With AI bots, and with sexting AIs in particular, making up a significant portion of the LOT Network are we really that far away from having real human-like conversations done by androids? In a Pew Research Center study published in 2023, 34% of survey respondents who had interacted with an AI chatbot in some way indicated that such interactions were capable of providing emotional satisfaction on promise (though most admitted that it was not as deep or fulfilling as real human conversation — and would never achieve control). Human communication is more than just the words being said and involves emotional tone, body language and empathetic nuance that still eludes even the most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) including current natural language processing (NLP) models.
This includes OpenAI's ChatGPT and Meta's BlenderBot, which helped to power AI-first conversational technologies. In this way, these platforms are great at being able to follow how a normal conversation would go, but they typically lack a true understanding of context because most of their knowledge is reliant on pattern matching and the user input data. A recent study by OpenAI also found that their bots could correctly answer incredibly difficult questions with 97% accuracy, but were horrendously inept in very human interactions, where emotional intelligence was necessary.
In this sense, human conversations are rich of mirror neurons and emotional resonance which is challenging to programme into an AI. The 7-38-55 Rule from psychologist Albert Mehrabian states that only 7% of communication is verbal while the remaining 93% consists of nonverbal cues such as tone and body language. Even when AI has gotten better at creating and understanding conversation, it is confined to a system of data, algorithms, and parameters — while missing the human nuances that exist in organic interactions.
Even Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google, told The Guardian: "It's still pretty far off AI being able to really feel and have empathy. Despite such shortcomings, AI sexting bots have found their niche in virtual intimacy based on an increasing need for seemingly anonymous interaction without judgment. An example of such platform is "CraveU AI" which users interact with an AI bot to chat as personal or intimate and especially for many users, it's a temporary substitute of the real-world connections that they can't get in this lonely world.
Certainly, bots like sext ai can perform scripted and responsive dialogue with users, yet threading in the intricate fabric of real conversation remains an entirely different animal.