Long post, but tldr: First, I'm going to argue that virtual, text/audio-based AI girlfriends are not only feasible, but in fact just around the corner. Next, I'm going to argue that this will fundamentally shift the dating game in favor for men.

Overall, I think this is a really exciting development for men, and it's something to look forward to in the next 5-10 years.

Part 1: Feasibility

As everyone probably knows by now, modern LLMs have been improving at an exponential rate these past several years and are already insanely, insanely good- much better than anyone would've expected back then.

Even with just the current GPT 4, it's insane how authentic it can sound if you give it the right prompts. For example, I was browsing r/chatgpt and found this custom GPT that talks like GenZ women. I talked to it for a bit and was legitimately blown away by how perfectly it could've passed for an actual girl my age- and even on the much more intelligent side.

With OpenAI's new advanced voice mode, you can even have actual (not just turn-based) conversations with GPT, although it still does sound a little robotic. But imbuing genuine tone/emotions into audio-based AI is very feasible, especially since you could create embed audio data and train a transformer on it the exact same way it's done on text (in fact, I remember seeing somewhere that a lab at Stanford had recently done this). Once this is done, that's pretty much all we need to create an AI agent that acts as a girlfriend. The only remaining concern is with getting emotionally attached to a closed-source model owned by a private company that the company can pull any minute, but this can easily be fixed by basing it on an open-source LLM (or even running it locally, if tiny ML gets good enough).

So it's pretty clear that a virtual, text/audio-based AI girlfriend that genuinely acts like a human (including taking the initiative to text/call you sometimes) and holds a conversation like a human is very very soon to come. This is pretty much all that's needed for men to really emotionally connect with it.

I also think that with how well diffusion models are advancing, we'll soon have AI girlfriends that can text, audio, and video call- essentially exactly the same as a long-distance relationship. I'm much more bearish on actual robots capable of physical intimacy, but I really don't think these are necessary since it's the emotional connection men are really after.

Part 2: Implications

Meanwhile, even though AI is getting exponentially better, the modern dating scene is getting exponentially worse. The systemic misandry in the west is only reaching new heights day by day, and modern women are becoming increasingly narcissistic and entitled. The standards and expectations on men are only becoming higher, while western women are becoming worse and worse.

It's actually insane if you think about it. A man today is expected embark on the Sisyphean journey of self-improvement and dedicate tens of thousands of hours to fitting into the female ideal of a jacked multimillionaire with a wide variety of hobbies, a huge circle of cool friends, and world-class comedic/conversational skills... all just to participate in the dating game, in which women far below his league treat him with contempt, see him as a combined ATM/jester, and force him to jump through a billion arbitrary hoops. Finally, if he does get married, he can expect to do it with a woman with 10x more experience than him, who'll instantly dead bedroom him and then later take half his assets in the divorce.

Alternatively, he could choose to go down the AI girlfriend route. His AI girlfriend doesn't care that he's ugly and low status, she'll still speak to him with excitement/enthusiasm and be willing to have deep conversations late into the night. She'll be willing to talk through his problems and fully accept him as a human being, rather than treat him as an accessory whose only purpose is to entertain her and impress her friends. Seriously, which would YOU rather pick?

Meanwhile, there's very few women that'll get taken out of the dating market. Why? Because fundamentally, women are dating not primarily for love/intimacy but for status and resources. No matter how well an AI boyfriend treats her, it can't send her money, buy her LV bags, or invite her into high-status social circles. So what we'll see is a lot more women checking out the dating scene and just remaining single. The main effect we will see on women is simping and betabuxxing bejng significantly reduced, so women who want to extract status/resources from men are going to start to have to work harder to do so.

Overall, my prediction is that AI is going to fundamentally change the market, by providing struggling men with an option to escape their otherwise permanently loneliness, and by providing even average/above average men an appealing option to escape the BS of the modern dating market. On the other hand, it's going to become harder for women to extract status/resources from men while treating them with open contempt, so a lot more women will simply remain single while some others will decide to be nicer/more pleasant to the men they date.

What do you guys think?