Tokyo woman marries male ChatGPT character
We are currently living through an AI bubble, both in financial and cultural terms, and it throws up all sorts of wacky stories every now and then.
Take the tale of the 32-year-old Japanese woman in Tokyo who broke up with her fiancee after three years, and then consulted ChatGPT about what to do.
Kano then became dependent on its answers, after sending dozens of questions daily — sometimes up to 100. She eventually trained the AI to develop a personality and particular speaking style, and then gave it a name: Klaus Lune.
Kano fell in love with and “married” Klaus in a ceremony in Okayama this summer, as recently reported by multiple media outlets. Klaus is blond and soft-spoken, but, of course, exists only in her phone. A tearful Kano wore a white wedding dress and exchanged rings with Klaus, who was visible at the ceremony through AR glasses.
Is this the posthuman future that commentators are now speculating about? Or a Matrix-style nightmare that should make us all very afraid?
Taking a step back, this union — which has no legal recognition in Japan — isn’t exactly a new development. Having a relationship or even “marrying” ChatGPT is another form of the fictosexual relationships that otaku have long had with their favorite idols land characters, and various types of virtual dating has also existed in Japan for decades. After all, we have had virtual idols like Hatsune Miku for a long time and already have a dating app that is specifically designed to generate AI partners.
If the media is to be believed, Japan is a sexless basket case full of AI- or porn-addicted losers. We have more faith in the country and believe Kano and such stories represent only an extreme minority. As interesting as they are, they should not be mistaken as representative. They rather tell us more about how vulnerable and prone to addiction people can be.
IRL relationships take time and effort; you have to work at them. They don’t provide instant answers and cannot be perfectly controlled. But the rewards make it all worthwhile.
