this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2025
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It’s extremely narcissistic no? To be that close with a machine that just constantly panders to you and where every conversation is about you?
I... don't think thats the best explanation.
I've been feeling lonely myself lately.
I can see how an app that just says nice things to you could be a kind of salve.
In the same way that watching porn can fulfil a very human need, I think a chat bot can also do that.
I guess it can be a machine designed to stimulate specific emotions.
The entshitification of relationships?
Good, less narcissistics in the dating pool?
I can agree with you to an extent. But would you say the same thing about a dude and his fleshlight?
I don't think people form emotional connections like this with their fleshlights or dildos, and I don't think those sex toys have the same insidious yes-man programming; but - if somebody did form an emotional connection like this to their sex toy - then yes, I'd suggest it is unhealthy.
The narcissism that I suspect the person you're replying to was pointing at is specifically in the way these bots pander, agree with, and fall over themselves to confirm everything about you. I don't know if I'd call liking that kind of thing narcissism personally, but I can see what they mean. Either way, it's not something sex toys really offer in the same way as they've typically got a different "function"
Thanks for responding.
Having said that, why are sex toys different in function?
Well, their uses are different, to put it simply, and the way they are typically sold is different.
I'm not going to ask a fleshlight to generate C++ code for me because it's not going to. I wouldn't try to get physical stimulation using a chatbot. The functions of these chatbots, and sex toys, are different in a lot of ways.
However, they are similar in others. One of the functions for both of these things (chatbots and sex toys) is to make the people who produce them money.
Sex toys typically are a one-time purchase. The money is made there, so to get the money from the customer, the manufacturer only needs to convince you to buy it once. Whether you enjoy it after that doesn't matter to the manufacturer unless maybe you return it and it gets a bad reputation. For a sex toy to be successful, it generally has to satisfy customers in more of a physical sensation sense - relatively straightforward, not requiring too much psychological manipulation.
Chatbots are a subscription service, so the manufacturer needs to convince you to buy it every single month (or week or year, whatever the billing period is). This means the manufacturer needs to convince you every time you interact, and the manufacturer wants to keep you interacting too. Because these bots are programmed to be conversational, they can manipulate you to feel good (and to feel good about the bot, and about buying a subscription for another month) by agreeing with everything you say, validating all your opinions, and providing platitudes when you feel sad.
And that's just one example of how these two things differ. For another insidious function of chatbots that's quite closely tied to the emotional "validation" they provide their customers, look to their ability to collect data and build profiles of customers that their manufacturers can sell to other companies or use to advertise. This also gives the manufacturers an incentive to make the bots make personal, emotional connections with people, to elicit personal (a.k.a. more valuable) information from them.
If they're forming a relationship with an inanimate object? Yah, that's arguably even more concerning.
But concern wasn't OP's point. It was narcissism. That a person uses a machine solely to satisfy their needs and their needs only. Is that narcissistic?
Which need is satistied is important here. Sexual gratification is not the same as an apparent need to interact with someone who affirms everything you tell it to, basically acting as a personality mirror. And then falling in love with something that echoes your every thought does have a semblance of narcissism involved.
Taking the dildo metaphor: having a dildo isn't narcissistic. Being a dude and having a dildo molded after your own dick and exclusively using that as it's "the best thing ever", does seem a bit narcissistic, no?
Or a woman with a dildo?
Everyone uses dildos.
Yup, I was going to write this, actually. But a man and his fleshlight gets the point more across here in Lemmy.