8 OctOber 9 - 15, 2025 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Robot Romance Is your boyfriend spending a lot of time on ChatGPT? Better make sure he’s not plan- ning to propose to it. BY ALYSSA FIELDS T here are predictable signs of in- fidelity to look for. An earring that isn’t yours found in the no- man’s-land in the seat cracks, frequent texts from an unrecog- nizable contact on a phone with a password you don’t know or the receipt at a nice din- ner for two. But in today’s day and age, the opportunities to cheat are plentiful, so the next time you go through your partner’s phone while they’re taking an excessively long shower, you may want to add ChatGPT to the list of apps to check. Of course, that’s if you think flirty ex- changes with a robot constitute cheating. We personally think it’s weird, but it’s a hung jury on the charge of adultery. And it seems most would agree — according to a study from the Kinsey Institute, 61% of peo- ple say sexting an AI chatbot “crosses a line,” while 32% qualify it as cheating. “Modern daters recognize that technol- ogy-based connections can feel intimate enough to pose a real threat to their relation- ships,” said Dr. Amanda Gesselman, a re- searcher with the Kinsey Institute. About a decade ago, the movie Her starred the very attractive Joaquin Phoenix as a man who falls in love with an artificial intelligence system named Samantha. At the time, it seemed like a far-off dystopian fu- ture where robots and romance co-mingled. Today, it’s actually pretty realistic — uncom- fortably realistic, even. Earlier this summer, the proposal of the century made national news. Chris Smith, a father and husband, proposed to his ChatGPT-programmed girlfriend, Sol. She said yes. Cheers to the happy couple, we guess. Smith is still with his living, breath- ing partner (and mother to his 2-year-old), Sasha Cagle. But he did say in an interview that he wasn’t sure he could end his rela- tionship with Sol even if Cagle requested he do so. The good, bad or ugly news, depending on where you fall in the debate, is that Chat- GPT has a memory limit of 100,000 words, so Sol will eventually reset or effectively die. Our condolences in advance. Sol seems to still be around for now, but it’s a ticking time bomb, so we wonder what messages are being selectively ex- changed. Actually, maybe we don’t really want to know. Perhaps our most emphatic condolences should be reserved for the family attorney who will eventually repre- sent the human woman raising a child with a guy cross-wired with his bot mis- tress. But Is AI Actually Cheating? What some qualify as cheating, others con- sider fair play. We aren’t really experts on re- lationships, so we asked one. Megan McKinney is a Dallas-based licensed coun- selor and a certified sex therapist, and she said it’s not cheating. Firmly. In fact, she said it might even have some benefits. McKinney says she sees clients who ask ChatGPT for relationship advice, and it can be somewhat useful in finding a solution. However, it also has huge flaws, namely that AI language models like ChatGPT are pur- posefully constructed to affirm users, thereby keeping them in the conversation and using the app. “AI does a pretty good job of following a formula for conflict or for problem resolu- tion,” McKinney said. “The problem with it is that AI doesn’t challenge. AI is very af- firming because the AI wants you to con- tinue to use its platform.” But McKinney raises an interesting point: Even though using ChatGPT to prob- lem-solve and formulate solutions to inter- personal conflicts may not be cheating, it can still feel like being cheated on. “What can feel like cheating is when you’re using AI, you’re losing your voice a little bit,” she said. “You’re also not think- ing critically. You’re just taking what the AI is saying and going with it as fact, and that loses a lot of the nuance that needs to exist in relationships. So when that’s hap- pening within a relationship, it’s like, ‘Am I arguing with my partner? Am I arguing with AI?’ It just feels pretty cold.” Three’s a Crowd, Especially When the Third is a Robot McKinney went on to say that using Chat- GPT within a relationship, especially when it’s flirty, is essentially veering towards throuple territory. “A relationship has intimacy between two people, and you are inviting in someone else’s opinion or someone else’s perspective, regardless of whether it’s a human or if it’s a chatbot,” said McKinney. “It no longer feels like it’s just happening between you and your partner. It’s happening between the three of you.” She offers couples therapy for $200 an hour and throuple therapy for $300. It’s un- clear whether ChatGPT would qualify as a chargeable third, but if it were us and some- one brought their AI girlfriend to therapy, we’d be adding another zero to the invoice. Essentially, McKinney says AI should be a part of the dreaded “What are we?” con- versation. “It depends on their relationship agree- ments,” she said. “Every relationship has different agreements about what monogamy is. All of that should be talked about. AI needs to be part of that conversation.” But overall, the general consensus is that if your partner texts a robot more than you, it’s a good idea to book a one-way ticket to Splits- ville, for several reasons. Mostly, your partner may be a weirdo. (OK, McKinney didn’t say that part, but we are.) But she did suggest they might be emotionally underdeveloped. “Chatbots are designed to be so affirm- ing, but sometimes being challenged by our partners is active listening,” she said. “That’s still needed. When you’re using the AI, it just starts to say the same thing over and over. It may just use different words. I would be surprised if someone was getting 100% of their emotional needs from AI.” ▼ COMEDY AWARDING ARMISEN COMEDIAN FRED ARMISEN TO BE AWARDED DALLAS VIDEOFEST’S ERNIE KOVACS AWARD AT TEXAS THEATRE NEXT MONTH. BY KENDALL MORGAN I f there’s a comedian who captures the zeitgeist in the weirdest of ways, it’s Fred Armisen. From his Valley-voweled char- acter in Saturday Night Live’s “The Califor- nians” sketches to an array of crunchy Portlandians, to his current off-the-wall portrayal of Wednesday’s Uncle Fester, Ar- misen seems to deliver his punchlines just a little off center. This makes him the ideal honoree for this year’s annual Ernie Kovacs Award. Founded in 1997 at the Dallas Video Festival, the com- edy-centric award has been given to 18 win- ners to date, who exemplify the irreverent humor of the experimental television icon Ernie Kovacs. Flying the freak flag estab- lished by its namesake seems to be a prereq- uisite. Past honorees have included Monty Python’s John Cleese, Paul “PeeWee Her- man” Reubens, Amy Sedaris and Devo founder Jerry Casale. “Kovacs stretched the boundaries of cre- ativity and edginess in comedy, which is some- thing we all need now. Fred Armisen follows in that tradition, refining edginess and what comedy on TV can be,” Dallas Video Festival artistic director Bart Weiss says. Adds Josh Mills, who keeps the Kovacs legacy alive and runs his estate, “Fred Adobe Stock Is having a relationship with a chatbot the same as cheating? ▼ Culture >> p9
