28

There’s a scene in Richard Powers’ book ‘Plowing The Dark’ in which one of the coworkers of the heroine discovers that he has fallen in love, over the net, with a lisp script. While pretty inplausable – no one has yet built a chat bot that could pass the turing test, much less turn someone on. But the concept is beleivable, and it won’t always be like it is today. Someday, someone will manage to do it.

It’s really a somewhat creepy idea. I read once about a Japanese corperation which would let you sign up, for a small fee per month, to get script-generated love letters from a virtual girlfriend. You could trade emails with her, get to know her.. never mind the fact that she doesn’t exist..

There’s something eerie about the possibility of computer generated fiction going out in the world and portraying itself as reality. Partially because it is something that I can so easily see happening.

Of course, with VR, the stakes go even higher. You could create a entire virtual world where you could meet with your virtual lover who had no corperal existance..

Would this be cheating, if you had a significant other?

Strange.

S.

Leave a Reply