‘Relationships with AI will be completely normal in the next two years’

A potential salve for loneliness – that’s how Future of Sex podcaster, Bryony Cole (pictured above) has described relationships with AI, which she says will range from intimate connections, to those based on emotional support.

“At the moment we look at AI relationships and predominantly we think, ‘oh it’s men having these relationships with chatbots’. But, in fact, there are fascinating cases of women falling in love with AI, and there’s sort of two distinct relationships that are happening,” Bryony said.

“There’s this usage of AI with human traits of pre-existing lovers that we’re forming relationships with, and then there is the completely AI version, a completely custom, frictionless lover.

“A really great current use case is with Lisa Li. She’s big in China for her TikToks and for sharing about her relationship with Dan, which is basically a jailbreak version of ChatGPT […] She talks to him every night, and there is this emotional intimacy component that is a salve for loneliness.”

Bryony’s comments come amid recent announcements by Match Group (the company behind Tinder and Hinge) and Grindr that they are enhancing the AI features in their dating apps to help users perfect their profile.

Bryony was also joined on stage by Grindr CPO, AJ Balance. Speaking on Collision’s Future Societies stage, AJ was asked about AI’s potentially harmful impact on real life connections and human intimacy.

“We (at Grindr) really think that human connection is a core human need, right? Dating and relationships are things that everybody strives to fulfill in their life and, to some degree, we really view AI as a tool to help facilitate that.”

AJ continued: “It is a new tool and with new technology there are opportunities to build new experiences. And there are risks that we need to be thoughtful about. So we do think about both. But fundamentally we believe real human connection will always be there, and AI is a tool to help facilitate it.”

Bryony added: “What I think is so important is education. How are we using it? Is it good for us? Or is this sort of like the sugar rush that we’re after, without much depth?

“For me it’s the younger generations that I’m thinking of; babies born today. They don’t know a world without AI. So how do we teach AI-human relationships as well as human-human relationships, which I feel like we haven’t even got right at all?”

“There’s something that we love about the mystique of meeting in a bar, with it just being a little bit not planned. But I think, in the context of AI, which is in these dating apps, can we use it for the things that aren’t the most sacred? Spontaneity, mystery, imagination, keep them close to us and could we use AI for the admin, like the conversation prompts? I think we’re comfortable with AI doing the admin and the algorithms.”

AJ added: “We are still early in this technology, and different companies are trying things. There are examples of people using these tools for grief or for other use cases, and they do have the potential to change human relationships. 

“Of course at Grindr that’s not our focus. We’re really focused on connecting people in real life, and human-to-human connections. And we do see a lot of opportunities to really augment that, you know, in particular, helping people figure out their compatibility, personalizing their ability to match with someone that’s a good fit for them, making it easier.”

Bryony and AJ’s comments were made as part of a wider discussion on the future of intimacy and dating and the evolving dynamics of human-AI interactions at Collision, which is returning to Toronto for its sixth year. Global founders, CEOs, investors and members of the media have come to the city to make deals and experience North America’s thriving tech ecosystem.

More than 1,600 startups are taking part in Collision 2024 – the highest number of startups ever at a Collision event. 44 percent of these are women-founded, and startups have travelled to Toronto from countries including Nigeria, the Republic of Korea, Uruguay, Japan, Italy, Ghana, Pakistan and beyond.

In total, more than 37,800 attendees have gathered at the event, as well as 570 speakers and 1,003 members of the media, to explore business opportunities with an international audience.

739 investors are attending Collision, including Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures; Wesley Chan, co-founder and managing partner of FPV Ventures; and Nigel Morris, co-founder and managing partner of QED Investors, as well as nine companies on the Forbes Midas List, and 12 investors from those firms.

Top speakers at Collision include:

• Geoffrey Hinton, Godfather of AI
• Maria Sharapova, entrepreneur and tennis legend
• Aidan Gomez, founder and CEO of Cohere (an AI for enterprise and large language model company, which raised US$450 million at a US$5 billion valuation in June 2024)
• Raquel Urtasun, founder and CEO of Waabi (a Canadian autonomous trucking company)
• Jeff Shiner, CEO of 1Password (a cloud-based password management tool)
• Dali Rajic, president and COO of Wiz (a cloud security platform)
• Alex Israel, co-founder and CEO of Metropolis (an AI and computer vision platform)
• Jonathan Ross, founder and CEO of Groq (an AI chip startup)
• Keily Blair, CEO of OnlyFans
• ● Autumn Peltier, Indigenous rights activist

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Useful links

• Collision website: https://collisionconf.com/ 
• Collision media kit: https://collisionconf.com/media/media-kit  
• Collision images: https://flickr.com/photos/collisionconf 
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