It Could Happen Here - How AI Companies are Monetizing Intimacy, Ft. Bridget Todd

Episode Date: August 19, 2026

Garrison talks with Bridget Todd about how personally intimate AI chatbots are creating a new form of emotional surveillance and why focusing just on “AI girlfriends” overlooks the need to regulate emotionally manipulative AI and for-profit tech companies. Sources:  https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Love-at-First-Prompt/Bridget-Todd/9781668179826 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. If your bookshelf and your for-you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions. Yeah, I'm obsessed.

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I am talking to a felon right now with face tattoos, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. That was a caller from my podcast, Therapy Gecko, where I speak with anonymous callers about their problems, relationships, and anything else in the depths of their mind. It all happens on my show, Therapy Gecko. So if you're trying to get out of your own head and into someone else's, this is the podcast for you. Listen to Therapy Gecko on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Nora Jones, and my podcast playing along is back with more of my favorite musicians. Check out my newest episode with Phineas.

So I went home and I asked Billy if she wanted to sing it. She immediately made it her own thing. You really know how to make me cry when you give me those ocean eyes. So come hang out with us in the studio and listen to Playing Along on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Also Media. Welcome back to It Could Happen here. I'm Garrison Davis. Today we have a very special episode because we are talking once again to Bridget Todd, who we've had on a few times. But Bridget has a new book.

Love at First Prompt, A-I-N, The Future of Intimacy. and we will be discussing how AI companies are trying to sell you love and how that might have a few problems beyond the sort of base conceit that I think, you know, everyone can pick up on. There might even be more problems underneath the hood. So thank you, Bridget, for coming on. Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be back here.

How did you first decide this is something that you want to like dedicate months of your life to researching? Yeah, that's a great place to start. start, I think like a lot of folks listening, I would hear these stories about individuals who would say things like, I am in love with Chad GPT, or I am having some sort of intimate sexual relationship with an AI companion. And I can admit that my reaction to a lot of those headlines were something is wrong with this person, this person is pathetic, or maybe this person is super lonely, super sad, they're putting themselves at great risk for harm. And, you know, I once had

this therapist who told me that judgment and curiosity could not coexist. And so I realized I was really treating these stories with such kind of knee-jerk negative reaction and judgment. And then I heard Mark Zuckerberg on a podcast talking about how he thought in 10 years time, well, everybody, including everybody listening, was going to have AI friends, AI companions. He said that most people don't feel like they have enough friends to have a nourishing social life. And that in the future, it won't be a big deal if all of us have AI companion. So what he didn't say is that it would be AI that he owns, operates, and profits from. But I got to thinking, you know, if Mark Zuckerberg and other tech leaders are designing

futures involving technology where they believe this will be commonplace, whether the average person wants it to be or not, we should really be looking to the people who are already there to tell us what brought them to experiencing intimacy with AI and what the risks and ramifications might be. It's time to stop treating these people like pathetic freak shows and sort of listening to what they're actually saying because it could behoove all of us to know where we could be headed. No, the freak show aspect, I think, is as a real inhibitor towards actually understanding this problem. Because, I mean, a lot of the first sort of reports around this sort of thing, like AI girlfriends, right? It has this sort of freakshare element. Even the way that we maybe talk about this on the show

when we're, like, reporting at CES, you know, we walk through all these, you know, ridiculous AI gadgets, you know? We saw like, you know, like an AI sex doll, essentially, you know, that has like a very like low quality chat bot component that can't really, you know, understand what you're saying very often.

But I think it is a mistake to just assume that this tech will always stay in its kind of janky form. This stuff is rapidly advancing. It is, it is going to get better. And just kind of denying that, I think, sort of pushes the problem, you know, down the road.

Yeah. And like, no, this is, this, this is a real problem now. And this requires like regulation and intense, intense like intervention right now. And just to kind of assuming that as is all like all these like little niche things, only, you know, crazy people are going to fall for this. The tech is bad. I think that that is, I think, overlooking what is legitimately like a, you know, a society-wide problem. Yes. I am so glad you said that because one of the researchers that I interviewed for the audiobook, Love at First Prompt, is Dr. Kate Devlin. She was really one of the first people to sort of

take seriously the intersection of AI and robots and intimacy. And when she first started doing this, the place that she started looking was exactly the kind of thing that you saw at CES, right? These physical life-size sex bots that were also enabled with a kind of, at the time, low-grade AI chatbot quality. Yeah. If you were around a few years ago, you probably saw so much breathless reporting that was like, oh, men are going to be buying these sex dolls.

Yes. They're going to not need wives and girlfriends, all that. Now, that ended up sort of not being the case. People do buy those sex dolls, but they're really expensive. They're not really that practical. So they're really kind of a super niche thing. What did take off was the AI intimacy part of that. That's what Dr. Devlin really saw.

She said, the physical bot part of this is probably not going to take off in mainstream ways. The AI companion, AI intimacy chatbot feature of these physical dolls, that's what we're going to see kind of become more mainstream. And, you know, again, a lot of people listening probably think this sounds really niche. But I think Pew said that one in ten Americans already use AI for some form of intimacy. That's about as many Americans are left-handed. Yeah. When you look at younger folks, folks under 30, that number jumps to one in five,

who are already using AI for some sort of emotional support. So this idea that it's this niche thing. Yeah. Only weirdos are doing it really. isn't alive with what we're actually seeing. This is, I think, part of the problem with, like, living in your own little internet silo, right? Because, like, you and your blue sky friends

might think that no one uses AI, knowing that, you know, serious, no one that I know would use AI, right? There's this sort of, like, ideological, like, resistance to AI. And I think that is a very isolating look at the world. Because while that might be true for you and your friends online or maybe your social circle, there is millions of people who go through the world

every day who use these things. And they just think of it as like an extension of the internet, right? Because that's what it is for a lot of people. Like that is what it is. They don't have these sorts of like moral frameworks around whether or not you should use Claude, whether or not you should use chat GPT that I think you see among a certain strain of like, you know, like liberal, like leftist online. And the other thing that kind of, what that silo produces is that it makes it so that I think

it's hard to understand that for people using these tools every day, the same way you might use a search engine, right? The same way you might use, you know, a real friend to like bounce ideas off of how much that sort of regular use can develop a sort of intimate component. The line between AI girlfriend and tool you talk to online might not be as like clear as what some people might first assume. I know this is something that you discussed in the book. I mean that's, that's one of the things I think to be, it's one of the most interesting is like how fuzzy this kind of barrier actually is. Oh, yes. So even before I was deeply interested and sort of consuming, on this topic, one of the most fascinating things that I witnessed and sort of saw with my own

eyes was when ChatGBTGBT changed models, you know, they had that 4-0 model. So do you remember that was the model that like people were really developing these intimate connections with because it was so sycophantic, it was so kind of human like, quote unquote, when you asked it a question that wouldn't just say, here's the answer, it would be like, here, you're so perceptive or even asking such a smart question. Yeah. And so what really deeply fascinated me was that when OpenAI switched that model to make it less sick, authentic, less sort of glazing, less complimentary, people who did not report that they were having any kind of intimate connection with AI who would not have said I have an AI girlfriend or AI companion who were just using it exactly as you described like a search engine. Those same people got online and expressed something like grief.

No, absolutely. Yeah. I remember reading someone on a Reddit form saying, it feels as if my friendly cheerleader in my pocket got replaced overnight with a terse overworked secretary. And so I think you're exactly right that our brains are designed to project human qualities and human intimacy onto things that we know are logically not human. And it really, the way that these things are designed really easily blurs that line for folks. I mean, it's trying to be as human as possible for its own, for its own reason so that people use it. more so that it's not, you know, a cold emotionalist AI that is maybe a little bit hostile to the

user. Obviously, they don't want that. So, so yeah, they wanted to be approachable, but I think the specific thing you're talking about, the switching from, from one GPT model to the other, from this, like, overly, like, you know, praising kind of like, almost, almost annoyingly so model towards something that is a little bit more cold. We produce these reactions online with people that are like basically acting like a friend died. And like that was essentially what it was. Imagine if you were talking to, you know, a real person online for like two years. And then suddenly they stopped or suddenly they had a complete personality change.

And it's like like there was no way to talk to that other person again. That is basically the equivalent of like what happened to a lot of people. Yeah. I think it's easy to make fun of that or to other people who report this. But I don't think that it's really right to discount the way that online connections really do make people feel and really feel like they are validating and filling a need that people have. You know, it's easy to say, oh, it's just an online friend or an online community or an AI bot. I've talked to people who said, oh, this video game that I was obsessed with, it's gone. And I, you know, this has filled my life for two years.

Yeah. That's real. Radio experience with Cameron Wickham live at the Rhyman. You and a pal with flights and two nights in Nashville. To see Cameron Wickham at the legendary Rhyman Auditorium. Plus a thousand dollar spending cash. Just listen to Pure Country for 10 minutes a day on the free IHard radio app and you're in to win. Cameron Wickham.

Stream the new single Kingdom of Fear. Available now. If your bookshelf and your for you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the

conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much,

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I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me. I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. There's stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to the Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Well, it's that time again.

Backpacks. first day of school outfits and the low-key anxiety of, am I even doing this right? Good mom's bad choices is diving into the back to school season the way only we know how. Unfiltered, funny, and full of the moments other shows won't touch. From surviving morning drop-offs to the guilt

of missing the first bake sale. I already told me that she, next season, she wants to join a club team that's by your house. So I was like, so you want me to pick you up from school. I'll take her by my house. But then I have to take her there, and then I have to drive back. And then some days I'm here and I have to go pick you up at school and then bring you

I was just like, hell no. This is a space where moms trade the highlight reel for the real real real. Whether you're a new mom, a veteran mom, or just trying to make it to pick up on time. This season of Good Mom's Bad Choices is for you. Listen to Good Mom's Bad Choices from the Black Effect podcast network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Do you want to get into some of the sort of problems beneath the surface of this, beyond the sort of, you know, maybe socially alienating

aspects, the issues of people having to turn towards these things to kind of have some connection, but actually now kind of discuss the motivations of the companies behind these products and like why they are designing them this way and the sort of risks inherent towards having these sorts of tools be run by and owned by companies with like for profit incentives. I mean, you really said it. I think that we are spending. far too much time looking at individual users and sort of moralizing about what brings individual people to this kind of connection with AI.

It kind of goes back to what you were saying about, you know, I'm not a big AI person myself, but I think that it goes back to this idea of conversations about the ethics around AI use, being hyper-focused on individuals, whether or not individuals are good or bad or pathetic or this or that, if they use AI, when really I think the conversation has to be about the companies and what the companies and the people who run them are doing, how they are designing this AI because I can tell you, AI chat bots like chat GPT are intentionally designed to keep you talking and to keep you engaged because they want you to be more and more locked into their AI.

You know, I went through a personal crisis myself where I was caring for my dying father and was really thrust into a medical situation that was. way above my pay grade as a podcaster. And I will admit that in moments of extreme vulnerability turn to AI to try to get questions answered about navigating insurance companies, navigating Medicare, Medicaid, all of that. Sure. And the way that Chachipit did not just give me the answer or try to give me something that looked like an answer, it was, this seems really hard. Are you asking? Because you're dealing with this yourself? Yeah. And so it's the way that AI is designed to ask increasingly intimate, sensitive questions of the people who use it with intention. I think that it's not any wonder that individuals might find themselves becoming ensnared in that

because that's exactly how they were designed by these for-profit companies. Yeah, I mean, if you're asking it, like, you know, logistical problems, you help, help me navigate the process to file an insurance claim, you know, using it as this sort of, like, you know, advanced, like, internet assistant. But then in doing so, it kind of latches on to, you know, vulnerabilities that they can infer from the, from the types of questions you're asking and try to, like, you know, coax out more information. That, I mean, that, that's like an incredibly insidious process. You know, you want, you want it to help with, like, a very, you know, direct task. And then in its sly way of, of maybe doing that, it's trying to, like, introduce

this sort of, like, personal therapeutic element. And, like, what happens to that data? Like, what is it using that sort of record of your own personal experiences for? I am sad to report the answer is we don't really know recently. I mean, that's really just what it is. The FTC recently asked some of the major AI chatbot companies to give clarity about how these companies are monetizing engagement and how they are using the sort of intimate, personal, sensitive information that is obtained through these conversations. So we really don't know a ton.

But to your point, you know, it's not just Chad GPT knows when I'm lonely. Chad GPT knows when I'm sad or scared. It's Chad GPT, this computer, knows exactly what works on me when I am lonely or vulnerable or scared. Sure. And so that, to me, opens up an entire new level of potential for surveillance and control. And so people have asked me a lot of times, you know, is it so bad if people are getting fulfillment or emotional support? from AI. The question is really not if it's bad or good or pathetic or not or whatever. It's, what are the companies doing? Are the companies behaving ethically? And are they really honoring

the deep, sensitive nature of the information they are intentionally harvesting from people often at their lowest or most vulnerable moments? I'm going to reckon to say probably not. I think that the interests of these companies are probably slightly different from your personal interest as a person. Or, you know, obviously, like the sort of interest of like, you know, a therapist or a friend. Immediate guesses is first an evolution of advertising, like how the search engine optimization has transformed from companies trying to optimize for Google Search to now trying to optimize for LLMs like ChatGPT.

And to have your products be recommended to users by ChatGPT, by creating posts online, specifically intending for those posts to be read by ChatGPT, and then regurgitated back to the user. And for the past few months, OpenAI has been experimenting with ways to make direct purchases through ChatGPT, and of course companies pay OpenAI

just to put full ads at the bottom of your chat GPT logs oftentimes based on your query. The other thing is more so kind of like the Walmart, like Uber model, of like they introduce a service that is very cheap to start, possibly free. And then people get hooked on the service and then they jack out the price, which is kind of what Open AI's main model has been thus far. And I can see that becoming a real

problem. If you have thousands, millions of people who use this tool, both as like a tool online, you know, this is an extension of types of things that the internet has like been operating on for years, but using them in this much more personally manipulative way because of this sort of, you know, emotional, intimate component of like you're talking to something that now just doesn't send information back to you, but talks back to you like a person does. And if that is one of the primary ways you interact with the internet, you can easily get hooked on that. And then once they're hooked on that, chat GPT can start boosting that price. Exactly. And I think these products are only going to get better and better at convincing us that you're talking to a person, not AI. And I think the more that

happens, the easier it becomes to sort of forget that you are actually disclosing intimate information to a private company, depending on what AI are using, a company that has incredibly cozy ties to the Trump administration. So when people ask me, like, is it bad to be in a relationship, quote unquote, with AI? I said, do you want to be in a relationship with Sam Altman? Do you want to be in a relationship with Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk or Donald Trump? That's really who you are in a relationship with and don't let the AI, their human-like flattering, you know, back and forth make you forget that reality. Do you have any sorts of idea of what we should do about the problem, I guess? Has governments started to regulate the way that these AIs communicate with people?

Is there efforts to kind of adopt our privacy policies to this like new emerging threat, I guess? Yeah, that's a really good question. So I would say the most clear-cut legislation we see in China, folks might have heard that China's government just recently cracked down on AI companions and the ways that AI companions can be designed to connect with people. They've really cracked down on that. Interestingly, in the United States, we're not really having that conversation in the same way. It might not surprise you to find out that the main legislative interest in the United States is really kind of focused on minors. And this kind of, this kind of, of idea that minors are using AI companions for things like inappropriate erotic role play. And what's so interesting about that, there's two pieces of legislation moving through right now, neither of which have been turned into law, but they really are quite concerned about minors and sort of sexualizing minors. And when you actually look at the research about how

minors use AI, things like sex and romance are actually way down on the list, much higher on the list is emotional support and advice. And so again, we are always going to this sort of most extreme iteration of the way that AI intimacy is actually showing up for people, whether they're adults or minors, and going right to legislating romance and sex, when in actuality, the much more common use case is things like emotionality and advice. Yeah, that is a really troubling instinct. There's a bunch of the internet regulation going on right now is all, you know, focused on this sort of hysteria in some ways, you know, there is real problems with the way that the internet exploits children, obviously. But the way that we are, you know, going about it, resulting in

many just proposals to end up giving more of your information over to these companies or the government doesn't feel like it's going to solve many of the sort of base problems here and completely overlooks the main way that people use these tools. I mean, if I had a nickel for every time I've seen a story about, this is also an extreme case, but not like a sexual one, but like a kid, you know, discussing their like mental health leading to a suicide attempt with an AI system or discussing something as extreme as like, you know, like a public act of violence, like a shooting. And the AI essentially helping coax them into being able to do that, right? There's a bunch of problems that require like legitimate regulation, but the sort of like

puritanical, you know, sex crazy nature of our government. you know, specifically the Republicans, but also just like American culture in general is just going to be so ill-equipped to actually handle this sort of like a subtlety, a nuance of a lot of these problems. Yeah, you really put that well. And it's a little bit complicated because, as you said, there are real problems. There are real legislative and regulatory needs that we should be having real conversations about.

And I think it is so easy to get whipped up into a hysteria. It is so easy to say, we just need some kind of legislation. I need to feel like there is some sort of progress being made on this complex, scary, sensitive issue. And so I will get on board for legislation that is actually not really that good. Or legislation that doesn't even really meaningly address the actual problem, right? And so I think that we're in this really thorny place where even people that I think are reasonable, like leftists, whatever, can quite easily get on board. with legislation that really in the end might change the internet

in ways that we might not actually want because we were so whipped up into this moral panic about legislating technology in the internet. Radio experience with Cameron Wickcombe live at the Riemann. Flights and two nights in Nashville.

To see Cameron Whitcomb at the legendary Riemann Auditorium plus a thousand dollar spending caps. Just listen to Pure Country for 10 minutes a day on the free eye radio app and you're in to win. Cameron Wickham. Stream the new single, Kingdom of Fear. Available now.

If your bookshelf and your for-you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story.

I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.

Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to pro. Society on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months.

I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files. I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, shut up. Don't say anything. Every week, I'm with survivors who lived through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me. I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.

They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. There's stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to the Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Well, it's that time again. Backpacks, first day of school outfits, and the low-key anxiety of, am I even doing this right? Good Mom's Bad Choices is diving into the back-to-school season the way only we know how. Unfiltered, funny, and full of the moments other shows won't touch.

From surviving morning drop-offs to the guilt of missing the first bake season. sale. Irie told me that she, next season, she wants to join a club team that's by your house. So I was like, so you want me to pick you up from school? I'll take her by my house. But then I have to take her there and then I have to drive back. And then some days I'm here and I have to go pick you up at school and then bring you that. I was just like, hell no.

This is a space where moms trade the highlight reel for the real real real. Whether your new mom, a veteran mom, or just trying to make it to pick up on time. This season of Good Mom's Bad Choices is for you. you listen to Good Mom's Bad Choices from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. The lack of focus on the specific companies, you know, just talking about these things is like abstract technologies. Instead of actually talking about, no, these are like specific companies who are doing specific things and that the government can regulate in a specific way. Will that be the Trump government? Probably not. But I don't think slash hope that Trump won't be in power forever. full fee.

And we may as well use these next two years to try to build more public support for actual sensible regulation at the federal level. When I was at D.C., going to that liberal convention, which I've talked about

on the show last week, I did go to a panel with Representative Don Beyer who is getting either a master's or a PhD in computer science right now, specifically to help him do AI regulation. And he said he's not optimistic about AI being regulated in a serious way while Trump is in power because of how much

these companies have tried to cozy up to Trump and Trump's trying to shut down, state's attempts to regulate certain things. But he does have hope that in our next Congress or in the next presidential administration, there will be the opportunity to regulate these companies on a federal level. And in the meantime, states can push for their own regulation. States can try to put certain safety measures in place. but I think right now it would definitely behoove us to take this technology as a real legitimate threat, not something that's just going to go away in the next few years, not something that the bubble's going to pop any day now, any day now it's going to pop.

As nice as that is to tell yourself that is kicking the can down the road in like a real sense. And this thing is having very real impacts. I mean, people are focused obviously on like the data center question. But I think that that really is the same base problem. is that do we have an opposition to these things in this sort of abstract technological sense or do we have an opposition to these tools being developed by and for for-profit companies

who want to make money off of us? For me, that is the main problem. If you want to be like a Luddite, that was also the Luddites main problem. They weren't opposed to technology in this abstract sense, but the specific way that it was transforming production to benefit capitalists instead of workers.

And if we want to think about, the internet in the same way, what's happening is that they're deploying these technologies to benefit the people that own these tech companies rather than regular people. And if we can think about regulating on that basis, not just in complete opposition to these things, I think that might actually have a lot more positive outcomes because these things are going to get developed. These things are going to get built. I don't think we're going to be able to totally shut down AI as an industry in the next few years. I just don't see that being possible. Think about in the 90s, do you think they could have like shut down the like the internet as an emerging technology?

this is where all capital is going. The most hope that I have is looking at something like the Stop Data Center movement as an opportunity to educate people about how these companies are profiting off of us. And maybe we can team up together across party lines, across, you know, whatever, to actually have a sort of a popular front against these tech companies so that the internet and that, you know, these advanced tools can actually exist in a way that is democratically decided and actually to the benefit of people and not like three dudes who are overdosing on ketamine every week in San Francisco.

I completely agree with you. I think while we are all sort of like having this conversation, specific tech companies are increasingly making forays into the most intimate inner parts of our lives. OpenAI just announced their first ever consumer hardware product. And you could probably guess what that product is going to. to be, it's going to be a hockey puck-sized smart speaker that you put in your home that reacts to you like what they said, call a human-like AI companion, an intimate AI companion, and it will have the ability to mechanically, they say, follow you around from room for room in

your house. And so while we're all kind of having this conversation, you can bet your ass, these tech companies are increasingly trying to not just be the most powerful AI companies, but the most emotionally supportive, the most emotionally invasive. You know, we've all talked so much about the more kind of logistical elements of our digital selves, you know, our intellectual property, our browsing data, who gets to make money from that? But I firmly do believe the next iteration of the digital rights movement will be about our inner emotional lives and who gets to commodify that, who gets to profit from that. And so, you know, as grim as that sounds, I completely agree with you that I'm also,

incredibly optimistic about the moment that we're in when it comes to your average person's sentiment around things like big tech data centers, AI, commodifying every resource, whether that's our intimate emotional data or our environmental resources. I am incredibly optimistic that we are sort of on the right page collectively pushing back and saying, I don't know, these tech companies say that this is all going to be really great for us. Is it actually? Yeah, based on, let me look at the window briefly. Uh, no, no, I just, I don't think so. Let me look at my, uh, magic ape ball.

Sources say no. Signs points to, nah. Is there any other kind of a final points about your new audiobook that you would like to tease to the, uh, to the listeners before we sign off? Yeah, it is really accessible and the conversation is dark and hard and vulnerable, but also fun and funny and engaging. I talked to people who actually say that they have experienced intimacy with AI. And so if you ever wanted to go beyond the sort of clickbait headlines of some of these stories that you might have skimmed on social media, you hear directly from folks about what brought them into connection with AI, which I find fascinating.

I try to neg Chad Shev-EBT into having sex with me in the audiobook. If you want to find out if that worked or not, check it out. And then ultimately, again, I would say reporting the book made me very optimistic. one of the reasons why I'm so optimistic in this moment is that I just think when you actually look at the research and listen to what people are talking about when they talk about intimacy with AI, it just becomes incredibly clear that AI can never replace humans. AI cannot replace human labor. AI cannot replace what people are looking for when they look for nourishing connections and relationships. And so I kind of ended the audiobook feeling incredibly optimistic about the power of human connection and the power of human labor. and the desire that we all have to connect with each other that we know will never be replaced by AI.

I've seen that Spielberg movie. I think it's possible. I think it's possible. I think we could all have a kind of creepy seven-year-old AI bot soon. Oh my gosh. I will say I am kind of low-key obsessed with movies like that, like AI or Ex Machina or Blade Runner. I think that we're all so, it sounds like a niche thing. But when you look at pop culture, we have been interested in people who have. intimate connections with technology and AI for a really long time, myself included. No, I think that is a big part of how these companies are able to kind of pass this stuff off to people. It creates a sort of public buy-in because of like the pop culture idea of these things. Both the good and the bad, I think both the sort of apocalyptic versions of it make the company seem more legitimate and that makes investors excited because like, oh, this could actually

be a real thing, even if it causes bad things. You know, it's this sort of like a, you know, don't invent the Torment Nexus book being like, oh, this is a great idea. But I mean, also in like the Blade Runner sense, you know, these sorts of more like humanistic looks about like, what does it really mean to be human? You know, what actually is the line between artificial intelligence and humanity?

I think that that's sort of, you know, very like armchair philosophizing as that's in those sorts of films. It does make it easier for people to start to talk to these things like they could maybe be a person. In the more extreme cases, there was that like Google developer a few years ago who like quit or got fire and it was like I've discovered that Google's AI is a real person and I think it can it can really like encourage people to like want to almost create this sort of conscious humanity within these tools even if

those you know tools aren't even there yet but there's there's like there's like a desire to kind of if I talk to it enough maybe it will become human which again again this kind of serves back to where we started. There's these sorts of like, you know, very, very kind of based problems with the way that people use the internet to kind of solve this sort of, you know, social alienation and social disintegration that we have in our society and culture. The my main issue is that the way that companies glum on to that as an opportunity to make a lot of money. Yeah, I think that's exactly what we're seeing, you know, we have a loneliness issue that people have described as a epidemic right here in this country. We live under such oppressive structures that the idea of

doing the labor that it takes to maintain friendships, when you're working a million hours to be able to afford your rent that's gone up $100 in the last month, seems impossible. And so all of these are very real needs. And tech companies are not only making those needs worse, but then selling us back a solution in the form of technology that they own operate and profit from. It's a real, It's a real cyclical problem, but I don't think we'll solve it until we have those systemic institutional conversations about how we can meaningfully fix that what's so broken that is leading people to find this kind of nourishment in technology in the first place. Easy peasy.

Yeah, simple. Where can people both hear more about this in the audiobook and then also find you elsewhere on the internet? Well, you can check out the audiobook at love at firstprompt.com. You can get it wherever your audiobooks are sold. I particularly like Libro FM because they give money to local bookstores and libraries. But you can also follow me on Instagram at Bridget Marie in D.C. And check out my podcast.

There are no girls on the internet. Thank you, Bridget, for introducing a new horror to everybody. One of our favorite things to do on this show. Thanks so much for having me. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, Coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for it could happen here listed directly in episode descriptions.

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