Say what you will about AI chatbots, but there’s no question they’re now affecting the real world — including imploding your marriage.
We’ve talked pretty extensively about all the alarming ways that AI is disrupting people’s personal lives, including serving as a delusion-prone person’s own little cult leader, a friend or romantic companion for lonely teens and adults, and as a chaotic therapist that’s blowing up people’s marriages.
But can a spouse “cheat” on you with an AI companion? That’s the big question hanging over marriage law right now, Wired reports, as more and more disgruntled partners are citing their significant other’s AI paramour as grounds for a divorce.
“The law is still developing alongside these experiences,” divorce attorney Rebecca Palmer told the magazine. “But some people think of it as a true relationship, and sometimes better than one with a person.”
Palmer’s firm has worked with clients who have gotten or are seeking a divorce because of their partner cheating on them with AI, including an ongoing case in which the accused spouse blew money on — and, astoundingly, shared private information like bank accounts and social security numbers with — a chatbot.
The conundrum is giving judges a headache, as they already “struggle with what to do about affairs with humans,” Palmer added.
Raising the stakes — and also complicating the path to reaching a broader consensus on this emerging issue — in some states, cheating on a spouse is literally illegal. In Michigan, Wisconsin, and Oklahoma, adultery is a felony charge punishable with up to five years in prison or a fine up to $10,000, Wired noted.
Should a partner’s AI obsession, for example, be justification for losing the kids? In custody battles, “it is conceivable and likely” that judges would call a parent’s judgment into question if “they’re having intimate discussions with a chatbot,” Palmer told Wired, which also “brings into question how they are spending time with their child.”
Elizabeth Yang, a family law attorney in California, predicts that we’ll see a boom in divorce filings as more people fall for their AI lovers, similar to how there was an uptick in divorces during the COVID pandemic, she said.
“As [AI] continues improving, becoming more realistic, compassionate, and empathetic, more and more people in unhappy marriages who are lonely are going to be going to seek love with a bot,” Yang told Wired.
Yang’s prediction appears to be on the money. Wired notes that in the UK, a partner’s emotional attachment to an AI chatbot has already become a more common factor in a divorce, according to data from Divorce-Online.
It’s hard to say which way the winds will blow. But some legislators are already trying to draw a line in the sand. Ohio, for example, is attempting to ban human-AI marriages by affirming that AIs are “nonsentient entities” that do not have personhood.
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