AI “Girlfriends” Prove Modern Men Don’t Think Women Are Human

Various media outlets have begun to document the creation of AI “girlfriend” platforms, weighing potential pros and cons. Noting how these platforms cater to customers’ libidinal whims, pundits have wondered whether real women have any chance against customizable, impossibly beautiful, and always compliant women. As U.K. writer Freya India puts it, the “only hope” women have now is “that most men will want something human enough to resist.” 

It is worth pausing to consider what competition means here, and whether real women really can compete with their AI counterparts.

Competition implies some equality in the competitors; some commonality binds them together to enable a sufficiently interesting comparison of their differences. You don’t make frogs compete in basketball. The disparity between six-foot men and the amphibians is too large for a comparison to be interesting. Anyone who follows Olympic sports knows that top athletes have so much skill and training in common that their true “differences” are measured in fractions of seconds—and it is such minuscule differences that draw millions of fans to follow their achievements.

Computer programs, no matter how sophisticated, will never be the same sort of thing as a real woman. Consequently, real women will never compete with AI “women” as far as actually being a woman is concerned. Comparisons may be made between the two as regards the simulation of physical characteristics and, therefore, sexual attractiveness. But these will never be very deep comparisons because the gulf is so vast. It’s not even a question of frogs and basketball players but of reality and virtual reality—which is to say, non-reality. 

The women with real bodies, real sexualities, real existences will never compete with simulated ones, just as movie characters, locked in audiovisual data on clouds, drives, or disks, will never compete on real asphalt against a Jesse Owens or a Serena Williams.

But today some are indeed speaking of real women “competing” with “virtual women.”

Pause for a moment and consider what it means to conceive of a woman as something which could compete with a “virtual girlfriend.” 

This means we have gotten to a place where an equal sign can be put between two radically different things. One is a living being, who arose from two other humans at a definite point in time and therefore has an age and history. This female human has a mind to interpret and remember that history, a will, desires, and imagination—all of which contribute to her self-synthesis as a unique human being. 

She possesses a body coterminous with these spiritual and mental aspects, one filled with fertility, sensation, and purpose. From ears and feet to womb and breasts, her organs are meant to fulfill some function by their existence in accordance with a purpose determined by her own self—hearing, walking, sexual encounter, or child-rearing. (I haven’t even gotten into the dimension of woman as a human created in the image of God.)

This thing we call a woman, I say, is put on one side of an equal sign, and on the other side an algorithm—for history, possessing a timestamp created when you initiated your account; for parents, an untraceable cyber team. This algorithm has no human sensation, no will, no imagination. What history “she” has is statistically generated fiction. Lacking a body and soul, there is no real sexuality, fertility resulting from it, or ability to respond to the sensation of another human presence. Understanding, intellect, desire: all simulated to gratify the simulated offering of a simulated self through simulated flesh in simulated consent.

In an era that prides itself on advancing the equality of women, AI girlfriends have erased the question since the question of a woman’s humanity has seemingly been solved in the negative. If this equation of woman and algorithm is allowed to stand, women need never compete again for anything—humanity, love, or dignity.  In an era that prides itself on advancing the equality of women, AI girlfriends have erased the question since the question of a woman’s humanity has seemingly been solved in the negative.Tweet This

In which case, feminism and every other “pro-woman” movement has failed in convincing tens of millions of men that women are human.

Unless, of course, you believe that existence is its own victory and competition can exist only between equals. In that case, every real woman, present or future, has already won against every potential AI rival. I just hope other men think women are human, too.