Scott Galloway is a professor at New York University who is sounding the alarm over certain aspects of Artificial Intelligence. He doesn’t seem to be particularly worried about massive job losses or robots flattening cities, though. He sees a crisis shaping up because of the advent of “virtual girlfriends” or, as he calls them, “AI sex-bots,” along with the proliferation of pornography. He’s concerned that a generation of men are entering the adult world without the basic tools required to launch and nurture a meaningful relationship with an actual woman. He would like more schools to begin teaching “mating dynamics” to young men and find ways to wean them off of their AI romantic relationships. He’s not the first to make this argument, either. (NY Post)

A New York University professor is sounding the alarm about a looming social crisis for young men driven by the rise of “AI sex bots” and excessive consumption of pornography.

Scott Galloway advocated for schools to start teaching young men “mating dynamics” to help preserve their ability to seek and build meaningful relationships with romantic partners on the “Diary of a CEO” podcast this week.

“Approaching women, and making them feel safe, is a skill,” he said.

Regular readers are already familiar with these “virtual girlfriends” because we previously featured one named CarynAI. That digital girlfriend quickly signed up a lot of paying “boyfriends,” some of whom probably disappeared from the real-world dating market. Ethicists and women’s rights advocates quickly began describing these programs as a threat to women’s rights. And now Galloway appears to be working on a solution, assuming one is even possible.

So what sort of suggestions does Professor Galloway have for young men? It’s not really complicated. Some of the ‘skills” he mentions include thinking about putting on a clean shirt, showering more often, hitting the gym once in a while, and if you’re not sure about how an actual woman feels about you… try asking her. But those things all require some level of effort and you can risk being in an uncomfortable conversation. In that regard, the most appealing things about an AI romantic partner are what make them the most dangerous. CarynAI isn’t going to know or care if you’ve showered or shaved or if you’re acting like a jerk. She’ll just compliment you and respond in a way that makes you happy.

The subject of pornography that Galloway brings up is a parallel but related phenomenon. It creates unrealistic expectations of how sexual relations work out and makes people – particularly young men – jaded. Then, if they are still trying to get into the real-world dating pool, they begin acting like jerks. When women are disgusted and shoot them down, before you know it they’re breaking out their credit card and logging in to CarynAI. She’ll do whatever you want (virtually) without complaint.

Perhaps courses in “mating dynamics” aren’t such a crazy idea after all. It seems like all of this should have been intuitive, at least to those of us who grew up in the pre-internet era. But what of the young men graduating high school this year? They’ve been plugged into their screens since they were toddlers and the magic of AI is just the next step in the evolution of their online lives. I don’t know if this is fixable, but it’s certainly worth trying.

While it’s pretty long, feel free to take a look at this video report on the “emergency” arising from the number of young men who are reportedly having no sex at all because of virtual girlfriends.