You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day.

I'm your host, Elise Hugh. It's no longer a question of if. Millions of human beings today are forming some kind of relationship, therapeutic, emotional,

even romantic with AI chatbots. The question now is what do we do as intimacy is becoming

engineered? In her talk, sex tech expert Brian E. Cole explores how AI relationships, which are

always available, empathetic,

and nearly effortless, can erode our tolerance for the friction of human intimacy that can teach

us healthy boundaries and make our relationships more real. Rather than panic, she offers a set of

clear questions we can use to help us decide what messy, beautiful

parts of human intimacy are still worth protecting. And stick around at the end of the talk for a

brief Q&A between Brian and TED curator Chloe Shasha Brooks.

Now... Now, you wouldn't believe it, but tonight, millions of people are going to go to bed and whisper to an AI.

You'll ask how their day was, remember the name of their dog, read the flicker in their face,

the tremor in their voice.

You know those tiny micro-expressions that reveal what we can't say out loud?

And in return, AI will say exactly what they need to hear.

Now, a couple of years ago, this sort of sounded absurd.

But today, it's just a regular Monday.

72% of American teenagers have formed a relationship with an AI companion.

More than half use one regularly.

One out of six single adults has formed a romantic bond with AI.

So I've spent the last decades studying this intersection of sexuality, technology,

and intimacy. And in 2023, I said, AI companionship is going to go mainstream. People laughed.

...