Virtual partners are destroying families, and legislation can’t keep up
Infidelities with chatbots are already destroying marriages. And courts are increasingly receiving divorce cases due to romances with AI-based companions, practicing lawyers from the USA and UK told Wired. These are no longer isolated cases. This is a trend.
More than 64% of people call sexting with chatbots full-fledged infidelity. And women are more categorical: among them 71% think so, while among men – 58%.
And then real problems begin. Virtual mistresses often spend real money from the family budget. On Reddit one woman told that her husband spent thousands of dollars communicating with a neural sexual Latino baby. The couple divorced after 14 years of marriage.
Unified legislation regulating relationships with AI does not yet exist. In California they propose to consider AI in court as a third party. That is, a full participant in the conflict. In Ohio, on the contrary, they plan to assign AI the status of an entity without consciousness, deprived of rights.
In practice, those caught in a romance with a neural network should not expect decisions in their favor, lawyers warn.
In custody disputes, courts are unlikely to be on the side of parents who conduct intimate conversations with a chatbot. As this questions how they spend time with their child, explains divorce lawyer Rebecca Palmer.
It turns out AI creates virtual partners that destroy real families. And legislation can’t keep up with technology.
