Algorithmic intimacy is reshaping personal relationships, redefining the meaning of intimacy, sexuality, and eroticism based on recommendations rather than genuine human connections.
Algorithms in dating apps and friendship tech have transformed intimate connections, offering minimal commitment and maximal pleasure, but also breeding narcissism and reducing genuine human interaction.
Deep dives
The Impact of Algorithms on Intimacy
The podcast episode explores the digital revolution in personal relationships brought about by algorithmic intimacy. The guest, Anthony Elliott, discusses how artificial intelligence is not only reshaping organizations and institutions but also deeply impacting identities, intimacies, and personal lives. Algorithmic intimacy entails outsourcing parts of ourselves, particularly emotional lives, to machine intelligence. This leads to the modeling and remodeling of intimate relationships as algorithms work within us to solve intimate dilemmas and create new ones. The increasing influence of predictive algorithms on intimacy redefines the meaning of intimacy, sexuality, and eroticism, moving towards a more fluid and connection-based concept, driven by recommendations rather than genuine human connection.
The Transformation of Intimacy in the Algorithmic Era
In this segment, the podcast delves deeper into the opposition between traditional forms of intimacy and the algorithmic era. Traditional intimacy required time, commitment, and care, whereas algorithmic intimacy emphasizes immediacy, broadening the practices of intimacy and focusing on plasticity rather than permanence. Machine learning algorithms in dating apps, referred to as relationship tech, have dramatically altered intimate connections, offering minimal commitment and maximal pleasure. Similarly, the uberization of therapy has emerged, with individuals shifting from face-to-face therapy to digital counseling, chatbot therapy, and gamified therapeutics. This evolution of intimacy, driven by algorithms, challenges traditional notions of connection, companionship, and permanence.
The Impact of Algorithms on Friendship
The podcast also examines how algorithms have transformed our understanding and experience of friendships through the rise of friendship tech. People increasingly turn to artificial substitutes for companionship, such as software replicas, which promise permanent availability and eliminate the need for consideration, amusement, and close attention. These algorithmic friendships, however, breed narcissism and may spill over into interpersonal interactions. Algorithms, through social networking platforms and friendship tech, have led to a reduction in genuine human interaction and an increased focus on the self. While the long-term social consequences of algorithmic influence on friendships remain uncertain, the rising popularity of such technologies suggests a sense of inevitability and a lack of alternatives in the algorithmic era.
Digital intimacy - Laurie Taylor asks how the algorithms embedded in digital technologies are transforming our relationships. He's joined by Anthony Elliott, Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of South Australia and author of a new book which suggests that that machine intelligence is changing the nature of human bonds, from sexual partners to friendship and therapy. Also, Carolina Bandinelli, Associate Professor in Media and Creative Industries at the University of Warwick, discusses her study of Tinder, and other dating apps, and the surprising finding that sex and love are not at the core of how people use them.
Producer: Jayne Egerton
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