
- [14:22]
D
That's scary. It's really scary for those people who are on the other side of it too, because like you said, there is sort of this blurring. And now you feel like you have a real connection to someone who doesn't even know you exist.
- [14:37]
C
Yeah. And like you said, the opportunity then for people to leverage that for frauds and scams just creates a whole other layer of complexity because people think that they're talking to this person that they're actually not talking to. It is a. An interesting era of sexual technology that we're moving into. And I think, getting back to your question of what role do companies have in protecting consumers, but also just protecting people in general, I think that they need to step up and I think they need to recognize that these problems are real. And whether doing this through copyright law or however, be more strict about what can be made and what can't be made and who's allowed to access this content.
- [15:25]
D
If you like that clip from the episode with Dr. Ken Hansen, make sure to check out the full video right now.
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C
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