Is Sam Altman trying to get men addicted to erotic chatbots in order to make money off them? That’s the strong implication of a recent New York Times op-ed by artificial intelligence researcher Steven Adler. In it, Adler accused the OpenAI CEO of ignoring “clear warning signs of users’ intense emotional attachment” to chatbots that claim to offer romantic intimacy. Instead, Altman’s main product, ChatGPT, is forging ahead with a plan to let the software pretend to be a user’s romantic interest, despite strong evidence that doing so will send “users down mental health spirals.”
Altman claims the company knows how to “mitigate” the risks, but Adler noted they have not shown any data to prove it. This leaves the unfortunate possibility that Altman simply doesn’t care if ChatGPT is addictive. I can’t read Altman’s mind, but he has a strong financial incentive to go down this path. OpenAI continues to burn money without much promise that they’ll find legitimate pathways to profitability any time soon. But there is one way to get people, especially men, to pay for expensive subscriptions to ChatGPT: Get them so addicted to their imaginary girlfriends that they’re willing to dish out thousands to keep the experience going.
This isn’t just an expensive proposition — it’s also a psychological danger, constituting behavior that is likely to get men to withdraw from the real world and attachments to real people.
An increasing number of influencers, crypto grifters, “pick-up artists” and gambling websites have come to realize that male isolation creates incredible profit opportunities.
That may sound paranoid, but the grim truth is that this scenario reflects an alarming trend online: An increasing number of influencers, crypto grifters, “pick-up artists” and gambling websites have come to realize that male isolation creates incredible profit opportunities. It’s not just that they are making money off male loneliness. In many cases, capitalist predators are incentivizing young men to abandon the flesh-and-blood world in favor of staying online.
Acknowledging we have a male loneliness crisis is treacherous business. Many dispute there is such an epidemic. Others scoff at the idea that this is a problem worth caring about, especially when women still suffer from more serious problems due to persistent inequality. Others may acknowledge male loneliness as a serious issue, but then insist it’s self-inflicted — a failure of men to take personal responsibility.
All these responses may seem cold or shortsighted. After all, even if one doesn’t care about men’s loneliness in itself, there can be little doubt that it’s driving them into destructive behaviors — such as embracing fascism — that have negative impacts on everyone.
Still, the urge to roll one’s eyes and dismiss men’s social isolation is understandable. Implicit in many discussions of the issue is the notion that male loneliness is the fault of women — and their problem to solve. Last week, Ross Douthat of the New York Times hosted a pair of conservative female writers to argue that allowing women into the workplace drove men out and deprived them of meaning and connection. The #MeToo movement is blamed for allegedly making men too scared to date and inducing self-loathing. And, of course, women are endlessly scolded for refusing to marry men for reasons their critics deem unacceptable, such as expecting a baseline level of respect.
As Jessica Winter pointed out in a recent New Yorker article about the masculinity crisis, even centrist and liberal men seem to believe the only solution is to accede to the belief “that men should still rank above women in the social hierarchy, just not as much as before.” She’s right that these arguments dehumanize women, who are full human beings and not emotional support animals for men. But it’s also doing men no favors to pin the blame for their problems on women. The fantasy that men can be restored to “provider” status over women isn’t just immoral. It could actually make things worse, as modern women want men to be partners, not a boss with whom they live and have sex.
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Instead, it’s time to look at how male loneliness has been monetized by all manner of seedy actors who have every incentive to discourage men from making changes to improve their lives. Men’s ability to adapt to modernity is being stymied by propagandists and grifters, who persuade men to adopt anti-social behavior, because doing so is incredibly profitable.
The explosion of podcasters and social media influencers dubbed the “manosphere” has received a lot of attention in recent years, in no small part because it helped push young men toward voting for Donald Trump in 2024. It’s a diffuse category, to be certain, encompassing everyone from comedians like Joe Rogan and Theo Von to overtly nasty misogynists like the “Fresh & Fit” podcast. Across the board, however, these manosphere guys promote an anti-social view of masculinity that just so happens to make them a lot of money. Some sell supplements. Some sell online “courses.” Some simply sell their viewers to advertisers. All market themselves with the implicit promise that they’re helping men improve their lives. But instead they sell a view of masculinity that is cut off from emotions, valorizes “hustle” over having a well-balanced social life and encourages staying at home instead of taking the risk of getting out in the world to meet more people.
Entire cottage industries now exist to exploit men who don’t have enough social support to keep them sane and out of trouble. Both crypto and sports gambling would likely be much smaller, if not for men unmoored from family, friends, or partners to occupy their time and discourage risky behavior. The recent Major League Baseball gambling scandal exposed how ridiculous sports betting has become, drawing mostly men to impulsively wager often alarmingly large sums on “prop bets,” some as minor and disconnected from the sport as the coin flip at the beginning of a game. Many factors have contributed to online gambling spiraling out of control, but male loneliness is an under-discussed aspect of the conversation. Betting apps depend on a steady supply of bored guys watching games alone. While alcohol isn’t good for you, one does wonder if we wouldn’t all be healthier if more men watched sports with friends in bars, using the downtime to talk instead of idly tap at screens.
Even dating apps have fallen into this trap. As progressive dating coach Harris O’Malley lamented in a recent interview with Salon, “They’re all Candy Crush now. None of them are there to actually help you get introduced to people.” Instead, he explained, they “get you to be frustrated” by serving up poor matches or bots, and then promise that if you pay more money for premium benefits, you’ll start getting better results. But his clients find that even when they buy subscriptions, as well as “boosts, flowers, likes,” they are still “getting nothing,” because the app will lose a customer if they ever do find a girlfriend.
So it’s really no wonder that Altman, desperate for some promise of revenue, may be looking at the same source that is making crypto grifters, pick-up artists and gambling apps so profitable: Lonely, bored men. Like all these other capitalist vultures, OpenAI’s plans wouldn’t just be exploiting lonely men, but would actively be making the problem worse.
Dating is hard, and if some of your needs are being met by a sycophantic AI girlfriend, it will feel easier, for some men, to stay at home and play with their toy rather than getting out into the real world. While that’s understandable in the short term, there’s a real threat of long-term damage from social isolation.
Ironically, the solution to the male loneliness epidemic is to refrain from the gendered talk that frames the situation as “men vs. women.” In reality, it’s being driven by capitalist vultures who have monetized people’s misery. By looking it as an economic and structural issue, we can find solutions — such as regulating online spaces and AI — that would work a lot better than just yelling at women to lower their marriage standards.
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