Gen Z won’t stop having sex with AI Chatbots
People are willing to try almost anything to feel close to someone again. And in today’s increasingly freakier world, that “someone” doesn’t even have to be human.
A new study from ZipHealth, which looked at responses from over 1,000 people across the US and Canada, suggests we’ve already crossed a line most of us would have laughed at five years ago. About 23 percent of respondents said they would consider having sex with a humanoid robot. Another 19 percent said they have already had some kind of romantic or sexual interaction with AI chatbots. Half of them kept it from their partner. And when you have a duty of confidentiality, you have problems.
We’ve spent the last decade turning our phones into emotional support systems. SMS instead of calling. Venting in note apps. Asking AI for advice because we feel awkward bringing it up to a friend. So it’s not shocking that 55 percent of people in the survey said that talking to AI feels easier than talking to a real person. However, lighter usually means safer. There is no fear of being judged or rejected, or god forbid, having to repeat yourself.
But “easier” always comes with trade-offs.
Gen Z is still having sex with AI Chatbots
AI does not have a soul. It lacks true intimacy. It will never push back, it will never have alone time, and its “personality” is whatever you (and the developers) designed it to be. Designing the “perfect person” sounds amazing to some people, but you have to remember that it is the individuality of opinions and experiences that makes true intimacy genuine. You will never grow and actually build something with something that only ever aligns with you.
Naturally, there is a generational divide. About 26 percent of Gen Z respondents said they have already had romantic or sexual interactions with AI, compared to 19 percent of millennials. At the same time, a large majority still consider falling for AI to be cheating. So people do it, hide it and judge it all at once. Gotta love it.
It also brings up the growing concern about loneliness. Among women open to AI relationships, 29 percent said loneliness was a reason. It’s really a pretty sad bigger picture. It is a large number of people looking for solutions to very real human problems. They just want someone to talk to who will respond and not prank them or have better things to do. If that doesn’t leave a pit in your stomach about the future of humanity, it should.
Still, most people don’t seem convinced that this will end well. About three-quarters of respondents said AI intimacy could make real relationships worse. It is an understandable fear for our future. If your easiest connection lives in your phone, your real world has to compete with something literally designed to keep you hooked.
It’s a new, rapidly changing technology, but the human impulse behind it is a tale as old as time. People want undivided attention, reassurance and empathy and feel that someone just gets them. AI just happens to be getting better at all of these.
The question is not whether people will continue to do this. They will. It’s whether we’re okay as a culture with redefining intimacy around something that can’t actually feel anything back.
