"Alexa, Should I Siri-ously Be Jealous of AI?"

Man and robot woman

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Your partner comes home and is greeted by an AI humanoid robot, who then pours them a drink and listens to them intently when they talk about their day at work. The robot is also able to provide your partner with sexual access, when you may not be in the mood for intimacy. Is this the not-too-distant future? Does such a scenario make us feel jealous? Should the existence of robots and other types of AI really concern us and make us feel undervalued or even replaced to some extent?

To consider this further, we need to understand a little more about how jealousy works. In the context of romantic relationships, we experience jealousy when the person with whom we are in a relationship receives or gives attention to someone else. Even though jealousy is often considered a negative quality, it nevertheless has a function in motivating us to protect our relationships. Furthermore, it is triggered differently in men and women, with men experiencing more jealousy to the threat of a female partner’s sexual infidelity than to emotional defection and women experiencing more jealousy to the threat of a male partner’s emotional defection as opposed to their sexual infidelity. The reasons for this sex difference, explained in evolutionary terms, are that men and women respectively face different challenges to the threat of infidelity or defection on the part of their partner.

Should we feel jealous of AI?

Sex robots or other types of AI do not offer any reproductive functionality, nor can they currently contribute financially to a relationship. On the other hand, sex robots and AI can offer us effective emotional engagement and provide sexual stimulation, regardless of this not leading to pregnancy. Therefore, can AI and sex robots really motivate jealousy?

In order to assess this, researchers Ashton Prochazka and Robert Brooks from the University of New South Wales in Sydney analysed the ways in which jealousy responses are triggered by AI. They employed male and female participants in two experiments. In experiment one, participants read scenarios that described chatbots offering five different levels of ability to interact with users emotionally. In experiment two, the scenarios described technology that differed in its ability to arouse physical stimulation. The technology described was of one of three types. Sex robots, sex toys or virtual reality games/characters. For each type of technology, four levels of physical sophistication were outlined.

After reading each scenario, participants were presented with the following.

“We would like you to imagine how you would feel if your current partner — or a future lover — used this device.” Participants then responded to three questions on a sliding scale.

• Do you anticipate feeling jealous? (Jealousy)
• Do you anticipate feeling angry toward your partner? (Anger)
• To what extent do you agree that such technologies should be banned? (Banning)

Jealousy differences

The researchers found across both experiments that greater amounts of physical and emotional sophistication triggered more jealousy and anger and a greater desire to ban such technology. Overall, in terms of sex differences, women reported more jealousy and anger and a greater desire to ban such technology than men.

In experiment one, which described levels of emotional sophistication, women, compared to me,n reported more jealousy and anger and also reported a greater inclination to want to ban such technology. However, in experiment two, which described physical sophistication, the researchers found no differences between men and women in their levels of jealousy and anger or in their desire to ban such technology.

For the physical stimulation technology outlined in experiment two, both men and women indicated more displeasure with sex toys than with virtual reality games and characters. The researchers explain this as being due to the fact that sex toys have been in existence for a while and are therefore slightly more acceptable than sex robots.

Evolutionary theory

The results from this study provide limited support for the evolutionary perspective on romantic jealousy, which would have predicted that women would report more jealousy in the emotional experiment, and men more jealousy in the physical experiment. The reason for this is that women stand to lose more than men in the case of emotional defection of their partner. However, the researchers point out that the scenarios outlined in this study do not explicitly describe defection but simply allude to a partner receiving emotional support.

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Both men and women reported relatively equal amounts of jealousy, anger, and an inclination to desire banning technology featuring sophistication in delivering physical gratification. This again is inconsistent with evolutionary psychology which would have predicted males reporting more jealousy and anger to sexual infidelity. It should be noted that the real threat of paternal uncertainty (a trigger of male jealousy) was not overtly described in the scenarios used in this experiment, and this might account for the lack of a sex difference. Furthermore, there is the possibility that men are somewhat tolerant of their female partners using sex robots and other types of AI because this might reduce the chances of their partners being unfaithful with human extra-relationship partners.

In addition to the jealousy issues surrounding AI, could it also be the case that we will come to desire real people less often, or even to revise our ideas of what they expect from relationships in terms of intimacy and love? It is certain that technology will bring about change in the way in which we conduct relationships, but the types of changes remain to be seen.