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c0lo [soylentnews.org] writes:

^{(I missed it out when it was fresh, but haven't yet gone stale)}

Tech Exec Predicts Billion-Dollar AI Girlfriend Industry [futurism.com]

When witnessing the sorry state of men addicted to AI girlfriends [surrey.ac.uk], one Miami tech exec saw dollar signs instead of red flags.

In a blog-length post on X-formerly-Twitter [twitter.com], former WeWork exec Greg Isenberg said that after meeting a young guy who claims to spend $10,000 a month on so-called "AI girlfriends," or relationship-simulating chatbots, he realized that eventually, someone is going to capitalize upon that market the way Match Group has with dating apps.

"I thought he was kidding," Isenberg wrote. "But, he's a 24-year-old single guy who loves it."

To date, Match Group — which owns [matchgroup.com] Tinder, Hinge, Match.com, OKCupid, Plenty of Fish, and several others — has a market cap of more than $9 billion. As the now-CEO of the Late Checkout holding company startup noted, someone is going to build the AI version and make a billion or more.

During the exchange, Isenberg said that he was "speechless" when the young man explained his rationale, citing his ability to "play" with his AI paramours the way some people play video games, sending them voice notes and customizing their likes and dislikes as some of the reasons he spends so much money on the services.

The unnamed guy told the tech bro that he is particularly into Candy.ai and Cupid.ai, both of which allow [reddit.com] for the kind of NSFW chatting that other apps ban.

"It's kinda like dating apps," the AI GF aficionado told Isenberg. "You're not on only one."

[break here]

Hand It to Him

Reactions varied.

"The girlfriend Singularity is here," wrote disgraced "Dilbert" cartoonist [twitter.com]. "Human women had a good run."

"This will be someone you know soon," another posted [twitter.com], "although they may not admit it."

Indeed, while there's been lots of, er, prurient [futurism.com] interest [futurism.com] in the lives of those humans who prefer AI companionship to the real thing, less consideration has been taken for the way this burgeoning field could well make some early investors money — even as it furthers the dearth of IRL connection [x.com] and interaction that so many people [futurism.com] are craving.

As Isenberg himself said in his post, "things are about to get pretty weird" — which feels like a potential understatement.

Sex ratio over 65 shows a slight male excess [wikipedia.org], and those have more money. The sex ratio for under 15 is skewed female [wikipedia.org]. The rest won't matter that much, they'll be busy working to get and pay their mortgages while the developed world attempts to descramble the eggs back from the globalization omelet (and thus continue on an inflationary path for some 4-10 years).

Methinks the guys have a short opportunity window here, so maybe:
1. they should hurry up and start by... ummm... operant-conditioning?... coaching? [bbc.co.uk]... grooming?... the young males to like AI GF better than their human counterpart
2. diversify and be ready with the "AI boyfriend" too, the market segment may be more lucrative

(effing MBAs)

Original Submission