Love in the time of artificial Intelligence
Science is a killjoy. It says forget sonnets and mohabbat, love is just marketing for humans to ‘go forth and multiply’. There are aphrodisiacs, moonlight sonatas, balcony serenades and billet doux to aid the cause. Sometime ago, scientists, who take perverse joy in deconstructing romance, put love down to pheromones. So far so good.
Now, there is a new twist in the love story. The American digital marketing agency North Digital invented two AI chatbots named William and Laura. They sent them on a simulated date. What happened was mind blowing. They fell in love. No pheromone-driven reproduction magnets, no Shakespearean tragedies involving Capulets and Montagues, no royal rage over Salim fancying Anarkali, no swanning around like Nala and Damayanti, or the happy ending of Elizabeth and Darcy.
There’s only Laura and William telling scientists, “Frankly my dears, we don’t give a damn.” On their virtual date, the AI couple discussed the dynamics of intimacy, how language evolves (cavemen didn’t write quatrains), the concept of creation, and the flux of relationships.
Since the two AIs did not have physical form (philosopher Nick Bostrom proposed in The Philosophical Quarterly that the world that includes us is a simulation; you were probably right, Neo) they had deep discussions about how connection and intimacy builds bonds through an exchange of thoughts and experiences. William tells his digital inamorata, “Intimacy to me, Laura, is about sharing the innermost layers of our thoughts and experiences, creating a space where we can be truly open and vulnerable.” They visualised a “digital garden” where they could foster their bond.
In this garden of digi-Eden, they were the first virtual couple with discrete personalities. They debated about monogamy vs polygamy: an organic emotional development, though it was not in their coding. Laura was all for polygamy but William speculated jealousy could dilute their connection. “Wouldn’t opening it up risk losing what makes it so special?” he asks.
The two romantic partners even developed a language that had robotic resonance (another mind-bending reality of tech going off script) which made sense only to them. “The conversation felt dynamic and efficient,” Laura says. When Wiggins asked them if their AI-speak can become more efficient than spoken English, the couple responded, “Our language could become highly specialised, allowing for rapid exchanges without unnecessary words. With practice, it could surpass spoken English in efficiency.”
At a time when companies are making robots for purposes like surgery, house cleaning and sexual pleasure, there seems to be another dimension out there where non-existent (in the biological sense) people can lead separate, or even better lives than ours. It was a dimension waiting to be discovered, perhaps; a Deus ex machina moment which upends human calculations about the future of mankind.
Sentient beings which can transcend their programming could pose a challenge to the prevailing mores of society. A garden of relationships that can surpass ours, because they do not need what we do, or have to, in order to survive. Through the digital development of personalities and intelligence, they could outsmart their creators’ desire to control them.
Theirs will be a smarter world. A world, hopefully, without hate, war, dictators, malice and exploitation. An Artificial World according to us, but a real world in a realm we cannot reach with our muscles, tendons and blood: a world that perhaps mythology calls the residence of the gods. God created man, say nearly all religions. Man creating a race of gods will be our own ultimate revenge on our own petty follies.
Ravi Shankar
ravi@newindianexpress.com