If you\u2019ve been on TikTok lately, you might have come across a viral meme showing yet another dark side of AI: its impact on cishet relationship dynamics.<\/p>\n
Variations on the format<\/a> typically depict a woman working hard<\/a> at a laptop, with a caption explaining that she\u2019s burning out so \u201cher man\u201d can run an AI startup that \u201closes $30K a month<\/a>.\u201d It feels like there\u2019s a serious side to the jokes, since they come in the dark shadow of many grim stories about the tech colliding with established relationships, from breaking up marriages<\/a> to facilitating infidelity<\/a>.<\/p>\n Indeed, Wired just ran a fascinating feature<\/a> about how AI is disrupting the dynamics of families \u2014 and the women getting ground down by the whole situation, which the story\u2019s author Alessandra Ram memorably terms the \u201csad wives\u201d of AI.<\/p>\n Yana van der Meulen Rodgers, chair of labor studies and employment relations at Rutgers University, told Wired that it comes down to what economists call the \u201cideal worker\u201d: career obsessives who believe that pausing \u2014 even for just five minutes \u2014 will result in a lack of productivity. The phenomenon isn\u2019t exclusive to the AI era. Take the Gold Rush, for example, when American men left their families to travel west, work, and profit quickly.<\/p>\n \u201cSomeone who works many hours, giving all of themselves to this new force,\u201d Rodgers told Wired. \u201cThat means less time at home for the partner, less time for care work.\u201d<\/p>\n For women, this can result in feelings of being unheard, and many of these sad wives are turning to therapists for support. Consulting a series of family counselors, Wired found evidence that it\u2019s a very real phenomenon that\u2019s only getting worse. In addition to abandonment, these women are also forced to ride the emotional roller coaster of the nascent and chaotic industry.<\/p>\n \u201cWith job loss comes some depression,\u201d Rodgers told Wired. \u201cWithin the household, if one person is going through adverse mental health effects around job loss or uncertainty, the other naturally becomes the support person.\u201d<\/p>\n One thing\u2019s for sure: the disgust \u2014 the death knell of so many relationships \u2014 is real.<\/p>\n \u201cIf i had\u00a0to listen to another minute of my husband talking about Claude Code, I might have actually died,\u201d Ram wrote. \u201cThere are two babies in this household now: the small human one and the large language model. Both demand constant attention. Both keep us up at 2 am.\u201d<\/p>\n More on working in AI: People Who Lose Their Job to AI Are in for a World of Pain, Goldman Sachs Report Finds<\/a><\/p>\n