Who is best able to fill the void AI or our communities?
I believe that the current epidemic of loneliness is a significant factor for what I have labelled the anorexia of intimacy, a starvation of human connection. There is a massive void in an increasing number of people’s lives. Instead of reaching out for human touch, with family friends and communities, more people are searching out technological solutions to meet that need. Hard to be rejected by a bot.
The tech companies have the data and are capitalising on that void to produce a staggering range of products that can make us feel connected without being connected at all. In the process, just as we are losing our peripheral eyesight, we are also losing the skills of connection and intimacy as we stare into boxes rather than looking at each other’s faces.
If we take a short walk-through recent history, it helps provide an understanding of how we may have reached this position.
The mass social movement of the 60’s helped shift people’s attention from local concerns to national concerns like the women’s and peace movements. The introduction of TV brought the world to the living room and individual consumerism.
The 1970’s was called by some, the Me decade and was the beginning of hyper individualism. It was more about “me “than “we” in general terms.
In the 80s social structures were changing rapidly such as: The divorce rate doubled after the 1975 no fault legislation, teenage pregnancies significantly increased and with the advent of air travel available to the masses more families were living apart.
In the early 2000’s with the advent of social media people started paying more attention to their devices than each other. Local newspapers started to disappear.
Today many people are sharing the same space, either at home or in the community without connecting. In fact, according to a 2022 KPMG report:
- Loneliness is experienced by more than one quarter of Australians and most Australians will experience loneliness in their lifetime:
37% of young people are lonely.
- Loneliness is a silent killer:
Lonely people have a 26% increased risk of death.
- The impacts of loneliness are equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes or having six alcoholic drinks per day.
- 54% are of people are lonelier after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Anorexia of intimacy could be the result of loneliness and or the deprivation of physical touch which create, such feelings of emptiness and loneliness.
How often are we in bed and each are absorbed in an I pad rather than each other? How many people get most of their affection from an animal rather than a human? How many a having a massage as it is the only way to get human touch? How many people in our busy lives don’t even get a kiss or a hug when our loved ones say goodbye.
As we do our google searches, the algorithms are interpreting our data and technology companies are building products to reduce our loneliness and support our intimacy needs.
According to a 2023 Pew research study sexual intimacy is at a 30 year low across all genders. This is particularly relevant with young men who are getting their needs met by watching porn. Data from including Australia suggests 76-87 percent of 18- to 29-year-old men are consuming porn regularly and are less satisfied with real life intimacy and are remaining indoors.
People are paying $1 a minute just to talk to a bot that sounds like a human. Just one bot is generating over 5 million dollars a year. It only takes a few moments to discover such a world online.
In Berlin the first Cyrothel has been launched. Cyrothel clients romp with life size sex dolls. Instead of human workers clients interact with then in the virtual realm: donning VR headsets to watch and immersive 4D porn featuring their favourite sex bot thanks to a purpose-built AI language model.
You can pay for an online intimacy coach which can be located anywhere around the world. The coach can be either a human or a bot. The reason for this may be without experience we are losing our confidence to connect.
Technology of course has its advantages, however what can ever replace the loving touch of another human. To have touch we must create places in our community where we can connect. We need children, parents, and dog parks. We need a variety of social activities in our local communities where people of all ages can meet, laugh, talk, dance, learn, or even watch an outdoor movie together under the stars.
We need to make it easier for people to connect with each other in real life so we can help halt the epidemic of loneliness and the anorexia of intimacy. This I believe is one of the most important roles of councils, communities, and ourselves as citizens as we navigate a world we want to engage with.
Jenny Brice. 7th Feb 2024
