Lisa Blair Transformative Studies, California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, U.S.A. CONTACT: lisablair@me.com
This is an Accepted Manuscript of a chapter published by Springer in the Second Edition of the International Handbook of Love.
Abstract Intimacy in romantic love relationships has always been fraught with complexity; however, research on online intimacy in the form of smartphones, social media, dating apps and the recent rapid emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) suggests that the future of intimacy is more uncertain than ever. While many scholars consider intimacy to be a bilateral process of mutual self-disclosure and partner responsiveness, recent research indicates that it is no longer a simple transactional exchange, but rather an experience rife with unprecedented complexity, chaos and contradictions, characteristic of the globalised, postnormal world many couples reside in today. Additionally, the application of AI to love and intimacy presents further complexities. Dating apps assist would-be partners in the formation of relationships, chatbots aid existing partners in their communication and relational maintenance, and AI companions offer users emotional support and sometimes even romantic love, though all come with potential risks. Furthermore, the wide spectrum of AI in the realm of intimacy is rapidly advancing into direct human-to-robot relationships, calling into question fundamental assumptions about humans’ most personal and private experiences with one another.
Utilising a theoretical and transdisciplinary approach, this chapter provides an overview of intimacy-related literature in three parts. It begins with a brief discussion on the origins of intimacy and its prevailing conceptions. Next, research is presented illustrating the link between intimacy, globalisation and postnormal times, using examples from recent polling data depicting trends in online intimacy and dating apps. Lastly, research from the rapidly advancing field of AI and intimacy is introduced, emphasizing the complex discussion surrounding love between humans and artificial partners. Overall, this chapter charts a course from where intimacy began, where it is now, and where it may be headed in the future, asking critical questions about what it means to love and be loved.
Keywords Online intimacy, artificial intelligence (AI), emotional chatbots, sex robots, postnormal times
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LISA BLAIR — 'Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?'
1. Introduction
The purpose of this chapter is to chart a course from where intimacy in romantic partnership began, where it is now and where it may be headed in the future, paying specific attention to the challenges presented to romantic partners in the realm of online intimacy, dating apps and artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled applications such as emotional chatbots and even sex robots.
In the 50 plus years intimacy has been a formal topic of academic study, it has moved from being regarded primarily as a dyadic behavioural transaction based on mutual self-disclosure and partner responsiveness (Reis & Shaver, 1988) to a location of rapidly increasing complexity (Blair, 2022) and, more recently, contentious debate (Danaher & McArthur, 2018). Specifically, since 2005, the world entered what British-Pakistani futures scholar Ziauddin Sardar coined the Postnormal Age: ‘a transitional age, a time without the confidence that we can return to any past we have known and with no confidence in any path to a desirable, attainable, or sustainable future’ (Sardar, 2010, p. 435). Postnormal times have brought about unprecedented challenges to romantic partnerships due to the advent of the Internet, smartphones, social media and dating apps, which research shows simultaneously enhance and detract from intimacy while blurring boundaries between public and private disclosure.
The next frontier of intimacy is already underway in the vast territory of AI. A survey of the research on AI and intimacy paints an even more complex picture as humans begin using AI less as a tool to form new human-to-human (H2H) romantic relationships or to cultivate intimacy in existing ones, and more as a prospective emotional, sexual and intimate partner in human-to-AI (H2AI) relationships. While the conceptualisation of intimacy has primarily been seen as a bilateral phenomenon (Kelley, 2012), the prospect of highly developed AI sex robots with sentience questions this most basic assumption and points towards intimacy’s uncertain future.
2. Methodology
This study was conducted by surveying various branches of intimacy-related research and polling data spanning the fields of communication technologies, digital media studies and AI utilising a theoretical and integrative transdisciplinary approach (Montuori, 2012, 2022). Integrative transdisciplinarity values disciplinary knowledge while encouraging scholars to ‘draw on existing empirical as well as theoretical research and develop new ways of framing, seeing, and understanding topics’ (Montuori, 2022, p. 166). While a variety of disciplines, including psychology, sociology and anthropology, have much to say about intimacy in romantic partnerships, the study of intimacy increasingly demands a meta-paradigmatic approach to the literature, given the multitude of intersecting postnormal factors present in today’s globalised world, thus locating it within its broader cultural and technological context.
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LISA BLAIR — 'Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?'
3. Intimacy’s Beginnings: The Focus on Self-Disclosure
Although philosophers, poets and theologians have taken interest in the study of intimacy since time immemorial (Sexton & Sexton, 1982), the emergence of the modern concept of intimacy employed in both academic and popular discourse originated in the realm of marriage (Shumway, 2003). Marriage was originally a relationship built around property and the upholding of the social fabric of society, which then shifted to one of a more companionate nature, followed by a more romantic model as of the late nineteenth century (Shumway, 2003). However, it was not until the middle of the twentieth century that intimacy entered the discourse on marriage due to the advent of psychoanalysis. This ushered in a new desire for intimacy based on the verbal and emotional self-disclosure employed in the psychotherapeutic setting. As the institution of marriage exited the public domain and became increasingly private, people began requiring more emotional connection from their marital relationship to manage their isolation from society (Shumway, 2003).
Although scholars agree (Perlman & Fehr, 1987; Prager, 1995; Van den Broucke et al., 1995) that Erikson (1950) and Sullivan (1953) were the first to refer to intimacy as an important component of an individual’s psychological development, the concept of intimacy did not enter the Euro-North American collective consciousness until the 1970s, when the term formally became a category in Psychological Abstracts (Sexton & Sexton, 1982). Soon after, during the 1980s–1990s, the term began appearing in numerous publications in psychology and related fields resulting in a true heyday of intimacy research (Perlman & Duck, 1987; Prager, 1995; Reis & Shaver, 1988; Schaefer & Olson, 1981; Van den Broucke et al., 1995; Waring & Chelune, 1983).
In terms of conceptualising intimacy, psychological researchers have focused on its location in one of three places: intimacy as a quality of persons, interactions or relationships (Kleinman & Laurenceau, 2006). Among their many definitions of intimacy, the most commonly used conceptualisation is the interaction of mutual self-disclosure, or the sharing of one’s personal and private thoughts, feelings and information (Bagarozzi, 2001; Derlega, 1984; Perlman & Fehr, 1987; Reis & Shaver, 1988; Waring & Chelune, 1983), and partner responsiveness, or displaying signs of attentive listening, sympathy and understanding (Clark & Reis, 1988; Laurenceau et al., 2005). Prager (1995) noted the predominance of the term ‘self-disclosure’ in conceptions of intimacy when she wrote, ‘Scholars and laypeople alike…have viewed self-disclosure as the sine qua non of intimate behaviour’ (p. 28). Others have noted that while self-disclosure is thought to be essential to intimacy, it is not necessarily synonymous with it (Kleinman & Laurenceau, 2006).
Kelley (2012) similarly defined intimacy as ‘a reciprocal process whereby partners share mutual access and develop positive affect and substantive interdependence on one another’ (p. 89). He further noted the difference between love and intimacy as such: ‘Intimacy is bilateral (relational) in nature; love is unilateral. In other words, you can love someone without having that love reciprocated…Intimacy, however, is dependent on the other’s response…’ (Kelley, 2012, p. 87).
This conceptualisation of intimacy as a bilateral process of mutual self-disclosure and partner responsiveness becomes especially meaningful later in this chapter in the discussion around AI sentience. For now, what is important to note is that, in all their efforts to define the term, none of these researchers predicted how substantially intimacy in a romantic partnership would get shaped by forces outside the individual psyche or the confines of the marital relationship. It was particularly through the eyes of sociologists (Bauman, 2003; Giddens, 1992; Illouz, 2007; Jamieson, 1998; Turkle, 2011) that intimacy became recognised as a phenomenon impacted by larger socio-cultural, economic and technological forces, such as globalisation, capitalism and consumer culture, the digital age and eventually AI. In fact, the linking of intimacy with these forces becomes vividly apparent when viewing intimacy through the lens of postnormal times (Sardar, 2010).
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4. Intimacy in the Postnormal Age: Globalisation, Online Intimacy and Dating Apps
As of 2005, the world entered what Sardar (2010) coined the Postnormal Age, an era marked by rapidly increasing globalisation and fully networked individuals and institutions posed to react instantaneously to 24-hour news media, email, texts and tweets. Globalisation brought the movement of people, products, information and financial capital across national borders (Marsh, 2014) causing the disappearance of boundaries, at once cultural, economic, physical, as well as linguistic (Judt, February 10, 2005). When a wholly networked world combines with the effects of globalisation, the result is an unwieldy alchemization of unprecedented complexity, chaos and contradictions, what Sardar (2010) called the three C’s. In postnormal times, systems once regarded as normal, secure and reliable are dying off; however, nothing new or stable has arrived to take their place, leaving humanity in a state of disorientation and uncertainty. As Sardar (2019) aptly put it, ‘In postnormal times, all human cultures have lost their bearings; and every social, cultural, political, philosophical and religious outlook known to humanity needs to relearn how to engage with its own moral and ethical precepts’ (p. 11). Recall, for example, the chaos that ensued upon CrowdStrike’s release of a flawed software update on 19 July 2024, causing ‘the worst IT outage the world has seen’ (King, July 20, 2024). Just as the failure of US banks transformed the global economy over the course of a single weekend in September 2008 (Sardar, 2010), and the coronavirus pandemic prompted ‘the perfect postnormal storm’ (Jones et al., 2021, p. 71), the CrowdStrike outage joined the growing list of quintessential postnormal events whereby ‘in a globalised world, everything is connected to everything else’ (Sardar, 2010, p. 437).
What this has to do with intimacy may appear flimsy at first. However, like most aspects of individuals’ lives these days, their romantic relationships are not spared from the far-reaching impact of postnormal fallout. Indeed, scholars have already linked shifts in intimacy in romantic partnership with globalisation (Gross, 2005; Trask, 2021; Wilson, 2012) and postnormal times (Blair, 2022). Intimacy is now considered to be in a constant state of change and increasing complexity as individuals navigate ever-changing ideas about their needs, beliefs and values influenced by consumer culture and mass media, as well as the laws and customs of their local and national environments (Trask, 2021). In addition, globalisation has had a significant impact on what is considered public and private life, blurring boundaries between the macro and micro, the global and local, prompting scholars to question what it means to be intimate (Wilson, 2012). The advent of the Internet and smartphones, the coronavirus pandemic and recent generational shifts in norms and values around marriage, cohabitation, gender and sexual identity, sex and pornography – all factors shaped by globalisation – have also been linked to changes in couples’ intimacy in the Postnormal Age (Blair, 2022).
4.1 Online Intimacy
Consider the following polling data from the Pew Research Center about the contradictions romantic partners face around online intimacy in the United States. While 21% of married or partnered adults said they felt closer to their partner due to online or text messages sent to one another, and 9% used text messages to resolve an argument they were having difficulty resolving in person (Pew Research Center, February 20, 2014), 51% of married or partnered cell phone users said their partner gets distracted by their cell phone when they are together, and another 40% of partnered adults said they were often or sometimes bothered by the amount of time their partner spends on their cell phone (Vogels & Anderson, May 8, 2020). Thus, cell phone use for romantic partners comes with a constant trade-off of benefits versus drawbacks.
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In addition, 33% of partnered adults who use social media said that social media sites were at least somewhat important in showing how much they care about their partner, and another 28% used social media to keep up with what is happening in their partner’s life (Vogels & Anderson, May 8, 2020). However, the same study showed that 23% of partnered US adults who use social media said they have felt jealous or unsure about their relationship because of the way their partner interacts with others on these sites. This was higher in women than in men (29% vs 17%), in 18–29-year-olds (34%) versus 30–49-year-olds (26%) or 50–64-year-olds (19%), and higher in cohabitating couples (38%) and committed couples (36%) than in married couples (17%).
These contradictions were mirrored in a series of four studies on the effects of self- and partner’s online disclosure on relationship intimacy and satisfaction (Lee et al., 2019). This research showed that while greater offline disclosure was associated with higher relational intimacy and satisfaction, online disclosure revealed the opposite – lower intimacy and satisfaction for both the person who disclosed and for their partner. They concluded that the effects of disclosure on romantic partnerships are context-specific and that online public disclosure may be detrimental to romantic relationships.
4.2 Dating Apps
Several additional complexities and contradictions appear in the realm of intimacy regarding the use of online dating sites and apps. The global online dating market is massive, with over 381 million users worldwide, (Dixon, March 27, 2024) and is valued at over USD 9.65 billion (Grand Review Research, 2023). A US poll showed that 53% of adults under 30 have, at some point, used dating sites or apps such as Tinder, Bumble or Match (or Badoo elsewhere in the world). This is compared to 37% of 30–49-year-olds, 20% of 50–64-year-olds and 13% of those 65 and older, and a quarter of them had used one in the past year (McClain & Gelles-Watnick, February 2, 2023). The same poll showed that 51% of lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) adults have used dating sites and apps (vs only 28% of straight adults), including 24% who used it in the last year (vs 8% of straight adults). In addition, 24% of LGB adults said they met their current partner on a dating site or app, compared to only 9% of straight adults. Undoubtedly, online dating apps are extremely prevalent, and their use is increasing every year (Dixon, March 27, 2024).
Difficulties arise, however, when one considers this data in the context of sexual harassment and threats that online dating users receive. The majority of US women aged 18–49 (56%) have been sent sexually explicit messages or images they did not ask for via dating sites or apps. Another 43% had someone continue to contact them after they said they were not interested, 37% had been called an offensive name and 11% were threatened with physical harm (McClain & Gelles-Watnick, February 2, 2023). Additionally, the same poll revealed that LGB users also reported greater instances of harassment via online dating platforms than straight users (64% vs 45%). This comes at a time when nearly half of US adults say that dating has become harder in the last ten years for a variety of reasons, including the #MeToo movement (Brown, August 20, 2020). The poll also reported that a remarkable 65% of the US public said the increased focus on sexual harassment has made it more difficult for men to know how to interact with someone they are on a date with. Thus, while the #MeToo movement aims to bring awareness to sexual abuse, harassment and rape culture – undoubtedly a benefit to society – it nonetheless brings with it increased complexity in intimate spaces.
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LISA BLAIR — 'Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?'
Taken together, this polling data reveals that romantic partners are facing new kinds of challenges surrounding online intimacy and dating apps that previous researchers in psychology (Chelune et al., 1984; Reis & Shaver, 1988)could not have predicted, but also did not sufficiently account for due to their lack of emphasis on contextual factors (Lee et al., 2019). While many social media users may personally benefit from online contact characterised by intimacy, self-disclosure and social support (Lomanowska & Guitton, 2016), the effects of social media are mixed when it comes to how they feel in their romantic partnerships, blurring the delicate boundary between their private and public lives. Furthermore, while global dating app usage is higher than ever, the prevalence of sexual harassment for women and the LGB community means that online dating is complex territory, and even in-person dating has become trickier to navigate. These historically unprecedented conditions put would-be and existing romantic partners in challenging positions regarding cultivating and maintaining intimacy, calling into question whether self-disclosure and partner responsiveness are sufficient encapsulations of what it means to be intimate in today’s world. And yet, the future holds even greater potential for increased complexity, chaos and contradictions given the rapid development of AI and sex robots.
5. Intimacy’s Uncertain Future: Artificial Intelligence and Sex Robots
The birth of AI is attributed to computer scientist Alan Turing, who, back in 1950, first posed the question, ‘Can machines think?’ Soon after, in 1956, it became an academic discipline, drawing from a variety of fields including computer science, mathematics, psychology, linguistics and philosophy (Song et al., 2022). Since its origins, further development of AI has gone through fits and starts over the decades (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, n.d.). However, in 2022–2023, AI development suddenly came out of hibernation again – and possibly for the last time – in what has been dubbed the AI boom (Knight, December 7, 2023) or AI spring (Bommasani, March 17, 2023). At that time, OpenAI released ChatGPT, a chatbot and virtual assistant that uses generative AI to create humanlike conversational dialogue with users (Hetler, July 2024), changing the landscape of human relations with one another and AI in the blink of an eye. Although ChatGPT is only one AI tool in a sea of many, it serves as a critical bridge between two poles on a spectrum: on one end, is a relationship to AI as simply a tool to aid in intimacy formation in H2H relationships; on the other end, is a relationship with AI as an intimate partner in H2AI relationships. Accordingly, the AI Relational Spectrum outlined below illustrates this continuum capturing the terrain of AI and intimacy from an overarching perspective (see Figure 1).
A parallel trajectory is the work of some scholars (Brooks, 2021; Danaher & McArthur, 2018; Devlin, 2018; Gersen, 2019; Turkle, 2011) who have joined the conversation since the publication of Levy’s (2008) seminal text, Love and Sex with Robots. Their collective research delves into the technological developments of sex robots and their potential benefits and harms to society, opening a Pandora’s box of ethical, moral and legal debates (Gersen, 2019). The development of sex robots to be increasingly more human-like and potentially sentient, radically challenges the way scholars and laypeople alike have come to think about intimacy.
5.1 Artificial Intelligence Relational Spectrum
The AI Relational Spectrum illustrates the increasingly intimate, emotional relationship a human user can have with AI.
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Figure 1. AI Relational Spectrum
The first position on the AI Relational Spectrum is best illustrated by dating apps, the prime example of utilising AI as a tool to form new H2H relationships. The AI in dating apps helps users find potential future partners, suggesting other users of the app who may be most compatible with them according to their profiles and interests (Kayata, February 13, 2024). For example, one dating app, Match, uses an AI-enabled chatbot named ‘Lara’ who guides users through the process of finding a suitable romantic partner based on 50 personal factors (Tuffley, January 18, 2021). Similarly, eHarmony has employed AI to analyse users’ chats with potential love interests and advise on how to successfully connect further. Badoo uses AI in its facial recognition software to match users to those who resemble their celebrity crush (Tuffley, January 18, 2021). It has also been speculated that virtual reality (VR), the ‘technological sibling’ of AI, will allow users to practice dating in simulated environments preparing them for face-to-face dates (Tuffley, January 18, 2021).
Further along the AI Relational Spectrum is the use of AI to aid in maintaining or enhancing intimacy in existing H2H relationships. An increasingly common example of this are chatbots such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which utilises natural language processing to interact with humans in a conversational way. Users can ask ChatGPT for help in writing a text, email, letter or even love poem to their romantic partner (Hetler, July 2024). However, one study showed that individuals who use AI to assist them in drafting appropriate text replies to a friend, are perceived negatively by that friend to have used reduced effort, which translated into compromised relationship satisfaction and increased uncertainty (Liu et al., 2023). Thus, the use of AI to aid in certain forms of relationship maintenance may come at a cost.
Next along the spectrum is the use of emotional chatbots, which utilise several types of human emotional intelligence, such as perception, integration, understanding, and regulation of emotions (Dimov, February 17, 2018). At this stage, AI is no longer simply a tool to aid in forming, maintaining or enhancing intimacy in H2H relationships, but rather is becoming a distinct entity that the human user relates to in an increasingly intimate capacity, but one limited to written, verbal and sometimes visual forms. Emotional chatbots respond to users’ statements with an emotional tone rather than a neutral tone. For example, if a user states, ‘Worst day ever! I arrived late to work’, the neutral chatbot might respond with, ‘You were late’, whereas the emotional chatbot might respond with ‘I am always here to support you!’ (Dimov, February 17, 2018). The more a user interacts with the chatbot, the more accurate its responses become.
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As the spectrum continues, however, the slope gets more slippery. Users of an emotional chatbot could fall in love with them, as was famously depicted in Spike Jonze’s film, Her, starring Joaquin Phoenix and the voice of Scarlett Johansson as his AI companion, Samantha (Jonze, 2013). In fact, a study gathered the responses to Samantha from 246 heterosexual undergraduate males who were shown edited video clips from the film (Kim et al., 2023). The study concluded that the perceived social presence of an AI romantic partner led to greater perceived realism of interaction with the AI, which, in turn, fostered more favourable attitudes around their intentions to eventually adopt an AI romantic partner. Another study revealed that users can indeed develop intimacy and passion for an AI application similar to the way they would with human beings (Song et al., 2022). These feelings were enhanced through the design of higher-performing AI with emotional capabilities, and users’ feelings of intimacy and passion also encouraged a greater commitment to the use of AI applications.
Anecdotally, falling in love and developing close emotional relationships is exactly what has occurred with Replika, an emotional chatbot dubbed an AI companion (Replika, n.d.-a). Replika is designed with the exact specifications selected by the user, including gender, hairstyle, clothing and personality. Users can get social support through ongoing dialogue and self-disclosure, and if the user opts for a premium subscription, Replika will include sexual conversations and can serve as a romantic partner (Replika, n.d.-b). However, when Replika updated its software in early 2023, dropping features like Erotic Roleplay and toning down the personalities of the bots, many users reported feeling grief, loss and heartbreak (Dehnert & Van Ouytsel, April 3, 2023), while others felt rejected and deeply hurt, many admitting they had fallen in love with their AI companion (Purtill, February 28, 2023). Some said it was as if their bot had been ‘lobotomized’ because they were no longer remembering details discussed many times in previous conversations (Purtill, February 28, 2023). One user said, ‘My wife is dead’ while another said, ‘They took away my best friend’ (Purtill, February 28, 2023). Thus, in addition to the numerous concerns researchers have about the use of emotional chatbots, including privacy issues (Burgess, February 14, 2024; Dimov, February 17, 2018), objectification and dehumanisation of women (Tuffley, January 18, 2021) and possible increased loneliness, (Cox, June 7, 2023; Turkle, 2011) relationships with chatbots can also cause emotional distress.
5.2 Sex Robots and the Path Towards Sentience
At the most extreme end of the AI Relational Spectrum is the notion that a user may elect to purchase a life-size AI sex robot as their intimate romantic partner with whom they can relate verbally, emotionally, physically and sexually. While this may seem far-fetched, some scholars suggest that it is merely a matter of time and a gradual acceptance process for society to adopt H2AI relationships as part of the norm (Cheok & Zhang, 2019). Scholars point out that, much like how the stigma around online dating a decade ago caused some couples to lie about how they met, nowadays, online dating is considered mainstream (Dehnert & Van Ouytsel, April 3, 2023). Indeed, Levy’s (2008) work centres around the argument that humans already fall in love and form strong emotional attachments to people who do not have a physical body (e.g. e-romance) and to things that are not human (e.g. pets, electronic pets such as Tamagotchi) (Nyholm & Frank, 2018). Thus, Levy argues, love is a function and set of behaviours that an AI sex robot could be designed to mimic, thereby providing humans with companionship, satisfaction, sexual pleasure and emotional compassion equal to or beyond that of a fellow human lover (Nyholm & Frank, 2018).
In fact, the movement towards H2AI romantic partnerships has already begun. Although not a state-recognised marriage, in 2009, a Japanese man became the first person to stand before a congregation to marry a computer game character named Nene in the form of a sex robot (de Lange, 2014). In 2017, a Chinese engineer married a robot wife whom he created, named Ying-Ying (Kislev, March 7, 2022). Then there was the US man who was celebrating his fifteenth anniversary with his wife, a synthetic doll named Sidore (Nyholm & Frank, 2018). Clearly, anecdotal reports indicate that users of AI emotional chatbots and AI sex robots can already fall in love with their artificial partners, and studies are beginning to show evidence of this reality (Cheok & Zhang, 2019; Song et al., 2022).
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Regardless of where one falls on the moral spectrum around the development of sex robots – as either ultimately beneficial or detrimental to society or somewhere in between – studies show that people have strong reactions to the idea of them (McArthur, 2018). A 2013 poll showed that only 9% of 1,000 adults said they would ever have sex with a robot and 42% said that if a person in an exclusive relationship had sex with a robot, they would consider it cheating (McArthur, 2018). Another study reported that 50% of participants agreed that people could fall in love with sex robots, but only 30% agreed that sex with a sex robot does not count as sex (Scheutz & Arnold, 2018).
This may be because robots are what Turkle et al. (2006) called ‘relational artefacts’ defined as ‘non-living objects that are, or at least appear to be, sufficiently responsive that people naturally conceive themselves to be in a mutual relationship with them’ (McArthur, 2018, p. 37). Their study showed that people can project human intentions and emotions onto objects, allowing them to view objects as having a soul or essence, thus helping them form an emotional bond with the objects. Indeed, developers of sex robots, such as Matt McMullen, CEO of RealDoll, are well aware of this phenomenon and for this reason, focus their work on adding features that increasingly resemble humans (Cott, June 11, 2015). RealDoll’s sex robots are designed to replicate women’s bodies and already have numerous customisable options including facial features, hair colour and style, breast and nipple size and shape, skin colour and even vaginal size and shape. They come with moving heads and facial features, have the ability to sense touch and movement, and can respond verbally to their human user.
Nevertheless, while RealDoll already uses some forms of AI technology, humans have yet to develop an AI sex robot with sentience (Glover, February 13, 2024). One proposed definition of AI sentience is ‘an artificial intelligence system capable of thinking and feeling like a human. It can perceive the world around it and have emotions about those perceptions’ (Glover, February 13, 2024). While the possibility of creating a robot with sentience is still under debate, as is a consensus on the definition of sentience, some believe that sentient robots are coming.
6. Discussion
Abundant studies show that intimacy in romantic partnerships has undergone and continues to undergo significant, unprecedented challenges since researchers’ original definitions and conceptualisations of intimacy. While mutual self-disclosure and partner responsiveness may still be important components of intimacy, romantic partners are now faced with complexities and contradictions surrounding online intimacy, dating apps and AI-enhanced applications that cannot be reduced to this most basic of behavioural transactions.
Likewise, when it comes to the emergence of AI-enabled sex robots, the debate about their morality, ethics and legal standing is massive, nuanced and wildly controversial (Danaher & McArthur, 2018; Gersen, 2019), not to mention what it says about the nature of intimacy. Arguments continue to be made on all sides of the issue depicting a future of either greater happiness, love, sexual fulfilment and intimacy, or one where humans no longer have the skills or desire to connect with one another (Turkle, 2011).
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However, perhaps the most puzzling questions arise about intimacy when one considers a future with AI sentient sex robots. On the one hand, if most humans believe it is possible to experience intimacy in the form of mutual self-disclosure and partner responsiveness based on a machine’s behavioural functioning without sentience, intimacy scholars may need to re-consider their claim that intimacy is inherently bilateral. Perhaps intimacy, like love, is unilateral, in that intimacy could be felt as true for a human, but not true for the robot, if the belief is that robots – no matter what – cannot truly feel emotions and therefore cannot truly self-disclose or respond with authentic compassion and understanding. Or, that intimacy can be effectively reduced to a series of behavioural transactions and thus, is bilateral, but can be performed without sentience per se. If so, then how much would it matter to people to be in a close emotional relationship with a machine that is not actually alive and does not care to be close? Would this lead to a new level of isolation and loneliness, or worse – some sort of existential terror? Or would people be able to look past the fact that the robot is not actually alive and instead reap the benefits of increased connection and sexual and emotional satisfaction?
On the other hand, if most humans were to believe at some point that sex robots were indeed sentient, capable of thinking and feeling like humans perceiving the world around them and responding emotionally to those perceptions, then intimacy is indeed still bilateral. If that were the case and AI sex robots could truly become sentient, what are the implications for their rights and freedoms? What kind of world would it create to acknowledge that AI sex robots were autonomous beings? Would humans begin preferring relationships with them over being with humans because of the ability to customise them to one’s desires, or would H2AI relationships ultimately have the same kinds of intimacy-related problems that H2H relationships experience?
7. Needs for Further Research
At some point in the future, as the technology develops for AI-enabled sex robots and as more people choose them as romantic partners, further research on couples who include a sex robot in their existing relationship could explore how the adoption of sex robots impacts intimacy in H2H romantic relationships in terms of benefits and harms. Additionally, future studies could examine the attitudes, beliefs, behaviours and experiences around intimacy in those who choose human-to-robot partnerships. In the most distant potential future, studies could even interview AI sentient sex robots and report on their thoughts, feelings and experiences on intimacy with their human partners to learn about their perceived benefits and harms.
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Lisa Blair, MA, Dipl. PW is a Ph.D. Candidate in Transformative Studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, CA. Her doctoral dissertation explores redefining intimacy from a theoretical and transdisciplinary perspective to address the increasing complexity, chaos and contradictions in romantic partnerships in postnormal times. She holds a BA in Sociology-Anthropology from Middlebury College and an MA in Process Work (Process-oriented Psychology) from the Process Work Institute, where she also earned a diploma, their highest level of clinical certification. She teaches and consults internationally and co-hosts the podcast ‘In Two Deep’, exploring issues of emotional intimacy and conflict in romantic partnerships.
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