[ExI] Are AI girlfriends gender neutral?

[Tara Maya]

Demographic change is the link between AI companions, lower libido, and the “baby gap.”

Evidence suggests we are going through an evolutionary funnel and a third to half of this and the next generation won’t leave descendants on the other side. 

It’s the equivalent of the Black Death that swept across Europe with the difference that those going extinct aren’t dying in horrific ways but simply not having children. 

AI companions will create another bottleneck so this trend will get worse before it gets better. Expect not only AI robot girlfriends but AI robot children for lonely women, better than cats and dogs.

To me the saddest part is that I don’t think being a “cool auntie” or a “clanker lover” is going to help loneliness as much as actual kids and grandkids. However, I think this is not as much an economic crisis as some pro-natalists think. 

Obviously automation will help the workforce. But I am also expecting lifespan and “healthspan” to keep improving. (Perhaps this is farther off than I hope, as Spike speculates about the Singularity). In some arguments I have heard against advancing anti-death medicine, the dumbest one was that it would overpopulate the earth. 

But if humans evolve to have longer lifespans it makes sense that “age at first child” would also be pushed back. We would expect to see fewer teen pregnancies (we do) and older first time moms (we do). Without gene editing, this is a slow moving process and unfortunately some couples who wait to have children will find their genes aren’t ready for the switch and they have infertility problems. 

If accidental pregnancy is not as rewarded by evolution (thanks to birth control and abortion) then those who carefully plan families will increase in proportion to those who are merely impulsively promiscuous. Maybe we are seeing this.

It could also be that these are shorter term trends not long term trends. 

Overall, though, I think we have reason to suspect that humanity going through a huge evolutionary shift, several centuries in the making (a mere blink to evolution) from relatively more r selected to even more highly K selected. That is, instead of having 10 babies per couple to have 2 survive, we can have 2.1 babies and expect 2 to survive. But to reach that new equilibrium, some couples have overshot the mark, waiting too long, and so we see the birthrate drop to 1.6 or lower as individuals struggle to recalibrate.

Tara Maya



> On Nov 9, 2025, at 20:48, spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat
> Sent: Sunday, 9 November, 2025 11:59 AM
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Cc: BillK <pharos at gmail.com>
> Subject: [ExI] Are AI girlfriends gender neutral?
> 
>> On Sat, 8 Nov 2025 at 16:16, spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>> 
>> I am seeing something I am finding most disconcerting.  I work with young people a lot because of my volunteer work: food bank, scouts, science Olympiad and competition math.  The high schoolers surprise me with their attitudes: they seem nearly indifferent to copulation.  It is so different from when I was their age half a century ago.  Eeeeeeverything was about getting laid, everything.  Now, it’s meh, whatevs.  Maybe, maybe not.
>> 
>> spike
>> _______________________________________________
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>> ...AI girlfriends are a huge growth market. $2.8 billion in 2024 and projected to hit $9.5 billion by 2028, signifying explosive growth.
> 28% of males aged 18 to 34 have tried an AI girlfriend app.
> At present, there is little interest from the ladies in having an AI boyfriend.
> BillK
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> _______________________________________________
> 
> Good point.  I am a suspicious sort, so I would be most reluctant.  Reason: the AI could store everything, and at some point tell you that if you wish for everything you told her to be kept quiet, that could be arranged if you were to send a tenth of a BitCoin to Mr. Chang.
> 
> The product of the future is an AI girlfriend which works on a stand-alone device which is not capable of transmitting what you told her.
> 
> In modern relationships, one never knows if the other partner will get annoyed and post to TwitterX everything you told her online.  That would be bad.  I got lucky that way: I met my bride in 1981, and we only used email a few times before we were already delightfully entangled.  So she never did that to me.  Perhaps plenty of men think it isn't worth the risk.
> 
> BillK and other AI hipsters please: AI needs to interact with the internet, ja?  So a completely independent AI... we are not there yet.  So any time one has an AI girlfriend, the stuff you wrote to it could theoretically be held hostage, ja?
> 
> spike
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