The last thing sexless Gen Z needs is lessons in love from an AI chatbot

A more “adult” ChatGPT would be yet another outlet where bored, scared, shy and emotionally famished people can access phoney sex talk, rather than learning to speak human, says Rowan Pelling

My generation keeps love letters and quite possibly emails (I know I do), but does anyone keep records of their sex talk on WhatsApp, AI chatbots or whatever it is? (AFP/Getty)

Where there’s muck, there’s brass; few will have gasped in shock at the news OpenAI plans to allow a greater range of content on ChatGPT, including erotica, as part of its push to “treat adult users like adults”.

Almost every form of new technology, from the printing press to moving pictures and robotics, has swiftly been adapted for its pornographic potential. Because – let’s face it – when a multibillion-pound corporation says “erotic” they’re probably casting a glance at OnlyFans, not the love poetry of John Donne, or even the stories of Anais Nin.

When OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman says that upcoming versions of its chatbot will enable it to behave in a more human-like way, what he really means is that it can write back to you about “sneaking off for a furtive fumble”. And more. I can’t think the kind of tech guys likely to be tweaking the algorithm will have too much trouble with this adaptation. Have you met them?

I have. When I attended the Love and Sex with Robots conference at London’s Goldsmith’s University in 2016, it was full of Silicon Valley engineering and computer science-type males who couldn’t wait to welcome their sex robot brides and never have to deal with a real, tricky, flesh-and-blood woman again.

It’s sad. My generation keeps love letters and quite possibly emails (I know I do), but does anyone keep records of their sex talk on WhatsApp, Signal or whatever it is? I doubt it.

Between the (data)sheets: OpenAI CEO has said its chatbot will behave in a more human-like way (Getty)

But what will this mean in practice, apart from extra revenue for Sam Altman? We already know, courtesy of the UK’s most authoritative sex survey, the National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal), that Gen Z is the least sexually active set of young people since records began in 1990 (data that’s been backed up by similar studies in the US and France). Or, at least, they’re not very active IRL, but many experts believe the proliferation of online porn has proved addictive – particularly to young men – and is influencing behaviour, as well as frightening the young away from true intimacy.

There are clearly safeguarding issues, too. The rise in people using chatbots as AI therapists and confidantes has proven problematic, with some bereaved adults citing its influence in the suicides of loved ones. OpenAI is being sued by the parents of a US 16-year-old, Adam Raine, who took his own life after talking to ChatGPT. Unlike psychiatrists and therapists, there is no onus to call on the appropriate authorities if a depressed chatbot user confides in the algorithm that they want to kill themselves.

It’s all too easy to imagine lonely, sex-starved people becoming addicted to chatbot-generated porny dialogue and boundaries becoming blurred. Who’s going to decide if ChatGPT likes S&M, “breath play” (a convenient euphemism for strangulation), or things that are so-called “barely legal” (the tag beloved by Bonnie Blue as she tours UK campuses in her so-called Bang Bus)?

The room for error seems immense. A more straightforward concern – and one already widely raised – is how you monitor the age of the consumers who turn to ChatGPT for their peccadillos. Most parents my age are aware that our children are far more adept than we are at faking their identities and accessing supposedly prohibited parts of the web.

On the plus side, there is certainly comedic potential here for messing with the algorithm. I would be tempted to tell the chatbot that I desire men who wear bow ties, thermal vests and woolly socks in bed. Or that nothing turns me on more than someone talking dirty about Mary Whitehouse. You could even get it to devise an entire story where a plumber actually fixes your washing machine.

But this will only be scant consolation for yet another outlet where bored, scared, shy and emotionally famished people (mostly men) can access phoney sex talk, rather than learning to speak human. And that, in my view, is a tragedy.