> Also on the panel, Father Michael Baggot worried that "artificial intimacy is going to distract us from, and deter us from, the deep interpersonal bonds that are central to our happiness and our flourishing."

> He called for guardrails on AI to stop it capturing individuals' "minds but … also our affections."

> Fr Baggot cited the example of Magisterium AI, a Catholic chatbot. He sits on the scholarly advisory board for the service, and said its creators had worked to prevent it being "anthropomorphic" adding, "We do not want people having an intimate relationship with it."

I appreciate that coinage, "artificial intimacy," and want to explore the implications of it more.

Religions, especially but not limited to Catholic, are what screams "artificial intimacy" to me.

From the language the Church uses ("Jesus loves you.") to the practices the Church does (confession to a priest).

The most charitable take I can make from this is that religious leaders genuinely believe what they claim to believe so they don't think it's "artificial." There are a lot of less charitable takes I could make, but I'd stop here.

The irony of priests being concerned with people developing emotional attachments to beings that don't consciously exist...

I imagine this goes beyond what most people think of when they think of "intimacy" (sex, relationships) and includes all kinds of emotional closeness and friendships. Maybe it's just my imagination, but I've noticed a decline in people's willingness to engage with other people since the covid pandemic. If we start replacing interpersonal relationships with chatbots, we're headed for dark times.

> I appreciate that coinage, "artificial intimacy," and want to explore the implications of it more.

I've been looking for this phrase for years.

It describes the phenomenon perfectly, even accounting for the diminishing of emotional/mental/physical closeness that occurs.

I already see dystopian ads for friend.com, "someone who listens, responds, and supports you" but it's actually an AI necklace device, and you'll see people marking them up too given how unnerving it is to call an AI a "friend."

https://old.reddit.com/r/Greenpoint/comments/1nmk49r/dystopi...

Some people probably don't want that "deep interpersonal bonds" though. I know I don't want. I know some people who don't say they don't want but act in every way that they don't want.

Although I don't like the future proposed by the AI companies, this is the least of my concerns. The only big concern is employment. Like, if AI creates more jobs than it destroys, sure, go ahead, do it now.

The Catholic Church should probably not talk about "intimacy" at all, given their track record. As much as I am not a big fan of AI/LLMs, I would love it if AI took the Church's job away.

Removing anthropomorphism from LLM's seems like a really great idea with zero downside. Not just because people starting "relationships" with AI is going to harm society but I imagine people are also more willing to trust misinformation from an anthropomorphic AI.