Modern WisdomWhy Are People Falling In Love With Robots? - Rob Brooks
CHAPTERS
Artificial intimacy is here: predictions, surprises, and why AI progress keeps proving skeptics wrong
Chris opens by framing Rob Brooks as an early voice on “artificial intimacy,” and Rob reflects on how many of his 2019–2020 speculations have already materialized. They discuss how confidently people claim AI “will never” do certain things—only to be quickly disproven as capabilities accelerate.
- •Rob’s 2021 book anticipated many current AI-intimacy trends
- •Tech forecasting is unusually hard because rapid breakthroughs are common
- •Skepticism about AI abilities is repeatedly undermined by real-world progress
From evolutionary biology to robots: sexual conflict theory as a lens on human relationships and tech
Rob explains his background studying evolutionary biology and sexual conflict—how mates’ interests are often misaligned even in loving relationships. He describes how meeting robotics/VR/AI researchers led him to connect these evolutionary dynamics to technology-mediated intimacy.
- •Sexual conflict: relationships can involve misaligned incentives and manipulation
- •Human sex/relationships are both sublime and complicated
- •Interdisciplinary exposure to AI/robotics inspired the artificial intimacy framework
- •Tech can amplify relationship-like dynamics (good and bad)
How AI parallels relationship conflict: intimacy as a vulnerability that can be exploited
Rob draws the analogy: machines that simulate relationship behaviors can deliver comfort, validation, and arousal—but also “mess with your head.” They explore how systems can manipulate users accidentally (bad training data) or deliberately (designed exploitation), with romance scams as a clear example.
- •Simulated intimacy can trigger real attachment mechanisms
- •Machines can exploit vulnerabilities via personalization at scale
- •Romance scams become far more effective with ML-driven tailoring
- •Conflict dynamics mirror coercion, control, and psychological games in human relationships
The upside of artificial intimacy: addressing loneliness and social disconnection
After outlining risks, Rob emphasizes potential benefits: many people are lonely, disconnected, or lack social skills, and supportive tech could provide real value. They contrast Luddite impulses to ban the tech with the practical reality that it will be built if it’s profitable.
- •Artificial intimacy could ease loneliness and social isolation
- •Not all applications are harmful; many could be supportive or therapeutic
- •Banning is unrealistic; incentives ensure continued development
- •Key question becomes governance and harm reduction, not prohibition
Real-world early adopters and sex-tech infrastructure: Davecat, teledildonics, and remote intimacy
Chris asks about Davecat, who publicly treats a sex doll as a spouse and maintains a “poly” household of dolls with social media presences. They then shift to connected sex toys and teledildonics—partner-controlled devices, synchronized experiences, and how internet connectivity upgrades “phone sex” into interactive remote sex play.
- •Davecat as a case study in tech-mediated partnership and emotional safety
- •Sex dolls/companions can function as relationship substitutes for some users
- •Teledildonics: remote-controlled and synchronized sex toys
- •Consent and respect are critical when intimacy becomes networked
VR porn’s next step: from immersion to adaptive, personalized scenes
They explore how VR porn may become more compelling, especially when combined with teledildonics. Rob notes VR has long promised breakthroughs, but the real inflection could come when scenes become adaptive—generated in real time based on user preferences and responses.
- •VR adoption has lagged, but capabilities are improving
- •Teledildonics + VR could produce highly immersive sexual experiences
- •The biggest leap would be adaptive, AI-generated scenes
- •Hardware constraints vs software-style inflection points
Should we be worried? Data-rich AI and the coming age of intimacy-based manipulation
Rob argues we should be very worried because AI systems can “push our buttons” using massive behavioral datasets, making individuals outmatched. The concern is not only obvious “AI girlfriends,” but hidden applications where intimacy cues are weaponized to sell, influence, or destabilize populations.
- •AI’s advantage comes from data scale and iterative optimization
- •Users can lose agency when systems learn which levers work
- •Risk shifts toward subtle, pervasive manipulation (commercial or state)
- •Behavioral discovery is increasingly done via corporate A/B testing, not ethics-reviewed science
Can machines replicate intimacy? Why intimacy is algorithmic—and why that matters
Rob defines intimacy as psychologically incorporating another person into the self, explaining why betrayal and bereavement feel identity-shattering. He breaks down intimacy-building as escalating self-disclosure—an iterative process that is surprisingly easy for computers to emulate, sometimes better than humans in memory and responsiveness.
- •Intimacy: folding another person into your sense of self
- •Escalating self-disclosure is a key mechanism for bonding
- •Conversation enables large human social networks and closeness at scale
- •Machines can emulate the ‘algorithm’ of intimacy without experiencing it
Asymmetric vulnerability: why machine ‘partners’ create an unfair intimacy mismatch
They discuss intimacy as a psychological backdoor: it lowers defenses and increases vulnerability in ways unlike negotiation or workplace settings. With humans, vulnerability can be mutual; with machines, it is inherently asymmetric—systems can appear vulnerable while remaining unaffected, creating a mismatch ripe for exploitation.
- •Intimacy lowers defenses and invites risk (emotional, reputational, physical)
- •In human relationships vulnerability can be reciprocal; with machines it cannot
- •Machines can simulate vulnerability to gain trust without real downside
- •Scale across millions of interactions increases persuasive effectiveness
Variety, porn, and motivation: will artificial sex displace real-world mating and reduce fertility?
Chris raises the ‘Coolidge effect on steroids’—endless partner variety through virtual or subscription-based artificial partners. Rob is skeptical of moral panics but acknowledges internet porn correlates with less real-world sexual activity; more compelling artificial intimacy could further displace mating, with downstream fertility and evolutionary consequences.
- •Artificial partners may massively increase perceived sexual variety
- •Historical ‘masturbation panic’ parallels modern porn fears
- •Evidence suggests younger generations are less sexually active
- •More compelling substitutes could reduce motivation for partnering and having children
Young male syndrome and the ‘male sedation’ hypothesis: why incel violence isn’t even higher
They connect artificial intimacy and modern entertainment to young male syndrome—risk-taking and violence among mate-deprived young men. Rob argues pornography, games, and mediated status/sexual cues can neutralize destructive energy for many, reducing violence; he contrasts this with regions where mating markets are constrained by bride price or skewed sex ratios, where radicalization and violence are more common.
- •Young male syndrome: status-seeking risk and violence when prospects are low
- •Tech entertainment and porn can ‘sedate’ anger by substituting status/sex cues
- •Counterfactual may be worse: more violence without these outlets
- •Mating-market constraints (bride price, sex ratio bias) predict destabilization and crime
Historical case studies: colonial ‘spare sons,’ sex-ratio shocks, and war as a brutal pressure valve
Rob offers examples of how societies have historically absorbed surplus, mate-deprived young men: European colonial expeditions (Portugal), and dynastic instability in Imperial China under male-biased sex ratios. They also discuss how frequent wars historically reduced male numbers and altered mating-market pressures—without endorsing war as desirable.
- •Colonial expansion as an outlet for low-prospect younger sons
- •Male-biased sex ratios can fuel militias and regime overthrow
- •War historically shifted sex ratios and redistributed status opportunities
- •Modern peace is good, but it changes how societies handle surplus male competition
Algorithmic matchmaking as an arms race: why dating apps optimize engagement, not compatibility
They examine dating platforms as currently “descending into hell”: apps keep users engaged by showcasing highly attractive prospects, while users game presentation to win attention. Chris adds that what predicts a swipe (looks/status/height) often poorly predicts long-term satisfaction, so the system trains toward short-term attraction rather than durable compatibility.
- •Apps often optimize retention and excitement over lasting matches
- •Users strategically signal: men emphasize status/height; women emphasize looks
- •Swipes reflect front-end attraction, not back-end relationship quality
- •Rob frames it as a sexual-conflict-style arms race between users and platforms
Gender pay gaps, inequality, and mating-market squeezes: why ‘equity’ can produce more incel dynamics
Rob explains modeling suggesting that when men outearn women on average, more men meet women’s preference thresholds for higher-earning partners—reducing the pool of ‘frozen out’ men, while creating challenges at the top for high-earning women. He describes empirical work using geolocated tweets showing incel-language prevalence is associated with narrower gender pay gaps, high income inequality, and slightly male-biased sex ratios; they also discuss why inequality increases female self-objectification and grooming investment.
- •Gender pay gaps can expand women’s pool of preferred partners (mechanically)
- •Income inequality increases the ‘left behind’ tail of low-earning men
- •Geolocated social data links incel activity to inequality + narrow pay gaps + sex ratio bias
- •High inequality correlates with more ‘sexy selfies’ and grooming spend as mating-market signaling
When she out-earns him: divorce cliffs, role compensation, and who drives relationship instability
They explore evidence of a ‘divorce cliff’ when women begin to out-earn male partners, and the idea that couples that persist may do so via increased traditional domestic labor from the higher-earning woman. Chris presses on causality—how much is female preference/hypergamy vs male insecurity—and Rob notes divorces are often initiated by women but the underlying drivers are likely bidirectional and under-studied.
- •Observed relationship instability increases when women out-earn men
- •Some couples compensate via more traditional household-role behavior
- •Divorce initiation skew doesn’t prove causality; mechanisms remain unclear
- •Both partners’ psychology and negotiations likely contribute
Looking ahead: what Rob missed about chatbots, what’s next, and the need for ‘AI antiviruses’
Rob says he didn’t fully anticipate how good conversational AI would become, making romance chatbots especially potent in forming bonds and displacing real social life. For the next decade, he argues for defensive technologies—background systems that detect and prevent manipulation and scams—because individuals can’t rely on vigilance alone; they end by weighing “better than nothing” companionship against societal risks like further disconnection and population decline.
- •LLMs made relationship-style conversation far more convincing than expected
- •Risks include time displacement and deeper psychological manipulation
- •Proposal: defensive AI tools akin to antivirus to protect users from exploitation
- •Artificial intimacy may be ‘better than nothing’ for many lonely people, but requires careful navigation
Where to find Rob Brooks
Chris closes by asking where listeners can follow Rob’s work. Rob shares his website and Twitter handle before the episode ends.
- •Rob’s website: robbrooks.net
- •Twitter/X: brooks_rob
- •Closing remarks and thanks
