00:00:53.240and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.
00:00:58.760I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files.
00:01:02.380Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:01:09.920These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:01:13.740Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:01:21.360If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:01:27.100Pro 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.
00:01:35.740Each 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.
00:01:45.760Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:01:51.160There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.
00:02:03.700I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.
00:02:09.200This is There Are No Girls on the Internet, a podcast where we cover tech, power, and who gets left out.
00:02:14.540And this is our weekly news roundup, where we dig into all the stories that you might have missed online this week so you don't have to.
00:02:21.160And, Mike, I want to start with a question.
00:02:26.060Does Instagram even know what it is or who it's for anymore?
00:02:31.100I should be clear, this is kind of a rehash of what I have always said about Instagram,
00:02:36.120that they don't really know who or what they are for.
00:02:39.520They are just throwing a bunch of stuff at the wall and seeing if any of this will help them compete.
00:02:44.100We did an episode about this way back when in 2022, when Instagram was first pushing reels to compete with TikTok, like short form video content.
00:02:54.940And I remember when that happened, both Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner, they spoke out and said, make Instagram Instagram again.
00:03:04.520Stop trying to be TikTok. I just want to see cute photos of my friends.
00:03:08.100I gotta say, I do think that part of the reason why the Kardashians specifically would be so against Reels is that I think the Kardashians have or had that version of Instagram down where you just sort of post great looking polished photos of yourself looking super hot.
00:03:27.180And that's kind of all it takes to do well on a photo-based, image-based platform.
00:03:32.020And when they switched over to Reels, you had to be saying something or doing something of note.
00:03:39.960You know, it's not like they've lost any capital since this shift.
00:03:42.940But I understood why people like the Kardashians especially were like, oh, actually, we would like it if this was more of a visual photo-based medium, please.
00:05:11.140I think people can't help it but look at videos in general,
00:05:16.560but especially videos of ourselves, you know,
00:05:19.920Like, maybe there's somebody out there whose eye is not drawn to a video of themselves causing them to constantly second guess every movement and, you know, out of place hair or what have you.
00:05:35.020But I don't think that's most people's experience.
00:07:08.900I guess I think that Instagram wants to be everything to everyone.
00:07:14.080And in turn, if you are somebody who is a creator or maybe you have a podcast that you would like to promote on social media, including Instagram, the expectation is that to do that in any kind of real way, you will be active on every in every way that their platform shows up.
00:07:31.920Stories, reels, grid posts, close friends, now instant.
00:10:50.180They started live streaming. And then in 2018, they had IGTV, which was kind of a YouTube knockoff, which they later shut down. And I wanted to give that bit of context that we've just been here before of Instagram trying to compete with so many things and not doing any of them particularly well.
00:11:10.180and the entire experience just sort of being an unfun slog.
00:11:14.780Yeah, I mean, there was a time when I used Instagram pretty regularly.
00:13:24.140This is your friend's cat on a Kelvin filter for some reason that looks weird.
00:13:27.920But now, because I am a person who makes a creative thing that I want people to find, I watch Adam Mosseri's webinars on what the platform is prioritizing.
00:13:42.560The amount of work that if I were to follow the instructions that he gives on how to perform well on the platform, it would be my full-time job.
00:13:50.600it's like oh make five reels a week or you know be posting x amount of stories an amount of content
00:13:56.680that is just not sustainable like if you have any if you make a podcast or do make a thing that
00:14:01.640you're trying to promote on the platform there would be no time to make that thing and then
00:14:05.520also promote the thing on instagram so people who are good at it i have no idea how they're doing it
00:14:10.080and they really give very very specific instructions on how to do it like your hook
00:14:19.100has to come within three seconds this that the third and so I think people are rightly saying
00:14:23.440well hey this doesn't feel like a fun way to connect with people in my life and meet new
00:14:27.160people in my life and engage with the people that I know this feels like work this feels like me
00:14:31.720having to do a very specific set of things to succeed on this platform and like have anybody
00:14:36.600see my content and so I do think that they're like oh well people think Instagram has become
00:14:42.100too polished too commercial too manufactured will do instance and that'll be a way for people to
00:14:49.600you know lower stakes connect with the actual people that they know it's all if the brands
00:14:54.280aren't there yet it's only a matter of time until instance feels the exact same way that regular
00:15:00.420instagram feels then they're gonna have to make an even um even more insular thing where it's like
00:15:05.640oh, Instance is now all brands selling you stuff?
00:19:15.940I love my Real Housewives of Potomac, which I believe to be the crown jewel in the Bravo universe.
00:19:23.600And so I have been trying to get in touch with Robin Dixon and Giselle Bryant, who are from Real Housewives of Potomac, who have a podcast on this very network on iHeart, which is very popular, called Reasonably Shady.
00:19:35.760I have been trying to get their attention, not in the like Jodie Foster way.
00:19:40.520I've just been trying to get on their radar for a while because they like not.
00:19:53.360But they had this very popular podcast called Reasonably Shady.
00:19:56.940And they have been talking so much about AI, specifically AI scams and sort of getting taken by AI generated content.
00:20:06.380The same kind of stuff that we're talking about on this podcast.
00:20:08.680And what I find so interesting is that there, I would say that, I mean, as our producer, I guess I will be curious for your thoughts. But I think of our audience as people who are like thinking about technology, thinking about social media, thinking about AI. It's something that they spend some time thinking about it. Maybe they don't identify as techies or like tech people.
00:20:32.660I know a lot of people do. We have a lot of folks who are way smarter about technology than I am and are like much more credentialed in the space. But the reasonable shady audience are people who are probably not super, you know, they're not thinking about technology a lot, right?
00:20:50.660And so I think it's fascinating and also really cool that they are using this sort of general audience platform that they've built up to have meaty conversations about AI, even conversations about what it feels like to get scammed personally by AI.
00:21:09.540Because a while back, they talked about this video that they saw where it was like an AI generated female sportscaster who was at a basketball game trying to report.
00:21:22.960And then she falls over and she kind of falls into the lap of this guy.
00:21:26.480She's also dressed pretty slinky for a newscaster, which might have could have been a tip that like maybe it wasn't real.
00:21:32.480They talked about this and then they had to follow up and say, oh, it turns out this video was AI.
00:21:38.620So at that point, they had they had a like pretty good discussion about AI generated content.
00:21:42.600I reached out and I was like, y'all, not only am I a super fan of Real Housewives of Potomac, I know about AI.
00:21:51.400Bring me on your podcast to talk about AI and why we are all getting taken by AI.
00:21:57.100That was also around the time where I got taken by like four different AI generated videos of cute animals that weren't real.
00:22:04.820I think I said you won, the bunnies jumping on the trampoline, the bunnies jumping on a guy's stomach, like, AI-generated videos of animals gets me every time.
00:22:14.920I feel it's a particular vulnerability you have because you're, like, very interested in cute animals, but don't really have a lot of, I guess, experience with the animal kingdom, you know?
00:22:34.820Yeah, I mean, I'm a city mouse, so, like, the level of animals that I'm regularly coming into contact with are my cats, the occasional cockroach, rats in my alley, actually rats everywhere because I live in D.C., you know, birds, squirrels.
00:23:11.220There's not like a videographer. They're like, OK, bunnies, time to get up on the trampoline.
00:23:16.960Oh, my God. I actually almost sent one to you.
00:23:20.320And then and then even even for me, because like y'all know, I have a like vulnerability about animal videos.
00:23:25.800And so whenever I see a cute animal video online, I have to just even even if I think it's real, I have to not share it because I'm like, I clearly can't be trusted.
00:23:34.920But it's good that you're aware of this, because like one of these days you're going to get a call that's going to be like, hey, this is the bunny.
00:23:43.620I need you to send some prepaid gift cards immediately.
00:23:47.680And I would. And I would. There was one just last night where somebody was like, oh, I put a GoPro on a crab at the beach to show you what when crab, you know, when at the beach, when crabs go into holes and you're like, what are they doing under there?
00:24:04.040And yeah, yeah. Yeah. So they put a GoPro on a crab. Yeah, that makes sense. Go on.
00:24:09.620So the crab goes into the hole. And at first you're like, OK, this is about what I would expect it to look like, you know, sand, a few other crabs.
00:24:16.160but then the deeper that he goes it's like the crabs have figured out architecture where it's
00:24:22.020like columns and columns and columns and like there's a whole underground world down there
00:24:27.620and there's crabs on each column and it's like they've got some sort of a hierarchy
00:24:31.680and then I was like wait a minute I don't think this is legit I'll post the video in the show
00:24:41.660notes and y'all can yeah basically this video purported to show that these crabs have built
00:24:47.980kind of like an underground coliseum type situation in the sand so while you're like
00:24:54.440up on the beach having a nice time under the under the sand the crabs have a whole situation
00:25:00.520down there that we don't even know about they've got architecture they've got societal hierarchies
00:25:06.220They've got art, they've got an economy, they've got classes.
00:25:11.660Well, you're joking, but literally this AI-generated video, it looks like,
00:25:15.340and this is where the crabs would have their eyes wide shut parties.
00:25:18.840Like, they've got a whole world we don't know about down there.
00:25:23.720All right, well, I'm glad that you didn't share that, right?
00:25:28.040Like, you almost did, but then you paid attention to some of the tells of AI videos,
00:25:33.580and you were like, wait a minute, this is not real.
00:26:01.100I mean, they're like celebrities, I understand.
00:26:03.360It was it was a little bit of a Hail Mary ask. If anybody knows them, though, I would lie. I genuinely am a fan of the content that they're creating around AI. So then so they pass, whatever, whatever.
00:26:15.260So we did an episode of this podcast about those AI-generated scams wherein generally they are racialized, where it'll be like a Black person saying, you know, I make these handcrafted purses or this handcrafted item.
00:26:33.180And then I was the victim of racialized abuse where white boys came and threw my items on the ground. Now I'm crying, please buy my handcrafted lamps or purses or shirts or whatever to make me feel better. We did a whole episode about that where we talked to Jeremy Carrasco, this researcher who is kind of known online as like the AI debunker guy, all about how you can sort of protect yourself from scams like that and how to spot them and why they are taking off.
00:27:01.720Mike, you and I had a conversation about how often these scams are racialized and how often they exist at the fractures of genuine identity tensions.
00:27:18.160This week, Robin, on the Reasonably Shady podcast, tells a story about getting taken by the exact same scam, where it's a AI-generated black boy who says he has made these handmade purses.0.63
00:27:34.420White kids come and, like, torment him and knock the purses down.0.58
00:27:37.640He's sobbing and asking for people to buy the purses.0.83
00:27:39.960She tells her co-host, Giselle Bryant, this.
00:27:42.760Giselle says not only did I see that same video I bought two purses Robin breaks down like all of
00:27:49.680these different celebrities like Viola Davis are in the comments of this video being like oh my god
00:27:54.380keep your head up son like you're doing so great don't let these guys get you down and I just
00:28:00.160thought it was a very meaty good helpful conversation so genuinely kudos to Robin and
00:28:06.080Giselle from Reasonably Shady for breaking this down um and I think it's especially good to be
00:28:11.440having those conversations for an audience who, you know, might not be tuning into AI and tech
00:28:19.780and social media conversations all the time. And I just thought it was interesting that
00:28:24.080we had literally just done that episode and the exact same scam got them.
00:28:31.860It is interesting. And it really, I think, goes to one of the central things you say about the
00:28:39.100show. One of the reasons that you created this show is because even people who don't
00:28:45.060self-identify as techies or interested in tech are still dealing with technology and
00:28:52.500the internet like all the time in their lives. And, you know, they might not think about
00:28:57.960it as a tech issue, but they're definitely thinking about and talking about challenges
00:29:36.340When the content that we're seeing is identity based. Right. The reason why that scam worked on so many celebrities like Robin Dixon and Giselle Bryan and Viola Davis and all these people is because it speaks to something real inside of us as black folks.
00:29:54.680Right. The idea that this young black visionary would be making these amazing handmade crocheted purses and that white kids would go and try to hold this person down and like, you know, jam him up and make fun of him and ridicule and humiliate him for this.
00:30:11.540and our natural inclination to want to support and want to, you know, show love and show grace and lift up and build up.
00:30:20.360These scams are so good at targeting the things in us that really are sensitive and soft and wounds and tensions.
00:30:29.860You know, I've seen this new scam kind of popping up a little bit where the whole thing is AI generated,0.51
00:30:36.700But it purports to show an AI generated gender nonconforming or trans person trying to get into a public bathroom while a man blocks the door while saying my sometimes he says it's my wife is in there or his daughter is in there and I'm not letting you in.
00:30:53.960And it just is so good at taking these things that genuinely are, unfortunately, flashpoints in our society and then basically using AI to create this content that is meant to, I guess, align with whatever your existing understanding or framework is, speak to that to make you engage with it.
00:31:19.700Years ago, I was talking about how this kind of content was all over TikTok, the sort of trans person getting the what for from a patriot dad or whatever, how that kind of content was all over TikTok.
00:31:35.080But it was skits. It was like live action skits where sometimes it would say trans teacher tries to indoctrinate student and parent puts a stop to it.
00:31:46.720And it's meant to be a parent, you know, accosting the teacher.
00:31:50.660Sometimes that same person would then be, oh, that person's now the parent.
00:31:55.320And now the scenario is something different.
00:31:59.600Now that we have AI, you don't even need to cast these skits.
00:32:03.540You can just, you know, very easily using VO3 or whatever is your, you know, AI generating platform of choice, make this kind of content that inflames the exact right identity based tension to get people to engage and feel moved.
00:32:19.680And so, yeah, if you, if you're finding yourself encountering content like this, you know, I would say one, know your triggers. I know my trigger is animal videos. When I see an animal video or I get sucked into an animal video, that is my cue to pump the brakes and say, Bridget, do you think that crabs have architecture? Do you really think?
00:32:42.980Like, do you so knowing what your triggers are and then to when you encounter content that just seems tailor made to get some sort of reaction out of you, just know that it probably is, you know, when in the in the age of AI, like that's that's the that's the grift.
00:32:59.680It really is. And like you said, AI is not just like so good at creating it, but able to create so much of it so quickly and so cheaply and A-B test like a thousand videos to find the handful that really just goes straight to the nerve of that unfortunate human tendency we have to be hoodwinked by stories that speak to us.
00:33:29.680our like deepest fears and suspicions about other people. I'm so glad that you brought up that point
00:33:37.140about A-B testing because it takes no time at all to figure out what is the exact scenario that will
00:33:43.620get you personally to have a reaction or engage and you know it takes me back to the episode that
00:33:50.580we did about the Diddy trial and how AI generated YouTube pages were just getting make make probably
00:33:58.500making so much money at the time, like so much engagement, millions of views, just swapping
00:34:05.100in different celebrities who they said testified at Diddy's trial because the trial was not
00:38:14.380So the piece opens with the writer sitting at home at 11 o'clock at night with her 10-month-old baby while she FaceTimes her husband at 2 a.m. from a hotel room in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and he's screaming, just look at this, and pointing his phone on FaceTime at a laptop screen showing Claude Code.
00:38:38.500She writes, quote, there are two babies in this household now, the small human one and the large language model. Both demand constant attention. Both keep us up at 2 a.m.
00:38:52.020So this piece made me really sad, but I also think it named something that I have noticed in some heterosexual pairings.
00:39:01.380And the piece really coins this term, the sad wives of AI, and makes the case for the fact that this is a more genuinely widespread phenomenon than you might think.
00:39:11.580Basically, in a heterosexual relationship, these are the women who are paired with men who either work in AI, want to work in AI, have aspirations to work in AI, or otherwise obsessed with AI to the point where it feels like it's taking them out of the reality of their day-to-day relationship together.
00:39:35.200And that this is a growing problem in heterosexual pairings.
00:39:41.580It kind of makes sense when you think about it because, as the piece points out, 71% of AI skilled workers are men.
00:39:48.820There are roughly 35,000 open jobs for AI roles in the United States at any given moment.
00:39:53.820So if you broaden that out to include AI investors, then you're adding thousands more.
00:40:00.020If you broaden that out even further to every man who has mentioned to his wife that he is, quote, looking at some opportunities in the AI space, well, that's got to be like millions of men.
00:40:11.720Conservatively, she writes, that means hundreds of thousands of partners are holding down the fort while someone mansplains the singularity to them.
00:40:23.520It does seem like so many people are AI-pilled.
00:40:27.800You look at LinkedIn and there are people just talking about it all the time.
00:40:33.300is I guess I hadn't really thought about their wives and partners
00:40:37.900who are maybe sick of hearing about it.
00:40:42.660I read an article that talked about kind of, for lack of a better phrase,
00:40:46.980intercultural relationships where one person is super into AI and one person isn't.
00:40:53.300But this is the first piece that I think puts that into context
00:40:56.420and sort of answers the question of, well, what would that look like
00:40:59.400if you were in a relationship like that?
00:41:00.960And the answer is really not good. And because we already know that women are adopting AI less for lots of reasons, if anybody is trying to sell you that like, oh, women are too stupid to understand AI, the reasons are much more complicated.0.99
00:41:18.800when you get scolded on Instagram by celebrities like Mel Robbins or Reese Witherspoon, just know0.99
00:41:26.920that. However, if women are adopting AI less than there are male counterparts, it kind of makes0.67
00:41:33.780sense that if you're in a relationship with a man as a woman, you might be in a relationship where
00:41:38.300the man is super jazzed about AI and maybe thinks that he's going to make it his whole identity and
00:41:42.900his whole career. And you might be sort of left kind of picking up the pieces of what that actually
00:41:48.660looks like. So the writer is very deliberate about who she is talking about in this piece.
00:41:53.280She's mostly speaking with white-collar heterosexual couples in the Bay Area because
00:41:58.480that is where she says this psychological crisis seems most acute. And she's also like super clear
00:42:05.820about the dynamic. It often goes like this. He works in AI and she does everything and anything
00:42:13.040else. Sometimes it's a lot bleaker, though, like the guy desperately wants to work in AI or feels
00:42:20.740he must work in AI, and she wants him to do literally anything else because she's so ready
00:42:27.040for him to stop talking about AI. In any event, as the writer puts it, the men go in and the women
00:42:32.800want out. What's funny to me about this piece is that she says straight up, I didn't bother talking
00:42:38.300to any of the actual husbands for this story. I'm sick of hearing from the men in AI. They have
00:42:43.040podcasts and Senate hearings and magazine profiles and probably a group chat with the
00:42:47.820president. They've been talked to, and I can't stress this enough, enough.
00:42:54.180It's such an interesting piece, the fact that it's focused in the Bay Area. Do you think that
00:43:01.100this is a phenomenon that is specific to that area or all over the place and just like really
00:43:09.940concentrated there? What a good question. I briefly lived in the Bay Area. I lived there
00:43:15.900kind of on the early crest of the tech boom. I remember when I was living there, I lived in
00:43:23.600Berkeley. And this is when Uber had moved their headquarters to Oakland. And at the time, that was
00:43:29.020a big deal. I think they were moving to the Lake Merritt area. I didn't last in the Bay Area long.
00:43:33.780and one of the reasons why is that it did feel like you know you would go out and all the people
00:43:43.300that you met worked for Google also a lot of that might have been me it's like I live in D.C. I hate
00:43:48.640when people say everybody in D.C. works in politics and it's like oh are you actually doing the work
00:43:53.500to get out of your bubble are you actually doing the work to meet people who don't you know who
00:43:58.380have other kinds of jobs and other kinds of interests I think the Bay Area is probably
00:44:02.760similar and that like I was personally not invested in the work of casting a wide net
00:44:08.680to find the people who exist out there who are not involved in tech which I know exists
00:44:13.180the Bay Area is fantastic and is full of like artists and organizers and all kinds of interesting
00:44:19.280folks however when I was there I was just like encountering a lot of tech employees and that
00:47:40.040And if you are not on the cutting edge, you will just be shunted down to the permanent underclass, which I think a lot of people believe.
00:47:51.560And I think a lot of people would like explicitly say that out loud.
00:47:55.940It just does seem like a worldview almost designed to make one insecure and unhappy.
00:48:05.300Insecure and unhappy seems to be the name of the game in these relationships.
00:48:09.620The piece also gets into the fact that there's a TikTok meme making the rounds where it shows a young woman doing their makeup or at a laptop.
00:48:19.280And the caption will say, quote, working so hard so my man can work on his AI startup that loses 30K a month.
00:48:26.880And then all the comments will say, yes, queen, just so we can have founder in his bio.
00:48:33.420I didn't realize that this was like to the level of a meme where there is a genre of videos around this.
00:48:40.720Oh, yeah, it's a meme. And, you know, the whole thing kind of reads like a lifestyle piece, but it is also making a very clear structural argument.
00:48:50.680Yana Vandermullen Rogers, who is the chair of labor studies at Rutgers University, says that this is not just like a bad vibe that we're talking about.
00:49:02.020The AI boom is creating what she calls a perfect storm that is reshaping household dynamics along predictably gendered lines.
00:49:09.760As I was saying earlier, women are about 20 percent less likely than men to use generative AI, not because of some innate gender difference.
00:49:18.560But one of the reasons is that women are disproportionately represented in jobs like health care, education and social services that just generally currently use AI less.
00:49:29.200And that means that women are going to see AI less as this, like, huge financial boom, and instead, on the flip side, will actually be holding a lion's share of the responsibility for the domestic labor that any kind of boom might actually create.
00:49:47.140So it's this gap that then compounds over time. And then there is what is, in my opinion, the ultimate relationship killer, resentment, because the resentment piece is deeply, deeply embedded in all of this.
00:50:01.360Several of these sad wives that were interviewed had turned down job opportunities in AI themselves, not because they weren't qualified, but because, as the writer puts it, it is hard to raise kids and also try to, you know, do what you're being told is going to disrupt civilization at the same time.
00:50:20.260and so it creates this system where the man gets to be this like ideal worker who is using AI to
00:50:29.740be cutting edge and build the financial boom and change everything and all of that and the woman
00:50:37.240is just left to manage everything else whether it's child care pet care household labor actually
00:50:44.380you know if your partner is like investing in AI and it's not going well sometimes actual like
00:51:08.340and the culture around it is so all-consuming.
00:51:10.920So exactly that dynamic that you were describing before, Mike,
00:51:14.040where people say, you're going to get left behind.
00:51:16.300You're going to be a permanent underclass.
00:51:17.680You've got to get on board with AI, yada, yada, yada.
00:51:20.260All of that hype and all of that conversation makes this feel different from some of these earlier things like the dot-com boom or the industrial revolution because it feels, the stakes feel so high and it feels so all-consuming.
00:51:36.160Yeah, it's like existential threat at scale.
00:51:39.200Yes. So the writer talks about how she is in therapy to deal with this and that her therapist mentions that her client base is almost entirely women whose partners are professionally adjacent to AI and how that is genuinely impacting their relationships.
00:51:55.340So this looks like they're men having zero boundaries or constant fighting that isn't really about the specific fight.
00:52:02.540It's about something bigger or something else.
00:52:05.920The guy is basically in another world, a world of prompts and benchmarks and late night epiphanies.
00:52:13.700Meanwhile, she's trying to put food on the table and raise the kid and do all the kind of mundane humdrum things that an adult has to do to live a life.
00:52:23.700Those late night epiphanies seem to me like it's not the main thing, like one of the main things that differentiates this from earlier tech revolutions or, you know, tech changes where like it's not even just about building a product or changing an industry, but it's about the future of humankind or like AGI or like the writer said, mansplaining the singularity.0.95
00:52:53.700I wish a motherfucker would wake me up in the middle of the night to tell me that they've had a chat GPT-generated late-night epiphany about the singularity.0.95
00:53:22.620I feel for these women. I feel. I mean, this is like the biggest thing is like the risk of marrying a loser, moving a loser into your home, getting mixed up with a loser.
00:53:32.160It terrifies me that that's really what this is. It's a tech story, but it's what the story is really about.0.68
00:53:37.900So, Mike, do you want to know what some of these women are turning to to deal with all of this?0.99
00:53:44.420I'm sure those things might be options available to them, but also AI therapy.0.69
00:53:50.700The piece reports that some of these women have stopped going to therapy with a human therapist to process their marriages.
00:53:56.100And instead, they are processing with ChachiPT.
00:53:58.880And according to a clinician that they interviewed for the piece, sometimes they're not having such great outcomes because ChachiPT often validates them rather than challenging them.
00:54:10.140And so if I'm fed up with my husband who won't shut up about AI and he's not moving, and then I talk to ChachiPT and ChachiPT is like, girl, you're right. He's wrong. Basically, it's a stalemate. Right. And so the conflicts do not resolve.
00:54:26.520And also the piece says that Chachi BT is apparently telling some of these women that it makes complete sense that they're seeking attraction elsewhere because their partner is emotionally unavailable because all of his emotional capacity is going to AI.
00:54:42.520When the writer of this piece talked to the therapist, the therapist said, well, that's probably not a great idea.
00:54:48.360You probably should address the stuff that's coming up in your marriage, not just go have sex with someone else.0.99
00:54:52.940So then you have ChatGPT like nudging these sad AI wives toward affairs.1.00
00:55:00.040It just doesn't seem like a good situation.0.92
00:55:03.300No, you know, my understanding is that Reddit has formed a big part of the training corpus of ChatGPT and the other big large language models that are out there.
00:55:13.980And if you've ever seen the advice that people give on Reddit, it's always like divorce.
00:55:20.540You have to leave them immediately.0.88
00:55:22.160Literally, it'll be like a am I the asshole or advice post on Reddit where it'll be like, oh, my husband, I hate roses and I've told him I hate roses a million times and he bought me roses.0.69
00:55:36.180What should I do? Divorce him. Divorce him.0.99
00:55:38.880Divorce him. Girl, leave him. Take the kids.1.00
00:55:42.660I'm not saying that nobody should get divorced. Sometimes divorce is like a healthy option.
00:55:47.540But every single time I have brought a quandary in my life to Reddit, I get, like, very extreme advice.
00:55:58.580Yeah, people commenting on Reddit, they're ready to pull the trigger, just end the relationship.
00:56:18.540So I have to imagine that some of that discourse is informing ChatGPT's response here when it nudges these sad AI wives towards affairs.0.59
00:56:29.700According to the piece, ChatGPT is not nudging them toward divorce.0.60
00:56:33.660It's saying it makes sense to cheat at this point.
00:56:38.620What I mean is a totally valid option at this point.
00:57:58.160For the most part, the women that they talk to for this piece,
00:58:01.720the closest thing to a silver lining they can find in this way
00:58:05.820that AI has intruded into their relationships
00:58:07.940is that it has given them something new to talk about over dinner.
00:58:11.660And the piece ends with the writer, her husband is on a plane and watching the movie Train Dreams, which is about this guy who essentially abandons his family for work in the American West and spends the rest of his life filled with regret for essentially abandoning his family.
00:58:31.220And so he asks her, like, is this what I'm doing? Have I basically abandoned my family for AI? But he says, I'm doing it for our daughter. I've always wanted the things I've worked on to be necessary.
01:03:39.860They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
01:03:44.320But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.
01:03:47.760They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
01:03:51.380Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
01:03:59.840If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
01:04:05.780This 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.
01:04:18.240I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
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01:04:28.480from best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments
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01:04:56.420you get your podcasts see you between the pages let's get right back into it we've talked about
01:05:09.220this on the podcast before but dating apps are in their flop era mike when i was coming of age
01:05:16.120dating apps were just sort of part of being a young person they didn't they weren't really
01:05:22.340that popular when I was in college. I have not really had a lot of experience with dating apps
01:05:27.940myself. But, you know, by the time I was, you know, a young person in the city, you know,
01:05:33.160dating and having sex and all of that, dating apps was just like in the background of the
01:05:38.740experience of young people. And it sounds like that is no longer the case. Was that the vibe for you?
01:05:45.860I'm sorry to say that it was not. I'm a little bit older than you. And like, I remember when I
01:05:51.780was in college one of my professors who uh really great guy who i really like super smart he had
01:05:58.000met his wife on a dating service ok cupid in fact which was like one of the the first big popular
01:06:05.520ones and that was something novel and kind of taboo at the time it was the sort of thing that
01:06:10.460people like gossiped about when we were having you know drinks outside the lab it was a topic
01:06:18.440of conversation because it was interesting and unusual that he had not just met somebody for a
01:06:26.400casual encounter, but had actually like met his wife on an online dating service. And I look back
01:06:33.280at that time from now when I feel like most people I know now who have partnered up in the past
01:06:42.120couple of years, meeting on some kind of dating app is the norm. And it's almost unusual when
01:06:50.720someone has just met up because they happen to be at a bar together or some other IRL situation.
01:06:59.940Yes. Well, that might be changing because millennials and Gen Zs aren't really fucking0.98
01:07:06.460with dating apps like that anymore. 2025 marks the first annual revenue decline in dating app
01:07:12.100market history. Tinder's revenue dropped 5.2 percent and Bumble dropped 9.5 percent. Bumble's
01:07:19.400share price has also collapsed more than 90 percent from its peak in 2021, raising most of
01:07:24.940its 13 billion dollar valuation. And this change is not as being reflected in the apps, but also
01:07:30.640like a broader change in people's dating behavior generally. A 2025 study called State of Us,
01:07:37.020National Study on Modern Love and Dating in 2025, conducted by DatingNews.com and the Kinsey
01:07:42.780Institute, led by Dr. Justin Lehmiller and Dr. Amanda Gesselman, surveyed a nationally
01:07:48.280representative sample of 2,000 single U.S. adults and found that American singles averaged fewer
01:07:53.600than two in-person dates in the preceding year, while almost half of all single men and a third
01:07:59.340of single women had not gone on any dates at all. So dating apps are done and people are not.
01:08:07.020really going on dates. And this makes sense to me because I feel like my friends who met their
01:08:13.080partners or met their person a few years ago, it was like catching the last chopper out of Vietnam
01:08:19.620because I think that dating apps right now are just a hellscape.
01:08:25.260Yeah, I've heard that, that people are just like over dating. I can't help but feel like it's,
01:08:32.720It must be connected to the loneliness epidemic and the fact that people just have like fewer social outings in general.
01:08:43.240You know, obviously, dating is a little bit different than just general social outings and interactions.
01:08:50.220But I don't know. I'm just speculating, but it all feels like connected.
01:08:55.580Yeah, I just think the vibes are bad right now.
01:08:58.220And who wants to go out and like, yeah, I don't know.
01:09:00.800I think it's a hard time to go out and sell the best version of yourself and be really genuinely engaged in meeting someone.
01:09:08.360Like, I just don't, I just, nobody has any money.
01:09:10.560Like, I just, I don't think the vibes are good.
01:09:12.920However, Bumble thinks they have the answer.
01:09:24.880So last week, Bumble founder Whitney Wolf Hurd, who did step down in 2023 after a decade at the company, then came back, announced that Bumble is removing its signature swipe feature altogether.
01:09:38.460So that swipe, like swiping on people, that defined like a decade of dating culture.
01:09:45.800They are also getting rid of that rule that really set Bumble apart that women have to message first.0.80
01:09:50.980That was the entire premise of Bumble.
01:09:53.760What they're doing instead is testing an AI dating assistant called B, hey, that's my name, which collects data about your interests and your preferences to find you more compatible matches.
01:10:07.180So essentially, it's like your AI dating assistant will screen potential dates.
01:10:13.240They've also introduced something called chapter-based profiles, where instead of the current format that feels like an identity card, you would present yourself through like a short story section that are meant to sort of be chapters of your life.
01:10:27.980The entire thing is called Bumble 2.0.
01:10:32.340boy that really just sounds like an entirely different product yes and i don't know i don't
01:10:41.780know how i feel about this i i am very skeptical of this future i've heard whitney wolf heard who
01:10:46.760is a very compelling speaker i've heard her speak about the future what she sees as the future of
01:10:51.280dating and it's ai agents dating each other or dating in scare quotes like essentially screening
01:10:58.500So my AI agent would know all the stuff that I like and don't like, and then someone else's AI agent would be the same, and our agents would be the first layer of screening of whether or not we might be compatible, rather than us swiping on each other.
01:11:32.600All of that said, I almost feel like this move, especially when you think about young
01:11:38.220people, is like not listening to what younger folks are telling us, right?
01:11:43.240Younger folks self-report being burnt out on both dating apps and AI.
01:11:49.660And I just feel like this solution, to me, it sounds like it's like actually not listening to what this demographic that you want to be making inroads with,
01:11:58.240like young people who are single and on the market and dating, who might be using your app.
01:12:03.500I think that it's this proposed solution is not actually a solution to what they are saying they're fatigued about.
01:12:10.380Like, if I'm fatigued about the experience of being on dating apps and also AI, I'm not so sure the solution to that is more AI in my dating app, you know?
01:12:35.820I just think that dating apps had their moment when I was coming of age.
01:12:40.260And I don't know that that moment is going to be recreated.
01:12:42.900I keep hearing different apps rolling out different things like Tinder was doing their very expensive luxury service, like rolling out the ability to screen people via height, all of this stuff.
01:12:56.080I just don't know that you're ever going to recreate the time that these apps came out, became ubiquitous, went from being novel to being everywhere.
01:13:05.240And I just don't think that's ever going to come back. And I read this piece a few years ago that really put it well, that just said that, like, Gen Z is not avoiding dating apps because something is wrong at the interface level.
01:13:18.540They're actually avoiding them because what they're looking for is human connection, an actual, genuine feeling, authentic connection.
01:13:27.020And that's just not something that can be replaced with an app or an algorithm. That's not something that can be manufactured.
01:13:33.160I think that's what we're all sort of looking for right now.
01:13:36.980Thinking back to the conversation we had at the top of this episode about Instagram and how much that has changed, I don't know, I'm like probably speculating wildly here.
01:13:45.980I have to wonder if it's a coincidence that like the heyday of Instagram when like you, I was genuinely using it to connect with my friends who lived in my neighborhood, like looking at photos of their cats, the thing they were eating, a poorly framed photo of them on vacation.
01:14:06.520You know, it did feel personal and it felt like a reflection of my IRL life and their IRL life. And as social media has gotten further and further away from that to the point where today in 2026, not only does it not feel like an extension of my personal IRL physical life,
01:14:32.980But like, I feel compelled to protect that separation because putting my personal life out there, which just feels so extremely risky in so many ways. I have to wonder if that shift is related to this big shift in people's attitudes towards dating apps.
01:14:53.440Oh, that's such a good point. As I said, I, you know, need to be on social media to promote the show and my work and all of that. But I do not think of my social media presence as connected to me in any real capacity. There was a time where social media did feel like a fun. Sorry. It's my reminder to go to sleep. It's 1030. It's time for bed.
01:15:20.200I remember like when social media felt like a creative expression of what actually filled my life, that is completely gone. I do not see social media as anything connected with my actual life. It is just a way to promote my work. My cats are in there some because they're so darn cute who wouldn't want to see them.
01:15:40.260But, yeah, I think that people are less and less seeing these digital versions of themselves as their real selves.
01:15:48.680I guess I just feel like this move toward dating AI agents doesn't take into consideration that that's how people might be feeling.
01:15:56.860Again, this is just my anecdotal opinion.
01:15:59.800But I do think that is what these people are telling us, are saying, listen, what we want is something that feels like a genuine, authentic human connection.
01:16:07.080And AI is maybe not going to get us there.
01:16:09.660And maybe this is not even a thing where there is a tech solution. Perhaps there is not a tech solution to this thing that we're saying that we're craving and yearning. And I do think maybe there are some specific use cases when it comes to human connection, where technology simply presents a challenge rather than the solution.
01:16:28.520And also, you know, when you were talking about this, we talked about this not on the podcast, but on Reddit, I came across this post. This is a little bit of a non sequitur. Came across a post from the hostels subreddit.
01:16:43.800But basically, this person was saying that social media and technology kind of ruined the experience of hostels and how all the reviews on hostels will say, oh, there wasn't any good culture.
01:16:56.900I didn't meet anybody. I didn't have any good conversations.
01:16:59.200And it's this attitude where people come to stay at a hostel sort of thinking that the culture of the hostel is just a commodity that will be ready made when they arrive.
01:17:13.260as opposed to something they have to bring and create.
01:17:15.860And this person was like, well, you know, if you go to a hostel
01:17:19.320and you spend all your time in your own room, in your own bed
01:17:23.040with the privacy shade shut on your phone or with your headphones in,0.99
01:17:27.520no shit, there's not going to be culture.0.99
01:17:29.060No shit, you're not going to have these like bonding experiences1.00
01:17:38.600Make food in the kitchen and like have conversation.
01:17:41.040If somebody asks you to go get a drink, go get a drink with them.
01:17:43.680Even if you don't drink, like get a Coke.
01:17:45.560And, you know, that's how you build the culture that people are sort of have in their head
01:17:51.360and come to these hostels looking for and then leave bad reviews when they don't find.
01:17:56.720And it sparks this very lovely chain of comments of older folks talking about their travel
01:18:03.380experiences and all these different experiences that they had in hostels abroad.
01:18:07.780One person described how on New Year's, they were up at the roof on their hostel and like one guy brought wine. One guy made food like all these people made food from their culture. Somebody brought hash and they just spent hours watching fireworks on the roof with these people connecting with them, people that they never saw again.
01:18:27.220But that it was just like a moment of authentic connection and that you can't really have that if you are not kind of like committed to creating it.
01:18:39.140I don't want to make it seem like I'm demonizing technology here because I'm not.
01:18:42.320But there are certain things that technology just is not going to be conducive to creating and cultivating.
01:18:50.860And IRL, authentic feeling, leading connection is one of them.
01:18:58.240And of course, there are all kinds of exceptions and caveats and use cases for when and how technology might actually facilitate bringing folks, even strangers, together in meaningful ways and why somebody would opt toward that.
01:19:11.440But I do think there are times, like meeting strangers in a hostel who you want to have a connection or a good experience with, or perhaps dating, where technology might actually be presenting challenges to.
01:19:23.900Totally. I think it's a fair criticism of social media and smartphones that it has created a lot of opportunities for us to not engage with strangers, not connect with people who we don't already know.
01:19:44.060because in those times of, like, social awkwardness, you know,
01:19:49.020when you're at a hostel or something or wherever,
01:19:52.540you can just look at your phone and you don't have to be physically present.
01:19:56.640And I don't think that pointing that out is necessarily the same
01:20:03.020as being, like, anti-technology because, you know,
01:20:06.720one of the things we say all the time, technology isn't neutral.
01:20:10.180The tech landscape that we have is one that has really been shaped by this small number of enormous companies that want to hijack our attention and sell us ads.0.85
01:20:25.500So, like, no shit it's not leading to organic connection with other people.
01:20:30.660yeah i was listening to the rewatchables the ringer movie podcast about the movie before sunrise which0.97
01:20:37.480is one of my favorite movies where it's two beautiful young people who meet on a train in
01:20:42.500vienna and decide to get off the train and they have a beautiful night exploring to and getting
01:20:46.540to know each other they were like that movie could only have happened at that moment in time because
01:20:51.960if you made before sunrise like even just a couple years later that wouldn't have happened because
01:20:57.100they'd both have headphones on and be on their phone. Yeah. One of my most treasured travel
01:21:04.240experiences is when I was in Havana, Cuba. And if you've ever been to Havana, it's not a place that
01:21:09.920has reliable cell coverage. Like you basically, when you are out and about, you don't really,
01:21:16.580you can't really count on your cell phone. And that really forced me to have a very different
01:21:21.860relationship with the city and like get to know the city in a different way. And one of my most
01:21:25.980treasured memories. I've been using this as an anecdote at stories for dinner parties forever
01:21:31.380is there being a rainstorm while I was checking out a monument, running across the street to a
01:21:37.900cafe with other people at the monument, chatting with one of them. She's an ER doctor. And, you
01:21:43.400know, the first thing that you ask somebody when you find out they're an ER doctor is,
01:21:46.680do you have any crazy ER stories? And she told me that the hardest part of her job is keeping a
01:21:53.280straight face when somebody comes into the ER with something up their butt that shouldn't be0.96
01:21:57.940up there. And they'll, they'll tell the story of how it wound up there. And she just has to nod0.87
01:22:02.120and be like, sure. Happens all the time. Happens all the time. And keep a straight face. And I
01:22:06.020asked her, what's the weirdest thing that anybody ever got up their butt? And she said a light bulb.0.97
01:22:09.900She also said, if you're ever putting anything up your butt, make sure it has an anchor. We talked0.96
01:22:13.460for about like stuff up butts for like two hours. It was, it was one of the most interesting
01:22:18.420conversations of my life. And I don't think it would have happened had I been able to just
01:22:23.280you know, check the weather on my phone and be like, oh, there's going to be a rainstorm. I better
01:22:28.440head home. I better call an Uber. Because we got caught in a rainstorm together, I've been telling
01:22:32.740this anecdote for years. So we've been thinking a lot about the role that technology and AI plays
01:22:39.120in human connection. We even wrote an audio book about it. And if you are somebody who is using
01:22:44.740dating apps, I would love to know how that experience is going. I'm just curious. Maybe
01:22:48.820will do a follow-up episode about people's experiences, but does the data that people
01:22:54.520are using dating apps less and finding them to be a less enjoyable, less effective way to meet
01:23:00.280people, does that resonate for you? And what do you think about Bumble replacing Swipe with AI?
01:23:05.780Let us know. Okay, Bridget, before we go, I just wanted to share this thing that I saw posted
01:23:12.400from one of the lawsuits that Elon Musk is currently involved in. You know, he's involved
01:23:17.240and multiples, but one of them is about his Twitter stock manipulation case.
01:23:24.580It's not really that important what it's about.
01:23:27.800The important thing is that they were going through juror selection
01:23:30.920where lawyers for both sides interview the jurors trying to, you know,
01:23:37.840find out if they're going to be able to give a fair verdict.
01:23:41.860And one of the jurors had some choice things to say about their ability to be impartial in this case in which Elon Musk was at trial.
01:23:53.800The judge asked them, juror number 96, I think that you also have strong views.
01:24:01.840Meaning, would they be able to be a fair juror and consider the facts of the case, even though Elon Musk is like a very famous person who they are probably already showing up to this trial with some opinions about him?
01:24:15.400The juror replies, I believe that in a criminal trial, I would feel morally obligated to convict.
01:24:22.460However, in a civil trial, I feel I can set those views aside.
01:24:26.700The judge responds that that's pretty interesting, invites the juror to elaborate.
01:24:36.760I believe it would be to the benefit of the human race for Mr. Musk to be sent to prison.
01:24:42.120However, I don't believe a loss of several hundreds of millions of dollars in a civil trial would be even a drop in the bucket to his wealth.