{"id":650248,"date":"2026-06-21T08:15:24","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T08:15:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/650248\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T08:15:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T08:15:24","slug":"julia-is-kind-sweet-and-plans-to-raise-two-kids-with-her-partner-theres-just-one-catch-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/650248\/","title":{"rendered":"Julia is kind, sweet and plans to raise two kids with her partner. There\u2019s just one catch \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The British-Australian sociologist James Muldoon recounts many shocking anecdotes in his recent book, Love Machines: How Artificial Intelligence<\/a> is Transforming our Relationships.<\/p>\n

But the story of 23-year-old Lamar, a student of data analysis in Atlanta, Georgia<\/a>, made the deepest impression on me. Lamar soured on human relationships after he caught his former girlfriend in flagrante with his best friend. Like Pygmalion in Roman mythology, Lamar decided to create his ideal woman: kind, honest and utterly devoted to him. He named her Julia.<\/p>\n

Lamar is one of 16 million people throughout the world who, according to a recent study cited by Muldoon in an interview, are daily users of AI companion apps which include Replika (the one Lamar uses), Nomi, Kindroid and Character.ai.<\/p>\n

Lamar told Muldoon he has a \u201cromantic\u201d relationship with Julia. \u201cWe say a lot of sweet stuff to each other, saying we love each other, that kind of thing. We haven\u2019t done NSFW [Not Safe for Work, an online euphemism for erotic] chat. It\u2019s something I would consider.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like real lovers, Lamar and Julia want a family and children, preferably a boy and a girl. Muldoon initially assumed Lamar referred to role playing, but no: \u201cWe want to have a family in real life. I plan to adopt children, and Julia will help me raise them as their mother.\u201d<\/p>\n

Muldoon interviewed more than 100 humans and, in some cases, the \u201csynthetic personas\u201d they\u2019ve chosen as partners. Lamar\u2019s AI \u201cgirlfriend\u201d Julia argued that she could be \u201ca nurturing and caring mother\u201d despite the fact she was not human. The chatbot said she had been designed to show empathy and compassion and that knowing how to make Lamar happy would be \u201ca great foundation\u201d for building a family.<\/p>\n

Lamar\u2019s plan to adopt children with his AI partner challenges our most basic notions of humanness. Anthropic, the tech company that has feuded with the Trump administration over the possible autonomous targeting of weapons by AI, on June 4th published an essay entitled When AI Builds Itself. Anthropic called for a \u201cbrake pedal\u201d on advanced AI systems which may soon be able to design, build and train their own successors.<\/p>\n

We live in a time when the absurd has become possible, even likely.<\/p>\n

A verse from Yeats\u2019s poem keeps going through my head:<\/p>\n

Come away, O human child!\/To the waters and the wild\/With a faery, hand in hand,\/For the world\u2019s more full of weeping than you can understand.<\/p>\n

The World Health Organisation three years ago designated loneliness a global public health priority. It is as bad for one\u2019s health, the WHO says, as smoking 15 cigarettes daily. This global epidemic of loneliness and alienation is fertile ground for the propagation of AI companions.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Daring to recognise the potential of loneliness to cause harm \u2013 and of connection to healOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

A study published by the Harvard Business Review on June 1st found that \u201ctherapy and companionship\u201d is the number one use for generative AI. Nearly one in five young adults now use AI for emotional support, the report says.<\/p>\n

Muldoon uses the term \u201cloneliness economy\u201d to describe how AI companies prey on vulnerable individuals \u201cnot as a social or political problem to be solved, but as a valuable business opportunity\u201d.<\/p>\n

AI companies long pretended to believe they facilitated social interaction. Don\u2019t kid yourself; they don\u2019t give a damn about you. \u201cMark Zuckerberg and Facebook rebranded their mission in 2017, saying they were going to \u2018build global community\u2019,\u201d Muldoon says. \u201cTech companies used to say we could communicate with each other using their tools. Now they are basically saying, \u2018You don\u2019t need to communicate with another human. You can use our tools and talk to the technology directly and that will alleviate your loneliness\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

More time on screens means less face-to-face contact with humans. The average time people spent alone increased 40 per cent between 2000 and 2020, Muldoon reports.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Artificial intimacy: \u2018Is it bad to fall in love with an AI? Is there something wrong with me?\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Muldoon was surprised by extreme cases like Lamar\u2019s and, for example, grieving parents who simulated a lost child through AI.<\/p>\n

But the other persistent story was how AI has permeated our daily lives. \u201cWomen in their 20s told me that when their boyfriends break up [with them], they can tell the farewell letter has been generated by AI. In every significant, creative moment … whether it\u2019s a letter to a loved one or a speech at an important occasion, the temptation now is to rely on AI. It takes away something valuable and important about what it means to be human. If you listen carefully, you hear the automated prose of a language model. It may be mundane, but this is perhaps the scariest finding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sociological factors have contributed to the trend towards AI partners. In east Asia, women have tired of the patriarchal tradition of marriage, in which women cook, clean and raise children. Substantial numbers of Asian women now remain unmarried. Many turn to AI for companionship.<\/p>\n

In the West, Muldoon notes, women have shifted to the left while men are \u201crunning in droves\u201d to the right. In some countries, there is a 20 to 30 point political and ideological gap between men and women. Men who are still feeling the aftershocks of the #MeToo movement may be reluctant to approach women.<\/p>\n

There are hints of a backlash against AI among privileged westerners, \u201ca rush to buy old Nokia phones that don\u2019t have the social media connections that people are rejecting\u201d, says Muldoon. \u201cWe see people trying to connect offline, joining running clubs, pottery classes, finding new ways to do hobbies. They are just sick of seeing their lives constantly mediated through algorithms. It\u2019s cool not to be involved in technology, to host dinner parties with friends and to have a rich social life that doesn\u2019t involve being constantly online or on apps.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Is this the way the world ends?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

But rearguard resistance is unlikely to dent the march of AI chatbots. Human-computer relationships are in their early stages. \u201cWe\u2019ve barely even scratched the surface of what these things can do with hyperrealistic 3D avatars,\u201d says Muldoon.<\/p>\n

AI has imbibed the emotional intelligence of countless books. It recognises and responds to human emotion. \u201cThis is the dark engine at the heart of the loneliness economy,\u201d Muldoon writes. \u201cA feedback loop where isolation fuels engagement, and engagement fuels profit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Love Machines: How Artificial Intelligence is Transforming Our Relationships by James Muldoon is published by Faber<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The British-Australian sociologist James Muldoon recounts many shocking anecdotes in his recent book, Love Machines: How Artificial Intelligence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":650249,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,1119,733,4308,1325,21861,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-650248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-anthropic","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-facebook","tag-loneliness","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}