GLD 480 - Things Are Not Always What They Appear

doing that with podcasts, which drives me nuts. Like the part of the best part of podcasting is the intimate relationship between the host and the listeners. And I don't understand that. I don't understand where people just do a bunch of episodes and then turn that into two hundred more. I mean, there's some advantages into repurposing a different languages, but doing it as a podcaster, I don't like it. Doing it is dating.

love to hi again. Everyone is Brian Howie. Welcome to The Great Love Debate, the world's number one dating and a Relationship podcast since twenty and fifteen. I am here in the very fine studios of pod Popular Podcasts for the people. I am at the one in Boca Raton, Florida. It's what they call the season here in Florida. If you've been to you can make fun of Florida all you want, But if you're in Florida during the right time, Florida wins a lot of those times. I just got

to say, so today's one of those times. So if you've been to Vegas recently, not to pivot from Florida to Vegas, but as we record this, and as I recorded this, it's the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three. So if you're just coming aboard and you're listening to this in the spring of twenty twenty seven, welcome, catch up, Try to keep up, go back and listen everything, try and get there. But if you've been to Vegas recently,

you'll notice a new attraction that's dotting the skyline. And now I think it's actually the dominant attraction that is dotting the skyline there. So for years, I think the thing that caught your eye if you flew into Vegas or drove in Vegas was the Stratosphere at the north end of the Strip. And you can think what you want about that is crappy architecture or a hotel or as a tower, but it did dominate the landscape when you were into town, no matter how you arrived into town.

And then I think the Luxor kind of did that. The unique shape of it and the beam at the top. You could see it from really far. You couldn't miss it, even if it's a hotel that you probably don't want to stay at. No shout out to the Luxor I met a couple years ago. The link the ferris Wheel popped up, and lots of cities have sort of those giant ferris wheels now, and I do like them. I don't like to ride them. I'll get into that in a minute, but as a landmark, they're cool to look at.

Whether you're talking about the one in Seattle or the one on the Santa Monica Pier or the London Eye. You know, London's a thousand years old, and all of a sudden, this modern ferris wheel is the thing that you notice. But if you've been to Vegas recently, you've definitely seen the sphere. It's definitely noticeable, this death star of a giant ball, the structure that is rising up just east of the Venetian And I was in Vegas

a lot during the last three or four years. I spent a ton of COVID days in Vegas as this thing was being built, and it seemingly took forever because construction delayed and whatever. And it really looked like the Death Star in Star Wars being constructed. And most of the time as it was being built, you're wondering what is this and what will it be, and what will it look like when it's finished, what is the purpose and function of this giant orb And now that it's open,

we have some answers. And it's not just a fifteen seventeen thousand seat performance venue, which it is. It's this spectacle of LED screens that can transport you anywhere in the world or pretty much anywhere in the universe and give you this galactic experience. Whether it's a concert or an opera or a a theater show, it really has this ability to transport you and to make you believe you are somewhere at a certain time. So you're like,

why do I bring this up up? And why is this big giant ball of LED screens relevant to love dating relationships? Well, I got an email from a loyal listener, Jason, so thank you for listening, and he sent me an article on the subject of AI and particularly about AI girlfriends,

and he asked my thoughts on it. And I happened to give this email while I was in shouting distance of the Sphere in Vegas, and I thought, I can go in the sphere and see a concert and the technology of that concert and this structure will make it look and sound and feel literally feel if you've been in this thing like that concert was taking place on a Tahitian beach. They had the ability to make inside

feel like outside, and outside could be inside. And this AIVR combo platter will stimulate and I guess trick the senses in experiencing pretty much anything and everything that the

performer or the promoters want you to. So, for those of you who've listened to this podcast for a while, not you newbies in twenty twenty seven, but those of you've been for a while back in the very very early days, maybe was in like the first fifteen or twenty episodes of this show, we had on our friend doctor Drew, and we also had him on our stage,

and he said this at the time. A couple of times every time we talked to Drew about the state of the date, he would say this, and I always remember this, and I always reference this, And he felt that the coming storm for relationships and for the love universe, which we are a very tall small part of, was that sometime in the pretty near future, you were going to be able to put on a helmet dial up somebody who looks like, I don't know, whatever your flavor is,

justin Timberlake or Jennifer Aniston, and some virtual version of them was going to talk to you and interact with you and give you a reasonably satisfying and borderline sexually rewarding experience, and maybe not even borderline, depending on your settings on this thing. And maybe it wouldn't even be somebody famous. It might be a picture of someone you had a crush on, who you know from Instagram, or the girl from biology class or the guy from accounting.

Doctor Drews told us this back in twenty fifteen, that you were going to be able to feed in this image of them that you grabbed off the interwebs, and suddenly this avatar was going to be someone or something that you were suddenly on some level involved with. And I remember when he said that, I thought, yikes, I think I can see that happening. You know, if Tom Hanks can get into a relationship with a volleyball and castaway, I'm pretty sure there's all sorts of possibilities if you're

lonely enough or fed up enough. And I would always repeat what Drew said at our live shows. I would sort of warn the audience. I'd do this all over the world, sort of to ramp up the urgency that we'd better figure out real life dating, because if we didn't this storm was coming. So I think the storm is here. I think it's come ashore at least the outer bands of the hurricane. And so what does it

mean and what do I think about it? As you guys know me, I have some thoughts on it, and there might not be the thoughts you think, but we are going to get into some of those thoughts and a lot more. We're and dive deep into the eye of all all of it right after this, and we are back real me. This is the real me, you know, the coming uh the way they're using AI in podcasting

now and in the future. As if I if I tell you, if I read an ad for something and I'm like, hey, you guys, this is you know, go to San Diego, Subaru and I do it once, They're gonna be able to take me reading an ad once and chop it up a thousand different ways with my voice and my inflection to have it be whatever location you're in, and you're gonna hear that. So this is me. I don't think you replicate my personality gratefully, but on stuff like that, there's a purpose for it. So anyway,

let me talk about this this AI thing. And I'm not instantly like oh my god, it's terrible. Part of me thinks like maybe there is a purpose here, so let me let me get in first of all, too like could this work? Or how realistic is this? Well I am, despite my love for looking at Ferris wheels, I am absolutely afraid of heights. I do not want to drive a for a bridge. I do not want to be in an airplane. Although I am a lot, I don't want to go on your balcony. I don't

want anything. I have a real fear of heights and about I don't know. Seven eight years ago, I was at some I was at Disneyland and they have this virtual reality ride. I don't even know it's still there. It's called Soaring over California. And you put this helmet on and you were strapped into a chair, and it made you believe that you were hang gliding, like soaring along the coastline down, you know, through Monterey and Big Sir and all the way down the coast, that you

were somehow soaring over the coast of California. And I could not convince my brain the entire time that I'm strapped in this chair two inches off the ground that it wasn't real. The same fear of heights was going on the whole time. I couldn't wait to get off this ride. I could not make my brain separate the fact that this was not real, you know. So I think about that now, and if you are able to take away some of the the worry and the pain and the bad parts of dating again, this is qualified.

We're good in all of this. It's never going to be better, so get that. But I'm talking about how

realistic is it and how it really affects everything. So if you're able to create a scenario where the person you are talking to, this AI version of your dream girl or fantasy guy, is gonna respond to you when you want them to respond to you, and they're gonna interact with them the way you want to interact with them, and they're gonna say good morning, good night, I love you, I miss you, all of the things that you are out there in the world trying to find somebody to

say to you every single day. I'm not so sure that it's not better. I'm not so sure that it doesn't have a place, and I'm not so sure that a lot of people aren't gonna make it as a choice because yeah, it's not better, but for some people the juice isn't worth the squeeze and they just want

to stabilize their emotions. So if you're in a situation where you have been hurt, hurt hurt, or rejected, rejected, rejected, or somebody just isn't even answering you, And a big challenge with dating in the twenty twenties is that people just don't respond. You could be online swiping and messaging for hours, days, months and not even get a response.

And to not being able to take that fundamental step and have that level of control in trying to make a connection with somebody, I can see how frustrating that is. And many many people we've been all we're all sort of societally awkward, and we're self centered, and we're introverted, and we're just not as good at fundamental human interactions as we used to be. So if somebody's going to be like God, that seems so real and that person is going to you know, you got a roombo vacuuming

your floor, you have no problem with that. But if you have somebody or something I don't even know what to refer to. This AI person as and an intelligent artificial version of some not just physically what they look like, but they're giving you the needs that you want. No offense to dogs and dog lovers out there, it's a lot of what we're getting out of our pets. We are imagining a relationship that maybe that pet doesn't have

with you. Maybe they're licking you and barking you and coming to you for an entirely different set of reasons. Then you think, but it doesn't matter, because all you really care about is what you're getting back and what the outcome is and this perceived relationship that you have with your animal. And so those types of feelings, I think they can be translated, for better or worse, to

something that isn't real. There's a lot of people in actual relationships who are pretending that that actual relationship is something that it's really not. So is it that big of a leap to dial up a girl who is going to give you in terms of attention and affection and compliments and stimulation and everything. If you're just going to create one rather than going out in the world and not being able to find her and feeling hurt by her or whatever. For the tenth time, it's not

going to be better. But in this gamified society that we live in, you know, the reason why especially men are so hooked on video games is they understand that if they do certain things and they put in certain data and they make certain moves, that they're going to be rewarded by winning that game. And there's a reason why so many men are addicted to porn that they're like, oh, I can just dial up whatever nudity of whatever my

fetish or flavor is, and I can get that. So if you're combining the two things, if you're combining sort of video games and nudity, I could see if you just want to be me, to be honest and no judgment for people, I could see how that would have not just a little appeal, a lot of appeal. You're not spending that much of money, you're not spending that much down emotional time, and you're taking a lot of the risk and a lot of the pitfalls out of dating.

So is there is there a way that you could, at least in terms of getting out of a bad relationship or getting over some heart break or whatever, have an artificial partner to make you get your confidence back. I think so. But that's where the danger lies is because at what point are you like, oh I'm good here, I'm just going to go, you know. I mean, these aren't mannequins. We're talking about what was that movie with them with Ryan Gosling back in the day, Lars and

the Real Girl whatever. He kind of fell in love with the mannequin. And this isn't a volleyball either. These are things that are going to understand your personality and give you the kind of feedback that you're going to give and a lot of a relationship is built upon feedback. Am I getting? I love you too? Am I getting pleased? Thank you? Am I getting you had? How is your day? Are you getting? And so if you're able to program these things in, I mean that is the coming storm.

You know that maybe that is the end of the human race. You know, people thought that the artificial intelligence was so dangerous because it would be like in the movies and the robots would attack us, they would physically attack us. I'm not sure that's it. I think the way it's gonna really I'll say, hinder society. Mean, it's gonna stop the breeding because people aren't gonna go on to be in the same room as each other. They can get ninety percent of the experience with one hundred

percent less of the risk and the downfall. A lot of people are gonna choose that. If you're a fifteen year old boy in high school right now, you are not gonna want to rejection or the money, or you just gonna choose this, and you're gonna say, oh, it's not as good, it's not as good, But he doesn't know it's not as good. If you've never had the real version of whoever your fantasy is, you're not missing

you don't feel you're missing out on anything. You're gonna be like, this is amazing, this is a great experience. You go to that concert inside the sphere that I talked about before, and maybe you've never been to the beaches in Thailand, but if you look up at in the arena of what this is, you're like, this is awesome. It's good enough. If you don't know the real thing, all you know is this is risk free. This is an avenue I can go down. And this is something

that a lot of people are doing right now. They are figuring out artificial versions of what their fantasies are because they don't believe the fantasy can ever become a reality. And women are doing this too, and so is it scary. Yeah. I'm not sitting here trying to advocate for it. I'm sitting here trying to tell you guys that I get it.

I can see the appeal, and I don't think people are crazy who are going down this road and looking for some sort of stimuli that's going to satisfy a part of them and isn't getting satisfied any other way. So the scary part is that it's going there's going to be a point where the technology gets so good and so realistic and so emotionally satisfying that people really are going to the parachute on real dating and they're gonna be like, this is fucking fine, and I got

a whole lot more. Guy's gonna be like, I got a whole lot more money in my pocket and I don't have to sit there staring at a phone that's never gonna ring and waiting for her to message me back. And the girl's gonna be like, you know what, I don't get my heart broken. He's not a dick, is whatever. And you're going to be able to be tricked the way the Disneyland ride tricked me. I could not convince myself it wasn't real. And I think that's what's gonna happen.

And I think we're there now, you know, and we are at this very very early stages of it.

and the technology is there to replace the writer. So if you could do the same thing, and those those Hallmark Christmas movies that they run every single night, starting and starting at like I don't know, Columbus day, they're always emotionally satisfying for the viewer. Well, if you can do the same thing, and you're now the star of the Hallmark movie, and this AI is gonna spit out a version of your life that is gonna be emotionally

and possibly even physically satisfying enough for you. I'm not sure you're going to the bars. I'm not sure you're going to the dating sites. I'm not sure you're gonna ask your friends and hook you up. I'm not sure any of this is so I'm not bringing this up as a doomsday warning. That was what we said back in the day, and that's what doctor Drew said to us. What I'm saying is, I can see why. I can see the short term benefit. I can see there could

be some healing to doing something like this. The danger is if this becomes the norm, if the artificial intelligence or the virtual reality becomes the actual reality, and the artificial becomes real and this is what flips and everybody's doing it, which might happen. We are all connected to a device. You know, You're not just turn on your phone to make a call. You turn on your phone

to listen to me. You're turning your phone to take a picture, You're turning your phone into this this this Well, maybe you're turning on your phone to say how to your girlfriend, and your girlfriend is in your phone. Your girlfriend is your phone I can see it, So if you want my thoughts on it, I think we're here. I think it's only going to be more of a presence. I think you need to do the work emotionally and otherwise so this does not become either the crutch or

the off ramp to a real dating life. I think you have to always think about what can this thing not provide to me? No offense? Do you artificial intelligence? Listeners? Didn't mean to call you a thing, but you know what I'm getting at. I think you have to take the inventory now on like what exactly do I want out of a relationship? If you just want cuddling, yeah, I mean, you know, those mannequins are pretty lifelike too. A lot of people really just want the body pillar,

a lot of people want the dog. And you have to really take emotional stock of like what would my best relationship work look like? And then I think you'll see that isn't something that can be artificially replicated. It is not something that can exist in a virtual, uniform universe. And I think you have to focus on that. I think you have to continuously keep your eye on the

prize when it comes to this stuff. But your term, Like, I think it is a reality, whether you're going in and seeing a concert with ten million little led lights that are going to transport you and your brain and your date somewhere where you probably never imagine you could be, or if it's somebody having a conversation with you, which probably happens a lot where you don't even know if it's real. We've all been in customer service chats now and a lot of times we think we're talking to

a guy named Robert and it's a robot. It's a bot, and we can't tell the difference. And this is only going to become more perfected and it's going to become

more real, and I think that is scary. But bottom line here, I'm just doing this episode to say I think I get it, and I think that if you think, oh, I'm somebody who would never be involved with something like this, or I could never see a scenario where this had appealed to me, I think there's a lot of scenario right now in your life where this has appealed to you and you're not even aware of it. You know, I walk by a retail store before the mannequins are

good looking. Now they have the technology now, they're very lifelike. I'm not saying it's better, I'm saying I get it. So shoot me an email if you have thoughts on this, or if you're currently dating somebody who is virtual. I want to hear Great Love Debate at gmail dot com.

Please like, share, follow, review this podcast. Your reviews always mean a lot in the podcasting ecosystem, and the podcasting ecosystem is real, so I want your real reviews because once again, as always at the Great Love Debate, we never stopped making love. See you next time.