In 2025, you may find yourself in a dystopian nightmare, worried not just that your partner is cheating on you, but that they’re doing it with an AI chatbot.
According to a recent HuffPost dive into the sex lives of humans and their unnaturally attentive AI companions, some spouses are finding that their partners are cheating on them, not with another physical human being, but with algorithms.
The catalyst for this whole discussion is a now-deleted Reddit thread in which a woman shared how distraught she felt after catching her husband of 14 years having phone sex with an AI chatbot. This was a deeply emotional relationship with a digital and entirely fictional mistress that her partner had customized to be both sweet and raunchy in the exact ways that he wanted.
One thing to keep in mind is that Reddit threads like these aren’t always legit. Sometimes the stories are genuine; other times, it’s people making up dramatic tales of illicit sex and odd behavior for sweet internet clout. It’s hard to tell. But, considering the idea of an AI companion is not only no longer far-fetched but becoming all the more common, the Huffington Post reached out to marriage therapist Marisa Cohen for her take on a scenario that’s no longer as much of a Black Mirror episode as we might’ve wants imagined even just a few years ago.
Cohen believes that the ethical murkiness here doesn’t have as much to do with whether or not the chatbot is “real” but whether the human partner feels betrayed. The guy was pouring his heart out to the chatbot for hours on end, all the while chitchatting about their hobbies and the peculiarities of life. She said her partner’s interaction with the chatbot hurt more than if he had been doing it with a real woman, even though they had carved out an “emotional cheating” agreement in their relationship, promising that they wouldn’t take it as a betrayal unless it spilled over into physical cheating.
Cohen points out that what counts as cheating isn’t universal. For some, an AI girlfriend might seem like an elaborate sex toy. For others, it drains intimacy from the real-world relationship. If you’re outsourcing your vulnerability and desire to an algorithmic sidepiece, you’re not just avoiding awkward conversations that could potentially strengthen your bond with your real-life partner, but you’re ruining that real-world relationship in favor of one that could be wiped out with the next update.
That emotional cheating carveout they agreed to when they got married did not include AI girlfriends, because the concept didn’t even exist as a practical reality at the time, making the betrayal feel even more conniving and underhanded. It was an exploited loophole.
Cohen’s takeaway is that relationship agreements and what is and is not permissible in a bond between consenting adults should be malleable, and never set in stone. Couples need to talk to each other frequently, constantly exploring whatever newly developing emotional needs to strengthen the bond of their real-world fidelity.
The post Does AI Sex Count as Cheating? appeared first on VICE.
