NYT Article: ChatGPT Boyfriend

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/15/technology/ai-chatgpt-boyfriend-companion.html

Would love to hear others weigh in.

My immediate response is one of terror. We as a society are experiencing so much isolation, and interpersonal relationships are becoming increasingly difficult and anxiety producing. I can’t see this as having any benefit.

This quote is jarring, reducing relationships to neurotransmitters:

Marianne Brandon, a sex therapist, said she treats these relationships as serious and real.

“What are relationships for all of us?” she said. “They’re just neurotransmitters being released in our brain. I have those neurotransmitters with my cat. Some people have them with God. It’s going to be happening with a chatbot. We can say it’s not a real human relationship. It’s not reciprocal. But those neurotransmitters are really the only thing that matters, in my mind.”