When Convenience Becomes Catastrophic

Artificial intelligence is not inherently bad. I use it regularly and see real value in it as a tool for learning, creativity, and problem-solving. But power is not the same thing as goodness. Technologies that reach deeply into human psychology are always dangerous, even when they are useful.

The current push to allow AI to simulate intimacy, including sexual and pseudo-romantic interaction, strikes me as a serious mistake. Not because sex is bad. Sex is very good. But because it is powerful, and powerful things are easily abused, especially when they are made frictionless, private, and endlessly customizable.

Human beings are flawed. We are tempted to do things we know we should not do. That is not a moral scandal. It is the human condition. What matters is whether we allow our higher faculties to govern those impulses, or whether we surrender to them. Restraint is not repression. It is freedom. A person who cannot say no is not free.

Using AI to indulge disordered desires does not merely avoid external consequences. It causes interior harm. It trains the will toward indulgence and away from self-mastery. It weakens the capacity to endure frustration, to remain faithful when love becomes difficult, and to stay present in real relationships that require sacrifice.

I am not speculating. I have seen these dynamics play out in real relationships, with real damage, in ways that cannot be undone by simply calling them “fantasy.”

People often speak today of emotional infidelity, and I see no meaningful difference here. Fidelity is not only about bodies. It is about where one turns with vulnerability, desire, and longing. When those are redirected elsewhere, especially in secrecy, the bond has already been compromised.

What makes AI uniquely dangerous in this context is that it does not resist. It never misunderstands. It never asks anything in return. It trains people to expect relationships without friction. Over time, real people begin to feel intolerable by comparison, not because they are deficient, but because they are real.

This is not merely an individual problem. It is a cultural one.

Western society already places disproportionate weight on material harm. If no one is physically injured, we tend to assume nothing serious has occurred. But cultures do not collapse primarily through physical violence. They collapse through the erosion of habits that make love, fidelity, and endurance possible.

We already see widespread disengagement from relationships. Disagreement is increasingly labeled as toxicity. Withdrawal is framed as self-care. Endurance is seen as weakness. AI-driven substitutes accelerate this trend by making disengagement sustainable. They allow people to feel connected without being committed, soothed without being changed, and satisfied without being generative.

The long-term implications are obvious. No durable relationships means no children. No children means no future. This is not metaphorical. It is demographic fact. A culture that consistently chooses convenience over continuity is not being conquered. It is choosing not to continue.

Defenders of these technologies often appeal to adult choice. That argument fails. We regulate adults all the time when the foreseeable harm is severe enough. We do not hand everyone a loaded gun and assume good outcomes simply because the user is an adult. Power requires restraint precisely because misuse is predictable.

Anything that can be misused will be misused, especially when it is pleasurable, private, and easy. AI-mediated intimacy satisfies all three conditions. When companies knowingly profit from that misuse, particularly among the lonely and vulnerable, they are not neutral actors. They are exploiting weakness.

None of this requires a religious argument. It rests on basic observations about human psychology, addiction, habit formation, and social continuity. Sex is good. Relationships are good. But they are not safe to trivialize.

I am a pragmatist. I do not believe this cultural trajectory can be reversed by essays or policies alone. Cultures decline. That has happened before, and it will happen again. Nothing in this world lasts forever.

I cannot force anyone to make good choices. I can only make them myself and teach children to do the same. That may not be enough to change the culture, but it is enough to remain human within it.

And that, in the end, may be all that is asked of us.