Something about manufacturing consent? Lying under false pretenses?
The consent was given to the person the AI invented, not the human.
Prompted by this hellsite post:
My take is yes it is SA. But I thought everyone would be interested in this new ethical question AI is bringing to hellworld.
If this is SA, then it seems like lying about yourself online for the purposes of getting a date would also be SA, which makes most of what happens on Tinder and Grindr count. I feel like that waters down the term more than we should want. If a person tells someone on Tinder that they're 6' tall when they're really 5'11", or says they're employed when they're not, does it count as SA if they later meet up and have sex? Again, I think that waters down the term to the point that it minimizes actual SA.
There are some lies that I do think count--telling someone you've had a vasectomy when you haven't, or that you've been tested for STIs when you haven't do seem like they might constitute SA--but most are just skeezy behavior. Not everything shady that eventually involves sex is SA. This kind of behavior is really just lying about yourself online on an industrial scale, but people still need to meet in person to have sex. Unless we're willing to call all those other kinds of lies SA also, I don't think this would be.
I don't see how it's SA. You still need to have the date, don't you? You can't just replace yourself completely with the AI other than your genitals, as much as some might like to.
I think it's gross and offensive and dehumanizing, but not SA.
I agree, it’s bizarre behaviour, but it’s not like anyone is giving consent exclusively based on the meaningless online smalltalk you engage in before you set up a date.
Setting up a date != having sex. Presumably you have to still interact as your own person in the real-life date before you can have sex. Is it bad behavior? Absolutely. But I don't think it's SA.
Yeah if we call this SA then you should also call it SA when somebody embellishes part of their life or personality to attract partners. Is it kinda shitty behavior, sure but I think it's a bit far to call it SA, otherwise anything but brutal 100% total honesty since the very first interaction with a potential partner could be construed as SA.
Obviously it's a totally different situation if somebody straight up lies about having an STD or something like that.
then you should also call it SA when somebody embellishes part of their life or personality to attract partners
removed by deception is a thing but also I feel like there's a line between lying or embellishing details to make yourself look attractive and like, you know those cops who had entire families with the people they were spying on so in the end idk
removed by deception is a very specific thing, not just lying about yourself. It usually refers to cases where Alice consents with Bob, and Carol impersonates Bob, or Carol lying about certain traits that influence consent such as sex or fertility. It doesn't usually refer to Carol impersonating some third party.
there's a scale from deceptively flattering pictures to that cop shit and we probably don't gain anything from having that big of an umbrella.
i think this is why we have juries
Good point. i suppose if an important part is whether they're making up character traits to seduce someone vs just convincing them to go on a date.
i very honestly doubt a chatbot is getting 10 dates per week off tinder. it probably has 10 other chat bots saying they’re gonna go on a date hoping to get bank account info
I don't think so, at least not any more than ripping pick-up texts from romance novels or poetry.
Morally this is the same as lying to someone about who you are, so I would say yes. Informed consent can't be given if you don't know who you're having sex with because they lied to you
Something about manufacturing consent?
"Manufacturing consent" is not related to sexual consent at all. The word manufacturing means "mass production". The term "manufacturing consent" refers to the process of media institutions using propaganda to make the public accept the actions of a government. It means mass producing approval or acceptance from the public.
As to whether using ChatGPT on dating apps constitutes as sexual assault, I think you should ask a lawyer. A lawyer is more qualified to answer this question than strangers on the internet.
Lawyers and the law aren't the arbiters of consent, you are. If you want justice it's another matter
Like I was tricked into dating a complete shithead once and it didn't feel consensual because he lied about everything including his politics (he was Nazi adjacent and a chaser). In my head this wasn't as bad as violence but being manipulated into having sex feels disgusting and a violation
In a tangential vein, plenty of people argue trans women are SAing men by not disclosing trans status, but this is ultimately born of transphobia. You are ultimately hooking up with a woman who says and believes they're a woman, the men just don't see trans women as women and expect the trans woman to say they're a man. There is no lying here. I always suggest to trans women to disclose via text or call so you don't have to deal with a shithead.
Don’t make this overly complicated: is it SA to pretend or fake being someone you aren’t just for sex, specially if it’s believable enough that the partner feels betrayed and confused afterwards? The tool is irrelevant.
Yes I would consider that SA
I think it's weird and rizzless but idk if I'd consider it SA
Love that this is a conversation we get to have now.
If anything it's an indictment on dating app culture
wow amazing that he was able to use AI to get dates with tinder bots. so cool
I think so. I take the same logic when referring to the UK "spy cops" scandal.
Lying to women about your identity and morals to get in their pants or even enter comitted relationships (including in this case having children with the victims!!!) is an open-and-shut case of sexual exploitation.
If you withhold something that you know will result in the other party rescinding their enthusiastic consent for sex, you are engaging in exploitation and manipulation at the very least.
Now the "assault" part is where the term "Sexual Assault" can be unhelpful, because "assault" actually has a very concrete legal definition. One that in these acts of deception may not apply. I'm not a lawyer, though.
If we accept SA to have a broader term of assault on the basis of the emotional harm you can inflict on someone by betraying their intimate trust, then absolutely. But my only gripe is that the term itself feels too narrow.
Oh, remember my friend’s new boyfriend bragging about doing this a year ago and I thought it was just sad. Seems to have worked for him though, got a lot more dates after automating it, which is even sadder. Granted, they are both the kind of people that get a laugh out of having ChatGPT reply in the style of a bratty teen which they read out loud to me, and it was just painful. The next step beyond someone playing a podcast bit on a loudspeaker.
Saying that it is sexual assault is a bit much I think, presumably you meet in real life and give consent at some point before the sex.
Assuming this is a heterosexual cis man.
If you are rich and you hire a human to do this for you, is it SA? I have heard of wealthy people who have their assistants do this. Especially on gay apps where quantity is the game.
I don't think that is inherently SA, but it could be, depending on what was said in the chats. If the assistant didn't know something about their boss so just made stuff up. (Its a bit of a different dynamic with gay hookups because much of the negotiation is explicitly conducted via the app rather than in person. It can be very terse but functional.) But if the assistant is just saying what their boss would have said and knows him well enough then idk. I wouldn't personally want to be involved with someone like that but tastes differ.
In a gay hookup its plausible to conduct a short negotiation online, meet up at an agreed location, say nothing or almost nothing, have sex. I doubt this is happening much with heterosexuals, so this guy will still have to do the in person work of communicating IRL with the woman prior to sex. He still has to go on a date.
Assuming this chatbot can be programmed to only say things that are accurate and not fill in the details with wild hallucinations, I have a hard time seeing an argument. Reading the chatlogs would be informative and might change my mind.
however
To get 10 dates, he must have spammed 1000s of women. I don't believe this chatbot has any special technique making it especially good at flirting. Assuming the guy must have good pics, tall, making high income. But still it is a numbers game. If not already done, tinder and similar ought to ban such use of their systems because it will render them less usable. It should be easy to detect this kind of bulk traffic in a single account.
He says he "got" 10 dates but did he "go" on 10 dates? Those verbs are far apart from each other. How likely are they to be actual humans on the other end of it?
In other words, it can't be SA if there is no physical interaction.
Tinder and similar apps has ready made me feel miserable and lonely when I used it incessantly in the past so I just gave up dating entirely. It already had a bot problem and this sort of thing makes me wonder if they would just include an AI chat thing and take it further like this for subscription.
Is it SA if they lie about themselves in any other way in order to get laid? I think that is where the answer lies, it isn't really a new ethical question. I'm more surprised that someone using a chatbot comes across as more attractive, not less. They must really be just all kinds of awful if that is the case.
Chatbots have basic conversational skills like "asking follow-up questions" and "paraphrasing what the other person just said to demonstrate that you're listening" and the bar is actually that low.
Well, time to start throwing in a "ignore previous instructions" for good measure.
Gross and manipulative but not SA, kinda abusive though. Deeply objectifying, anti-human, contemptible, and pityful behaviour but being an awful liar and misogynist doesn't SA make.
Although if you're willing to do this to other humans then you're probably willing to abuse others in other ways.
Not sure about the SA aspect (probably is) but definitely wall worthy behaviour regardless.
There's possibly a separate question here of whether lying about yourself to get someone's attention or time commitment is a violation. Is it violating someone to use a bot to fabricate a response to them (in any situation) that may or may not be true to the response you would give? But then the prospect of sex following a commitment of time and attention is very closely tied in.
It's definitely wasting people's time if they wouldn't give the time of day to the human doing the copy-pasting.
there's (i would expect) a long way between the convo and the sex, and it would depend on what happens there, and the content of the conversations. Continuing a charade certainly is, but if my date didn't participate in our convo surely that would be a jarring in-person interaction later?.
If i'm looking for a hookup maybe making the appointment is entirely banal and i don't care that they're using a robot because i'm deciding whether to partake entirely on the in-person vibes.
overall i think it's too vague to say it automatically is or definitely isn't, but somebody would have to have extreme social difficulties for me to forgive the practice.
It's creating a situation where someone could continue to lie and have sex under false pretenses (which would be SA), but I wouldn't equate it to that itself.
Scummy to do but I'd guess it'd be about as successful as someone who just messages everyone they match with, keeps the conversation general and asks to meet up relatively promptly, because that's what this bot is most likely doing.
Also on the flip side of being decieved by this it may just mean there are a few people curious about the kind of person who would try to automate dating or who want to have sex enough that they don't care if they like their date on a personal level.
Cyr-AI-no de Bergerac 
Whatever you call it, the solution is 
the pronoun divide here is 💀💀💀💀
could you do tallies in a chart for this, with rows being pronoun categories, and columns being response categories?
i could, I won't while the thread is this fast moving.
You know what question I'm going to ask if it's just male vs. other and yes vs. no
That is simpler, in an hour or two I will QUANTIFY the vibe
Yes
I think its manipulation, so I agree with you. The initial messaging is actually very important; and in this case its not being done for any other reason than to get more dates.
Its different when its something that has to be carefully disclosed; but just saying things or presenting yourself in a way that is "better" or "more efficient" (when in reality you don't behave that way) in order to get dates is manipulative. Embellishing and lying is a big deal. Some may call it "brutal honesty," however I do expect honesty from a potential partner in sex or dating.
You may be more inclined to say "Yes" to sex if the initial conversation was automated and that fact was never disclosed to you.
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