In decades past, people tended to meet each other in their local communities through church, school, family friends, and so on. Go back further and it was common for marriages to be arranged solely for economic purposes. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen was subversive because Elizabeth Bennett risks her family’s economic security by marrying Mr. Darcy purely for love. But, I digress.

Trae Stephens writes for Pirate Wires on how the marriage rate has gone down alongside the advent of digital technologies, and how this is, more than likely, not coincidental. Particularly with the rise of AI bots, like the ones published by Character.AI, millions of people are living out romances with digital avatars perfectly tailored to their whims and wishes. Stephens writes,

Romance bots are just the latest chapter in a multi-decade mass migration of sex, romance, and love from the analog to the digital world. It’s increasingly clear this development has been a net negative on human romance: these technologies are driving us apart, corroding marriage and commitment, and pushing the population ever deeper into carefully curated digital alternatives to real relationships.

How fares romance and marriage in the 21st century? In America, at least, it’s not looking good. The birth rate, in addition, has hit the lowest it’s been since the 1970s.

One might credit certain ideological movements with the declining marriage and birth rates. Our culture tends to value autonomy, independence, and comfort over commitment, family, and investing in one’s community. Furthermore, our entire advertising industry is built upon appealing to personal felt needs. Philip Cushman discusses this in his paper “Why the Self is Empty,” writing,

It is a self that seeks the experience of being continually filled up by consuming goods, calories, experiences, politicians, romantic partners, and empathic therapists in an attempt to combat the growing alienation and fragmentation of its era. This response has been implicitly prescribed by a post-World War II economy that is dependent on the continual consumption of nonessential and quickly obsolete items and experiences (Zinn, 1973, pp. 89-119).

The empty self of the modern era, says Cushman, is always on the lookout for something new to consume, including, especially nowadays, the digital products that flood our daily lives.

With a consumeristic mentality, combined with AI developers’ attempt to meet consumers’ felt needs through AI chatbots, the culture seems now primed to neglect marriage as an aspirational institution. Encouraging young people to actually get out there, go on dates, and learn how to hold conversations with real people may be more vital than ever.