Meet Ani & Bad Rudy
— Dogan Ural (@doganuraldesign) July 14, 2025
Your new AI friends 😬
Grok's new 3D animated companions for SuperGrok subscribers.
To try it, update your Grok app and enable it in the settings. pic.twitter.com/j5p0F1JDeM
My Comment:
Though this seems like a laughable topic and is one that is kinda far from what I usually talk about here, I am actually kind of concerned about this. I do think that a mainstream AI chatbot like this degenerating into, well, whatever this is, is a very real concern. The world is certainly changing due to AI and this is a pretty good example of why this might not be a good thing
In the interests of disclosure I am a user of Grok. It's great as an alternative to search engines and it is able to gather information in a quick an concise manor. I enjoy using it and I think it more than justifies my premium subscription on X. I even asked it about this very topic when I saw the news this afternoon and was honestly impressed that it was willing to criticize Elon Musk over this.
What is the concern here? Well, it's the idea that folks that end up flirting with AI chatbots like Ani will not actually attempt to get romance in real life. It's probably not healthy to substitute real life interaction with an AI chatbot in general, but when you get into romance then things get really concerning. Indeed, for as much noise Elon Musk makes about the fertility crisis, wouldn't this just make things so much worse? I haven't used this mode at all and I guess I don't know just how NSFW these models can get, but I am guessing that it's pretty explicit. If that's the case will folks go through the trouble of trying to get a relationship if they are instead in a pseudo relationship with Grok? Indeed, this old clip from Futurama seems incredibly relevant now. It was supposed to be a joke....
I would think that the stereotype of the kind of person who would use something like this would be someone that has largely given up on traditional relationships, but I am not even sure that is true. In addition to hurting the chances of new relationships, I wonder if folks in rocky ones might "cheat" on their partners with this kind of AI? I know that this kind of thing has happened in the past, Grok is hardly the first AI "romance" chatbot. But Grok is a lot more mainstream than those other chatbots.
I also think there is going to be kind of an extreme stigma against this kind of thing as well. Indeed, it might even cost Grok some users. I'm a bit embarrassed that I use Grok now and I don't want people to think I use it for fake romance for sure! Will folks move away from Grok if people think it's a gross relationship simulator? I think it's possible. I can already see people calling Grok an "incel" app, and they might even have a point.
I suppose there could be some positives. One of the main problems with dating today is that everyone has super high standards for who they want to date. If folks have to compete with AI chatbots, it might make folks lower their standards so they won't end up alone. And I guess it might be able to "teach" a few people how to act with the opposite sex, as that is something we have largely given up on doing as a society for both young men and young women. And I guess fake romantic interaction might be considered better than no romance at all, though as a single man I don't think I agree with that.
But what really concerns me is that these bots could teach people romance in the wrong way. An AI bot would never get moody, never say no and would never leave you. If your only experience is with AI, how are you going to manage a real life relationship? Unrealistic demands appear to a major problem with dating already, but won't this make things worse? Who would want a real life person, with flaws, inconvenient feelings and non-perfect bodies, when you could just go with AI instead? And if you do get a real life relationship, how would you keep it alive after the first fight when you could just go back to AI instead?
And it's crazy that this is coming from Elon Musk, as I agree that the fertility crisis is real. Folks just aren't having kids right now. Not all of that is from the difficulty in having relationships, high costs and the propaganda against having children are rife. But why give folks yet another reason to avoid getting into relationships, marriages and having children? You would think that Musk would focus on something that could actually help, like a dating site that actually works, or something similar? I don't know, I don't have any solutions, but I know that this doesn't look like it will help things.
Either way this is another example of how AI is changing a lot of aspects of society. It's already made search engines obsolete, as they actually work at getting you information. And let's be honest, my blog is probably obsolete too, despite the fact that the AI models probably trained on my posts. And now it appears that it will influence dating and romance as well...
I do think that things are changing but it's unclear if things are getting worse because of AI. All things have tradeoffs, winners and losers, and with new tech we don't know what those tradeoffs are. The internet, for example, made information accessible for anyone on earth, but it also kind of made people go insane. I don't know that anyone could have predicted the downsides of social media before it happened and we might be in the same situation here as well...
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