Please, I'm begging someone to say this is a joke.
In an April 2025 survey of 2,000 Gen Z respondents by AI company Joi AI, eight in 10 said they'd consider marrying an AI partner. 83 percent said they could have a deep emotional bond with one.
AI companions appear to be Joi AI's bread and butter. On its website, you can chat with pre-made characters or make your own. The company calls these connections 'AI-lationships.'
To be clear: An AI porn company (that's essentially what Joi is, even if they market themselves as PG) says that 4-out-of-5 Zoomers would marry an AI bot.
Take it with a huge grain of salt, but according to their numbers, there's a booming market for fully customizable AI spouses.
'AI-lationships are not intended to replace real human connections,' Jaime Bronstein, LCSW, relationship therapist and expert at Joi AI, said in an emailed statement to Mashable. 'Instead, they provide a distinct type of emotional support that can enhance your overall emotional well-being.'
The psychologists that Mashable interviewed think this is because Gen Zers feel constantly "judged," so they want fake relationships with non-humans who aren't judgmental.
Talk about remove the humanity from relationships...
There was actually a movie about this concept in 2013, and at the time it seemed so incredibly far-fetched. But now?
The current market is split between two offerings:
Companies that offer digital "companions" with text and video generation (and yes, this includes pornographic videos)
Companies racing to make AI-powered robot "girlfriends."
So you understand the terrifying event horizon of civilizational collapse that we are approaching, here is a video of a developer who makes the latter.
My earnest plea to Gen Z:
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