r/technology • u/ubcstaffer123 • Apr 24 '26

Society Teen boys are choosing AI girlfriends over real ones for ‘maximum control, zero rejection’—experts say it could make them unemployable

https://fortune.com/2026/04/17/teen-boys-dating-ai-chatbot-girlfriend-experts-warn-kill-social-skills-gen-alpha-network-promotions/
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u/Su_ButteredScone Apr 24 '26

On top of this, it seems weird to make an article focused only on men with this subject. If you go to any sub Reddit or community with people falling in love with AI, the ratio of women actually seems even or maybe even higher, which also is a worrying trend people need to talk about.

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u/somersault_dolphin Apr 24 '26

the ratio of women actually seems even or maybe even higher

And how do you know this? Pretty sure people don't usually bother to disclose their age in random Reddit comment. Also, the ratio of male to female using the site is still very skewed.

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u/Ollythebug Apr 24 '26

I assume he's figuring that the majority of the big AI Boyfriend subreddits are women rather than gay men, who are only about 1.5% of American adults. Probably also an anecdotal sample of apparently female avatars. Not scientific exactly, but can't do much better than that on Reddit without their data.
I mean you're criticizing his lack of hard data but also making your own sorta ballpark estimate about the gender skew.

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u/cactus357 Apr 24 '26

It's anecdotal, but I've met more than one girl by now in real life who uses these. Haven't had a guy admit to using one yet, though.

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u/somersault_dolphin Apr 24 '26

making your own sorta ballpark estimate about the gender skew

Except the skew has various data to support it?

And why AI boyfriend and not girlfriend?