Love Lives - How A.I. could change dating, with Tabitha Goldstaub

Episode Date: October 23, 2020

Support Millennial Love with a donation today: https://supporter.acast.com/millennialloveThis week, Olivia is joined by artificial intelligence (AI) expert Tabitha Goldstaub to talk about the intersection between AI and dating.Tabitha explains how advanced today’s AI is, and how far away we are from people actually being able to develop relationships with AI devices.The two also speak about sex robots and the risks they pose when it comes to consent and exacerbating a culture that objectifies women.They also talk about the possibility of whether or not AI could equalise the power dynamic between men and women in straight relationships.Follow the show on Instagram at @millennial_loveSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/millenniallove. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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love, sexuality, identity, and more. This week, I'm very excited to be joined by tech entrepreneur and artificial intelligence expert, Tabitha Goldstock. Tabitha is the co-founder of CognitionX, a market intelligence platform for artificial intelligence and she's also the chair of the UK government's AI council and a recipient of the Amy Johnson Inspiration Award by the Women's Engineering Society. Today she joined me to discuss how AI could impact the future of dating, which is something I know absolutely nothing about, and hopefully you don't either, in which case you will find this chat as interesting as I did. Enjoy the show. Hi, Tabitha.

Hello. How are you doing? Very good, thank you. How are you?? Very good, thank you. How are you? I'm good, thank you. Whereabouts are you today? I'm actually in Suffolk on a farm. I live half between my farm and London. Oh, that's nice. What's your tier for lockdown? It's a really good question.

it's a really good question we I'm still in both London and um Suffolk in the in sort of tier you can you can meet in groups of six I can't even remember what they're called anymore yeah I'm I'm the same I mean by the time this podcast comes out who knows we might be in different tiers I'm just hoping that maybe they'll change the age of people so So like my son is one, so we can't meet in more than five really, because he's obviously number six. Yeah. Oh God. It's so, it's so tricky, isn't it? So bloody confusing. Anyway, let's get on to AI, which is what you're here to talk to me about. So a very basic question to start with, for those who may not know, what is AI? basic question to start with for those who may not know what is AI? Well it's a very good question and what I love is that even the most expert expert AI people still ask each other that question. So what it really is is a concept of being able to teach machines how to think and act like humans.

It is a concept that to some is many, many, many years away. It's hotly debated, but you know, between 50 and never. And to others, it's something that they're working on every single day. But ultimately, what we should think of as AI now is what we think of as narrow artificial intelligence rather than artificial general intelligence which brings you the philosophy and the sci-fi so artificial narrow intelligence is all about um the difference between uh what we do to to you know traditionally with a machine and what we do with artificial intelligence so traditionally you would give a set of instructions and what we're looking to start to do and what AI does is you train a machine based on real world data or synthetic data. But data feeds a machine and then a machine will make inferences from that data rather than, you know, set instructions. So what are some examples of modern day devices and technologies that use AI?

that use AI. So we might be on a Zoom call and you might be speaking in French and I'm speaking in English and I have no idea what you'll be saying in French, but you could be using AI to translate that live, for example. One of my favorites. I love the idea of never having to. Personally, I was so bad at languages. That was a really good one for me. Obviously, learning languages has many other reasons, especially in love actually you know thinking about millennial love it's so sexy to be able to speak languages but not something I'm very good at so I quite like that yeah I was just thinking could I speak in English and then we could translate it to French I'm so bad at French my whole family speaks fluent french and i literally can't speak a word i'm hopeless well there we are ai tool that you can help me progress so it comes out quicker

yeah a useful tool for seduction um so can you also tell us a bit about what you do in ai and your new book how to talk to robots of course so what i do is i joke that i'm like the kevin bacon of ai so my job really is to be able to get you know to be able to link um people to each other so um at cog x which is the company that i co-founded with charlie muirhead our it's our job is to have a platform whereby we host content um so events that people run we host many different thought leaders um to help people really get together and do business and then my other job is i'm the chair of the government's ai council so in that capacity i bring together really the uk's best best best experts to advise the government on where technology is going.

And the reason why I wrote How to Talk to Robots was because of this journey I've been on, I felt incredibly lucky and a little bit selfish if I kept all that information to myself. And there were all these women that I knew and my friends who were nowhere near the tech industry, but their worlds were becoming uh tech and ai enabled the way they lived the way they worked the way they had fun the way they kind of did anything i was so pervasive and i realized that if i didn't write a book i would kick myself in five years time as when my friends started losing their jobs to machines and that i needed to have written something that um you know for for all or, you know, anyone who's identified really as a woman or as a girl that could help them. And the reason I wrote it just for

people who identify as women is because I feel like there has been, well, we know, we've seen all the stats, there aren't enough women in the companies building this technology. the the the company is building this technology but uh worse than that um the technologies are biasing against women and especially biasing against women of color and we have this kind of uh huge challenge ahead of us if we don't get more conscious to what's happening the idea of losing your job to ai is terrifying. I mean, I know obviously a lot of people have lost their jobs in the pandemic. And that is awful. But imagine being told that you're losing your job because a robot can do it better than you. Right. And that's happening. And it's been happening. But also we've got to remember that's been happening for time immemorial like um you know whether there it was the it was the the loom and and women you know who weren't sewing anymore or whether it was the women who got us to mars the the nasa computers that

were actually humans you know the world progresses but my um my hypothesis is that women have spent so long adapting that actually they're the perfect people to adapt to this next wave of technology, like artificial intelligence, and they will be able to work alongside the AI as best as the best in class. And ultimately, I'm hoping that no one needs to lose their jobs because effectively all tasks you know might you know bits of tasks that a machine can do better they should be done better by a by by a machine and then the humans are the humans in that loop

that make sure that the full product is good so ultimately there is a world where people don't need to lose their jobs to automation or ai as as long as we are retraining, reskilling and pushing the boundaries of what humans can do by freeing them up from all the like dirty, dull, dangerous jobs that are out there today. Right. That makes that makes a bit more sense. It's more about kind of complementing the work as opposed to replacing it. the work as opposed to replacing it exactly now the bit of the book that I want to talk to you about today is where you talk about the intersection of AI and sex and you interview the computer scientist Kate Devlin in the book about this and she says that we could use AI in the future to actually enhance the way we have sex what what do you make of that and to what extent do you think that might be true and also how would that even work good question so I'm like the queen prude like I it's it's what there are two things that I really hate talking about it's sort of warfare uh AI warfare you know

the killer robots um and sex and both of those things are vital it's like neither of them are going away we have to talk about them and so that's why I interviewed Kate because I I felt so uncomfortable with it myself um and my you know I flip from I flip from thinking oh AI robots that would enable AI robots that would have sex that would enable um you know free expression and love and loneliness and And there's all these, like, I have like a utopian view of how I grew up, but I also have the complete dystopian view where we are pushing more, you know, pornographic, unrealistic expectations

onto men and women and sex. And so this is what's so amazing about AI as a field is that anytime you talk about it, you can see the utopian and the dystopian and what we're trying to do as an ecosystem is to or as an industry I guess is to kind of narrow those and get to what does the reality mean and that's what I love about Kate and the way that Kate is just like completely no bullshit and she really describes kind of what the opportunities are the risks the rewards without being too alarmist which I can imagine if I'd done it all by myself I would have been quite alarmist so when we talk about sex and AI and

this is something that Kate brings up but just before I go on to talk to you about this I want to talk about sex robots but what other kind of like actual tangible ways do these two things interact is it about sex toys that use AI yeah so I think um I think you have what she talks about and and what I've learned from from sort of studying the space is you have um a kind of a range from health guess, at one end of the spectrum. So I think the Kegel and any technologies which are really in the women's health space around sex, around understanding intimacy, there's AI tools that help you understand your hormones,

help you understand your... One of my very good friends uh has a company called moody which helps you track how you're feeling when you're feeling and recommending vitamins and that will start to use data and artificial intelligence and so i think there's that end of the spectrum where of course that's not like specifically sex but i know that i sometimes feel more sexy than others and it's a really nice it's a really nice end of um you know use of artificial intelligence for for women and then you have um as you said sort of sex toys and and sort of a vr ar uh ways that ai is being using to stimulate people and then i think you have the the the more scary ideas around ai being using

like deep fakes and you know creating pornographic material that is fake and ultimately I get myself into like you know um you know a kind of a head spin thinking about uh thinking about uh deep fakes in general but specifically when it comes to sex you know the the bullying the the um the risks there are huge for those for those listeners who might not know could you mind um would you mind explaining what deep fake actually is oh of course yeah so a deep fake is um a little bit like um the kind of well it is it started off with fake news it started off even with you know Stalin when he in Russia to like, like add his face to important meetings, even if he wasn't there, then we had fake news where,

you know, I think everyone knows what fake news is, but deep fakes is the kind of the progression of that, whereby we're using artificial intelligence to make things completely, almost completely impossible to see that there's a, that there is, that it's fake rather than it's real so for example i could have my voice on obama's face um or obama's voice in my face and it would be pretty undiscernible to the human eye um how that's happened and you can imagine we could start

wars um uh but also you can imagine how that could be used in illegal pornography as well. How advanced does the AI have to be in order for someone to be able to produce a deep fake like that? Like how easy is it to do something like that? Like are the people doing it, are they really, really, do they know their shit? Or is it like anyone can do that if they, you know, do a quick Google? anyone can do that if they you know do a quick google so i think um what's scary is that you don't have to be the best in the field to do it it there are bedroom coders doing this it's not a quick google um but it is definitely something that can be done at home um with the algorithms that are out there okay that's a little scary still um another scary another scary thing uh sex robots

this is something that I am so fascinated by there have been a few documentaries about sex robots in the last few years because I mean correct me if I'm wrong but they seem to be increasing in prevalence and popularity um I guess because they're becoming more advanced um is that fair to say yeah i i think they're becoming more advanced and they're becoming more normalized as kind of thing you know that that sort of um it's a normal thing it becomes more and more normal to talk about they become better and better technology at the same time people demanding them more i mean we'll it'll be fascinating to see i don't know if there's any stats maybe i should have researched this before i came on the call but um the in the pandemic i imagine the number of the demand for

sex robots will have gone up yeah yeah for sure um now when we talk about sex robots the only ones i've seen in documentaries are of women. And they represent a very like singular type of physicality, the one that, you know, we see time and time again in porn and in Hollywood. You know, she's typically tall and slim with big breasts, small waist. So I guess the fear is if these robots do become more and more popular you know what are the risks in terms of exacerbating a culture whereby women are objectified and and viewed purely as sexual commodities i think that that is that is exactly the biggest risk and it's it's the same for lots lots of things within AI where we sort of, we add a human, you know, we humanize, we humanize technology in a way that we shouldn't. And in this scenario, it's really, really dangerous. I wonder if there's even, you know, argument, especially in things like the

UK's online harms around online harms regulation for children. I wonder if there's argument where, you know, fake pornography should become illegal too. You know, what's the, where is, where is the boundary there? I really don't know. It's totally not my expert area, but I know that I feel uncomfortable at the thought of a further, further um furthering this view of of of women as um object uh obviously we have to stop that yeah this definitely is a way that that will happen more yeah and also you think about just in terms of like consent that's the other really terrifying thing isn't it because it's like these are women that you know can be completely controlled and they don't have the right to say no yeah sex i think we saw that in humans um jemma chan is is someone that i'm really keen to to understand how it felt to act to play the the humanoid robot

in humans um because she was exactly in that position um where it was she was a robot that grew consciousness effectively as she was being ejectified um i kind of made it sound a little bit darker than it really was humans was great tv show but i think that's well that's kind of all i felt when i saw it i couldn't see it in any other way um and i think that there's a there's a real risk that we you know young boys grow up thinking that that's the only way you know that that's the norm um and that's we already have that challenge with pornography so um it's definitely a real issue um and I don't know how that gets solved because traditionally we have a

challenge where if you look at any of these sex robot companies, they are all built by men. And in many cases, white men, Asian men who, you know, they don't have anyone saying to them, this makes us feel uncomfortable. They don't create a place for diversity and inclusion in their businesses. So that just means that um there is no quick fix to this it needs to be like a full systemic cultural change right i'm just i'm reminded of one documentary i saw and the guy who was making the sex robots uh yeah like you

said he was like a white middle-aged man and his girlfriend was a sex robot and it was freaky how human-like she was um is it is so like you said so it is mostly men in this field so is it it's mostly women sex robots then that are being induced right that that's definitely what i've seen so far and that's what kate um spoke about was was that kind of the fear that she saw from her research her book's called turned on which I just thought was you know very very apposite very clever yeah um and just looking at the other side of things then so for the user of the sex robots it's it's also concerning and so I'm thinking about um that film um that Joaquin Phoenix film from 2013 Her which is so brilliant and also looking at it now it seems like I remember when

I watched that and I thought god it's so futuristic because it's about a man who falls in love with his AI personal assistant who is voiced by Scarlett Johansson who obviously has a very very sexy voice um and so he falls in love with her and you know it seems like a really dystopian like impossible thing but then in the summer there was a survey that came out that found that 14 of men admitted to being turned on by their amazon echo devices now i will just establish there's a slight caveat here this survey was conducted by a sex toy brand that probably sells voice activated sex toys so there might have been a slight motivation there but even so that is really terrifying um so is that is that possible do you think that people

can actually start having relationships with ai virtual technology yeah i i no longer am shocked i think that's the problem it's like yep you know, I hear that and I can't help but be, yeah, I'm no longer shocked by that as a scenario. And I think that the problem we have is that the way that men interact with, or anyone interacts with an AI, in order to interact with your Alexa, you have to bark instructions you have to you uh forget your uh your pleases and thank yous because the the the uh the system doesn't accept you know mumbling or the way i'm talking now there's no way a river

would hear me any kind of sorry is any kind of like you know kindness any uh superfluous language doesn't work and so you know it's going to be years until that works google duplex um came came out a few years ago to quite a lot of furore um around you know booking restaurants and now it's also booking hairdressers and it's really a little bit better but not much better um you know the technology isn't there for this kind of level of subtle nuance interaction and so her is a great example of where we might get to but right now you're talking about falling in love with something that is programmed in most cases a lot of these sex robots don't actually have very sophisticated ai in them and that you

need to bark instructions at and so I think we're at a serious risk of that then being the way that you interact. You don't expect to be able to have sex. I mean, it's absolutely terrifying. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. I'm Jessie Cruikshank, and on my podcast, Phone a Friend, I break down the biggest stories in pop culture.

But when I have questions, I get to phone a friend. I phone my old friend, Dan Levy. You will not die hosting the Hills after show. I get thirsty for the hot wiggle. I didn't even know what thirsty meant until there was all these headlines. And I get schooled by a tween. Facebook is like a no. That's what my grandma's on.

Thank God Phone a Friend with Jesse Crookshank is not available on Facebook. It's out now wherever you get your podcasts. Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com It's reassuring to know though that the technology isn't quite there yet to have that level of intimate conversation. Well, exactly. It's not quite there yet. conversation well exactly it's not quite there yet and we still have um there is there is there is still so much um there is still so much good to be had from artificial intelligence that i spend

a lot of my life talking to people about the fact that they should be pointing ai at climate change and um challenges where we don't know how to solve them as humans. And to be honest, every time I see something around a sex robot or anything to do in this space, I think, God, that's a waste of great engineers. Yeah. How much better stuff that they could be spending their time doing than creating, you know, subservient female-esque sex robots. So to the best of your knowledge though is that technology

are there people out there trying to advance the technology to that point whether it's in sex robots or just in an alexa to the point where you can have a you know a normal conversation with an ai device is that something that is the aim yeah there are research there are companies um there are companies out there deep minds tagline is to solve intelligence and then use that to solve everything else. And they want to apply that to, you know, uh, climate change and health and really good world problems. There's companies like OpenAI, um, which has just recently released GPT-3, which is doing, you know, which is a, an ai where you can feed um uh you know data text and get poetry and full-blown articles and yeah no that's definitely something that people are looking for google duplex um you can now book your hairdressing appointment um there's a lot of people who

are looking to try and make that interaction as seamless as possible. There are also ethicists who are working alongside them and also working kind of outside and shouting at them to make sure that that is done transparently, ethically, and responsibly. One of my favorite is Toby Walsh, actually, in Australia, who talks about needing a kind of someone who comes before an AI with a flag saying, you know, this is an AI, this is an AI, a little bit like they had when cars were first on the road. After horses, where you'd have someone who would walk in front of the car and tell pedestrians, oh, this is a car coming. And so, you know, maybe we would need a similar thing for artificial intelligence. And so, you know, maybe we would need a similar thing for artificial intelligence. But there are a lot of amazing researchers in this space who are fighting for our human rights, really. So do you think then if we do get to a point where you can turn around to a device and say, I'm feeling sad today, they will respond with something reassuring. Like, is that?

We have that today. There's a, there's an app called Replica. I can never remember how to spell it, but there's sort of a few, Replica with a K, where there are other mental health apps where that is happening. And it's, it's really, it's great. You know, it's, it's enabling, it's really it's great you know it's it's enabling it's enabling people to feel less lonely um there are you know it's it's part of the process obviously it's not a therapist in any way but it's part of the process of of trying to help people talk um and share their feelings and as long as you know it's an ai but it it's still quite therapeutic. I did it for a week. Every evening I would talk to this replica, the leg. And yeah, it's a really interesting feeling because you are effectively, you know, you're talking to a machine, but it's still an quite cathartic moment.

And I think that in time, that's probably something that we'll need to do more i mean this country is not very good at looking after its elderly people um you know being the uk and i'm in fact generally embarrassed about that um but i've seen i think there's a bot called woe bot um that you know is a sort of small um you know ai that can we'll talk um we'll talk to people and um yeah it's it's a really interesting it's a really interesting challenge because although i'm uncomfortable the idea of needing something like this we do need things like this and um maybe the pandemic showed us that we need to pay more people humans to be in the caring profession but um

you know there is and and the need for ais to fill in the caring profession, but, you know, there is, and the need for AIs to fill in there is probably, you know, a serious and systemic issue. But while it's there, technology will normally fill those vacuums. I wanted to ask you about the term technosexuals, because that is a term that people are kind of using more and more now to describe this, like, wider intersection between sex and technology generally. not just with AI but also with like you know dating apps and social media and the idea being that like the digital world now dictates so much of how we operate in the world of romance you know everything from who we fancy to who we flirt with to who we have sex with

and and how we do all of those things so I guess my question for you is quite a broad one um technology has completely changed the way that people date do you think that that is a good thing yeah um yes um if the answer was one word yes but it is not one word um i think um i think what the what the internet has done so sort of not just technology but the internet i were connected to many many more people is that it means that um there is always a way to find somebody to be, to who's similar to you or compatible with you. And I've been reading, you know, I've been reading books recently that talk about actually communities should never be more than 150 and we should all be next door to each other and we

should live in communes. And like, I love that thought, but we're not going back there anytime soon. Well, at least I don't think we are. I mean, obviously the pandemic means that we're all sitting in tables of six, but potentially we are. But let's put that to one side. The internet has allowed us to be able to connect with somebody who is like-minded. And I think that that has spawned amazing things, uprisings, activism movements. It's enabled, you know, very, very, very very very niched up groups of like jigsaw puzzle creators to get together like there's a kind of that's just showing my weird

hobbies but there is a that is fantastic and it saves people's lives it has made people's lives and I think that if we applying that to finding love is really important finding love is so hard because it needs so many components like you need to be compatible both like mentally and physically and it's then it's not always the people that you know or that you get set up with by your family or your friends. And so I love the idea that you can find somebody, you know, needle in a haystack effectively by using technology or AI. Now, the challenge is, is when you lean too much into that and you believe too much in that and then you let the algorithms take over your life and you then don't think about the serendipity and you're not finding people like you you're not kind of um taking control of it so i think as long as you're somebody who like is conscious of how um the technology is trying to drive you in a certain direction and you are controlling that

technology i think it's brilliant i really that's a really good point it kind of goes back to what you were saying before about um robots complementing the work of real people rather than replacing them it's like it's like having an awareness that you know this isn't the only thing but the problem is I don't think that's how most people use technology in the dating world I think it's become particularly now in the pandemic you know it's been seen as the only option and as a result of that it's completely changed the dating culture and the way that people treat each other yeah and so that I think is the issue what's interesting about it is like obviously the development of technology has been used to solve so many aspects of our lives and make so many things easier you know like right thinking about uber and ordering food and travel and all that stuff but i feel like the one exception

where it's not 100 certain that it's going to work unless like you said you have that awareness is with love because it's it's not something that can be reduced to an algorithm entirely. Totally not. Totally, totally, totally not. And I think that's why it's got to be, it's like one tool in the love seekers arsenal rather than the tool. Um, the, uh, I watched a very strange TV show last night called upload, which was on Amazon. it's not to be recommended um sorry if anyone loves it um but it was about like then afterlife and it's sort of you know the hunk gets you know uploaded but what was interesting was that it's it's it's created in in a in a future whereby um the people on earth so haven't been uploaded into kind of this sort of heaven state. Every night they play effectively their dating app and the algorithm matches

them with three people only. And you basically have to sleep with one of them. And it's weird because it's like a total like sub part of the movie. It just seems to be happening. Oh, not movie TV show just needs to be happening in the background. And I just was flabbergasted by how that wasn't like the whole point of the show. Right. But it was just like, Oh yeah, that wasn't like the whole point of the show right

but it was just like oh yeah that's what will be happening in the future standard yeah whatever that's mad right and you know Aldous Huxley is like the most famous I guess for that being the vibe which is you know there are some people put on this earth just to like um you know pleasure others but this was just really kind of modern and it wasn't displayed as dystopian it was almost like that's easy and everyone was like high-fiving and I was like god have I like got really uncool like to still be believe in love is this really lame but um you know I think um I think that the pandemic has enabled to come as you said like that feels slightly more normal than it is um but it does have to be something in i think it has to be something that is not frowned upon

because um at the moment it is hard to find love well it's always has been hard to find love but especially now when you know we don't have small communities where um we don't have small communities and we've got incredibly high expectations of what love is meant to give us as well and so you're in this kind of dichotomy of like looking for the perfect um and everything around us is getting easier as you said um except for this yeah but like but exactly like that's the problem you when you have all this technology or disposal and you have dating apps you are then encouraged to look for the perfect match and yeah our expectations are way too high not just of you know what when we're looking for love but also I think when we're in love um you know it's just we

have this completely unrealistic view of what it should be like and how we should feel and how it should look but I mean that's that's not just to blame on technology you know that's also like entrenched societal norms and those bloody rom-coms it's all sorts there's all sorts it goes way back if there's one thing that you think ai could do to revolutionize and enhance the way that we date or the way that we behave in love and in relationships and maybe that technology doesn't exist yet what do you think that could be i think it's about leveling the playing field so i think that men and women have a very different perspective on life and one of those reasons is because women have a biological clock that ticks very loudly in a way that men biologically, I shouldn't say biologically, but men don't feel

in the same way all the time. And this is a tricky area for me to talk about, but I think it's really important to talk about the fact that there is, if there was any way that artificial intelligence could give women more time so in the same way that pill the pill gave women more time it you know it enabled women to have um more control over when they had babies um i wonder what uh and how artificial intelligence could be another leveler and give women more time back. There's a wonderful book called The Trouble with Litchin, which is by John Wyndham. And it talks about finding a litchin that enables women, sorry, enables anybody to live for longer. And the man scurries away this finding, this philosopher, sorry, this professor,

scurries away his finding and he kind of only ever allows his children and himself to take this elixir of life whereas the the female um professor in the in the same unit finds it and decides to start putting it into women's face cream and slowly but surely women have longer to live and suddenly the power dynamic shifts and this book was written pre uh pre-pill and by a man who i don't know if he thought if he saw how feminist uh or how i would read this in such a feminist way but i wonder how ai could do a similar thing um and provide women with longer to live um or you know better chances of IVF working um or ways that um they can be leveled out this is I'm so sure I'm on really dangerous ground so I apologize to anybody that

I might have upset with that as a topic but I I'm still formulating and maybe your audience and listeners could um could call in at another time or message us on Twitter and tell us what they think yeah I know please do but I mean that that would be I agree if there could be anything that could call in at another time or message us on Twitter and tell us what they think. Yeah, I know, please do. But I mean, that that would be I agree, if there could be anything that could that could level out the power play between men and women and straight relationships. I mean, that is a big thing, particularly for women, like you said, in their 30s, who are heading towards that so called ticking time bomb. It's, you know, it characterizes so much more than we think it does um in straight relationships it it really it really affects everything and actually there's there's a few people that talk about how um how the kind of the dynamic shifts I think it's Dolly Alderton that

talks about this um you know when you're when you're a woman in your 20s you're not thinking about having children so in your relationships with men you're kind of often the one who is in a little bit more control I guess I mean or there's just more it's it's more equal but then as a single woman gets into her 30s and starts thinking more about children you know that's obviously not a pressure that men in their early 30s are thinking about so the dynamic kind of shifts and suddenly you know the men hold the power and the control because they don't need they don't need women they like they don't need to have their kids now whereas you know women get to 35 36 37 it's like your chances are decreasing slowly and slowly. Exactly. It characterizes everything,

from the way that people treat one another to absolutely everything. It's messed up. It's painful. Once you start to think about it and the things that women do because of that, it's a tragedy, really. Yeah.

Well, it is time now for our lessons in love segment. Oh, yeah. So this is the part of the show where I ask every guest to share something that they've learned from their previous relationship experiences. It can be anything. It can be generic or it can be personal. So, Tabitha, what is your lesson in love today? I was thinking, can I read a poem? Yeah. Hell yeah. Love poems. That's never happened on the show before. Okay. So it's, it's rather cheesy because it's, um, it's by someone that, um,

by someone called, uh, Cahill, uh, Gibran. I'm never very sure how to say, but it's called On Marriage. And I, I personally don't think it's all about marriage. I, um, for one, have a wonderful son and haven't been married, but I think it's good advice for everybody in any relationship. And it starts by saying, you were born together and together you shall be forevermore. You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days. I, you should be together even in the silent memory of God, but let there be spaces in your togetherness and let the winds of heavens

dance between you. Love one another, but not make a bond of love. Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup, but drink not from one cup. Give one another your bread, but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each of you not be alone.

Even as the strings of a lute are alone, though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping, for only the hand of life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together, for the pillars of the temple stand apart, and the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow and that for me was just a very um momentous moment when I realized that you didn't need to be in each other's pockets basically I love that yeah I mean it's about it to me I'd listen to that it's about autonomy and about yeah yeah it's but that's so important because you know I mean, it's about it to me. I'd listen to that. It's about autonomy and about power. Yeah, it's but that's so important because, you know, I mean, you see couples that are incredibly codependent and suffocating and it's completely unhealthy. It's a really unhealthy dynamic. You know, you're not the relationship's not going to thrive if, like you said, you're in each other's pockets all the time right Ruth Bader Ginsburg the RGB documentary is like my just that relationship is amazing because both partners had power and they

both lent on each other when they needed to but they you know they stood apart and I think that's an amazing example so I hope that poet that poetry helps someone else I love that thank you so much no one's ever read a poem before. And I feel like now I would start incorporating poems into every episode. I love poetry so much. Don't you I? There are so many lovely poems about relationships, like Wendy Cope's poems are so great. When I was breastfeeding, all I did was sit and read poems. Really? Like do myself. Yeah. Oh my God. I love that. That's such a nice idea. That's it for today. Thank you so much much for listening if you're a new listener to this show you can subscribe to us on apple podcasts

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