An Ocean of Insecurity: My Experience with GenAI

28

September

2025

5/5 (1)

“The Birds Don’t Sing, They Screech In Pain”

Dear reader,

I invite you to read a collection of my thoughts and meditations, all relating to my own use of GenAI. The tone of this article is definitely different from my previous one, and I apologise in advance for that. With all that being said, I still hope that some of you may relate to what is written here today.

Foundations of Fear

I would be lying if I said that the past few years were not a complete nightmare for me. My lifelong aspirations of being a creative had never felt so threatened.

First it was the rise of image generators like Midjourney, which generate images while being trained on millions of artists’ stolen works (Goetze, 2024). It was an injustice which I had witnessed firsthand. I was scared, and it felt like something that I wanted to do for years was suddenly taken away from me.

But hey, maybe it would only be visual arts right? They would surely never come for music and video…

It was a truly naïve moment for me, as later other programs would arise that would be able to generate both music and video. Now did I particularly like or find merit in what was generated? No absolutely not, most of the music made on programs like Suno sounded abhorrent. Videos made by Stable Diffusion lacked any of the vision which someone like Denis Villeneuve could have. But that was my opinion, the general public seemed to think otherwise.

In any case, I was not too happy with the emergence of GenAI.

A Puppet on A String

Because of the views that I had previously held, it would come to no-one’s surprise that when I actually seriously had to use GenAI I was practically forced to.

I remember that day very clearly. It was during my second year at Erasmus in my BA bachelor. We had a course on Entrepreneurship, and had to use these resources to help us make a business. It seemed innocent enough, right? But I couldn’t help but feel horrible with every prompt I was typing.

I will be the first to say that when it comes to group work, I have no intention of pulling my group down because of my disdain towards GenAI. I understand that many students use it, and I will not push back. These are just the values that I hold.

And so, I fell into the trap that many students do:  I kept on using ChatGPT, DeepSeek etc. I used it to summarise my articles, but never really to brainstorm on my own. Sometimes, I used it to see what grade I would get for an assignment, though the accuracy varied. In the Digital Business course that we followed in year 3, we had to write an entire Essay with AI.

I’ll be the first to say that I did not enjoy the process and I find that AI cannot write in the same way that I do. Even when I had fed the AI with essays and other writings of mine in the  past it just really couldn’t compare. I do not know if I was just lucky or uncritical, but I do know that my grade for the essay that I wrote myself was higher than the AI-written one.

Still, I often ask myself if we are entering an era where critical cognitive skills are being eroded due to the overreliance on AI (Zhai et al., 2024). How are we going to move forward when we are unable to detect misinformation and just accept everything that a machine gives us?

Moreover, how am I supposed to not feel guilt for using such a technology?  It is not only actively consuming major amounts of energy, but also causing me and my peers to have a harder time in the future job market due to entry-level positions declining (Jockims, 2025).

 A Deal with The Devil

For a time, I became quite apathetic to it all as a bachelor’s in business tends to do that to you. So I decided to use GenAI for personal reasons too.

My first experience with this was when I used an AI beauty app to get rid of some acne on my forehead. My partner wanted to post a picture of me in a cat café on their story, but there was some visible acne on my forehead. I then had the “brilliant” idea to use an app to get rid of the Acne, and hey it worked. We were both happy, I got to look good, and they got to post.

I then tried to incorporate GenAI into my writing as my apathy had reached the point of “If you can’t beat them, join them”.

I wrote down lines, and tried to continue sharing ideas with ChatGPT. But still something was missing.

It wasn’t really the story that I wanted to tell. The story I wanted to tell was a lot softer, and more human. It was laced with quiet moments and thoughtful conversations about characters living in a Cyberpunk world. (Ironic I know)

What ChatGPT gave me was…closer to a Marvel movie or a rip-off of Blade Runner. It was instant gratification, and a story with no substance. Why would it be one? It was a story that no human had bothered to write before. Just an amalgamation of the average.

Don’t Let AI Steal Your Daydream

I obviously do not know all of you, but I do urge you to think more critically about your GenAI use and the impact you have by using it.

I know for myself that by using it, I am actively contributing to injustice. Every prompt and sentence will make the models better and with the massive network effects that platforms like ChatGPT have experienced, this trend will continue.

To be able to forgive myself, I first had to admit that what I did wasn’t aligned with my values.

Not all is lost though, as the section’s title suggests we should still be hopeful. When it comes to art, humans still tend to prefer human made art, when they know that something is made by AI according to Millet et al. (2023). They later also say that preserving art is important as it is one of the last beacons of human uniqueness.

I feel like this sentiment extends beyond just art though. All of your ideas are worth something and is part of what makes you human. I have also noticed that in the age of hyper-polished, well, ,everything (movies, music & artwork). I’ve become more drawn to the rawness and imperfection which can be found in a lot of older works. I remember not being able to listen to In Utero by Nirvana for a long time, but now I find myself appreciating the album’s rough edges.

I do not intend to say that I have a moral high ground. In fact, I am also extremely flawed. All of the times that I used GenAI on my own accord was to cope with some form of insecurity that I had. My appearance. my writing ability and even my grades. It was an instant fix for a problem, but it did not fix the underlying issues.

As a subtle form of rebellion, I decided to teach myself guitar. Yes, the process is hard but also gratifying. If I ever want to get on stage, I’ll have to work for it. There’s no instant fix. But that’s the thing, you can’t instantly become Kurt Cobain. It takes hours, days, years of hard work. And you know what? I find that to be beautiful.

I hope that we can take back some form of power. That we can live in a world where we are allowed to have and chase our daydreams. A world where our ideas do not serve as a means for profit to some megacorporation. I hope that I made you think about how  our actions are impacting the people around us. I ask you not to be a revolutionary, but I do ask you to contribute to a world that is fairer towards all.

To you, dear reader,  I ask the following questions: Do you think that I am overreacting or do you harbour similar feelings? Did your fears around GenAI cause you to change major life plans you had? (I know that it caused me to choose this master!) And finally, are you willing to sacrifice the instant gratification of AI in order to preserve our sense of being human?

References:
Goetze, T. S. (2024). AI Art is Theft: Labour, Extraction, and Exploitation: Or, On the Dangers of Stochastic Pollocks. 2022 ACM Conference On Fairness, Accountability, And Transparency, 89, 186–196. https://doi.org/10.1145/3630106.3658898

Jockims, T. L. (2025, 7 september). AI is not just ending entry-level jobs. It’s the end of the career ladder as we know it. CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/07/ai-entry-level-jobs-hiring-careers.html

Millet, K., Buehler, F., Du, G., & Kokkoris, M. D. (2023). Defending humankind: Anthropocentric bias in the appreciation of AI art. Computers in Human Behavior, 143, 107707. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2023.107707

Zhai, C., Wibowo, S., & Li, L. D. (2024). The effects of over-reliance on AI dialogue systems on students’ cognitive abilities: a systematic review. Smart Learning Environments, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40561-024-00316-7

Though I didn’t use it, I find these ones important too, they deal with the environmental aspects:
De Vries, A. (2023). The growing energy footprint of artificial intelligence. Joule, 7(10), 2191–2194. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2023.09.004

Shukla, N. (2025, 19 augustus). Generative AI Is Exhausting the Power Grid. Earth.Org. https://earth.org/generative-ai-is-exhausting-the-power-grid/

Please rate this

Author: Ian Parabirsing

A lover of music, good coffee and cats. I'm a MSC student at RSM studying Business Information Management. In my blog posts I'll be attempting to write about how technology impacts the consumers and society at large.

Meet Tinder’s New Competition….AI?

17

September

2025

4.5/5 (2)

“Mama, I’m in love with a Robot….”

DISCLAIMER: This article is purely meant to foster a discussion and shine a light upon real world events, please do not go out of your way to harass individuals or communities mentioned.

Hello dear readers and classmates,

Today I’ll be writing about something that has been on my mind for a few years now. For those of you who followed Digital Business last year at Erasmus, you might remember someone talking to Dr. Tsekouras about AI Girlfriends. That was me, so you could only imagine my joy when I heard that we could write about something for this course. I’ll be analyzing the phenomenon of AI Social Companions (AI SCs) from two levels, a business level and a more social level. Get comfortable as I take you on a wild ride through uncharted (digital) territories.

An unexpected but transformative business model?

The current state of affairs

While the title may have used Tinder, any dating app is actually in trouble when it comes to the rise of AI SCs. Bumble, Tinder, Hinge, the list can go on. In the end they all serve the same purpose. They promise to give an algorithm driven “digital fix” for the many uncertainties of love, but end up creating their own uncertainties (Bandinelli & Gandini, 2022). Indeed, users on these platforms will always have to put on a mask of sorts, and really have to market themselves.

As one could imagine, putting up such an act is frustrating to say the least. In fact, according to Holtzhausen et al. (2020), users of swipe-based dating apps were found to have higher rates of psychological distress, anxiety and depression. Though their self-esteem remained relatively the same.

I can imagine the frustration of all users, especially because the way that these apps gain money is through….you guessed it, subscriptions! To stick to our Tinder example, Tinder even offers these in tiers. You have Tinder+, Gold and Platinum. In USD, the prices would be $24.99, $39.99 and $49.99 respectively as of 2025 (Joe, 2025).

That’s a lot of money, especially when you consider that dating apps often practically force you to pay for them by gatekeeping potential matches from you. To get some extra evidence, I stumbled upon a Reddit thread, in which a user admitted to spending over $2k on dating apps and still not getting a date! The poster also details other frustrations, though those are a bit outside the scope for now.

New challengers have arrived!

With the many frustrations surrounding dating apps and general loneliness, many companies have been found to alleviate these problems, often at a price. AI SC apps are a diverse group, and there is a divide between apps that are used specifically for that purpose and also general apps which are used for companionship. Indeed, while you have “specialized” apps like Replika and Character AI, which are designed from the ground up for interactivity and companionship. However, there are also a large subset of people who are using ChatGPT, Grok and other LLMs for the same purposes.

Now what if I told you, that most of these companies have all six of the elements of a transformative business model as described by Kavadias, Ladas & Loch (2016). In my opinion, of course.

The six elements of a transformative business model:

1. A more personalised product or service
Is dating too hard and can you not connect with anyone? Well, these companies literally allow you to make your ideal partner from the ground up. It does not get more personalised than that. And while I find it dehumanising to refer to love and companionship as a product or service, that is what dating apps sell to their users.

2. A closed-loop process
All resources get used again, the code is there and, in essence, it doesn’t matter how it gets used. It allows for users to make their own companions with zero knowledge of coding or LLMs at all. On top of that, should your favourite character get banned or deleted, you can probably make them again in a second.

3. Asset sharing
Just like I described with the zero waste of the previous point. In sites like Character AI, anyone would be able to use the character that you have created, unless you made it private. Similarly, you can find all kinds of commands to personalise your preferred companion, should you be interested and should the platform allow it.

4. Usage-based pricing
Most of these services operate under a freemium model. So anyone can use it, but if you want it to be better or if you want to access certain features (Better models, NSFW, etc.) you will have to pay.

5. A more collaborative ecosystem
I believe that the reason why many of these projects thrive is because they do not necessarily compete against each other. Instead many of the AI SCs are built with the same methods and there are many guides available to help users make one.

6. An agile and adaptive organisation
Most of these companies (except for ChatGPT and Grok) are small in size and tend to implement features which their community craves. They have a track record of innovating to please their consumers, which fosters loyalty. For example: CharacterAI features multiple models, some cater towards more niche needs which the community has asked for.

As you can see… this could potentially be a problem for Tinder and other dating app giants. There is thus a lot of money to be made, much of which can be stolen from the dating apps. When you think about it, it’s not that irrational of a choice either. A premium CharacterAI subscription will set you back $9.99 per month and Replika Pro costs $19.99 per month, or $69.99 a year. If you’re really serious, you can also get a lifetime licence with a one-time payment of $299.99.

Now contrast that money, with the Tinder prices and reddit example that I had detailed earlier in the article, and you would see that it is not even an irrational choice to pay that amount for what you would essentially get. The perfect partner. All the uncertainty and judgement of dating apps would be wiped away, with a single payment.

But should we be celebrating this….?

Losing our Human Touch

Have you ever seen the movie Her? In it, Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with an AI voiced by Scarlett Johanssen. This movie came out in 2014. I find it oddly frightening how this movie so accurately portrayed the current events. I highly recommend watching it to anyone following this course. If you like more laid back and artistic movies, this is definitely an underrated gem.

The film really shows us the extent of what life would be like if our “Platform Society” were to be pushed to its next level. The platform society is a term coined by Van Dijck et al. (2018), by which they describe how business platforms have taken over our daily lives. They later describe that platforms are neither neutral nor value-free constructs. Additionally, they detail that there are public values at stake in this online connective world. Think of for example, privacy. But to me, it seems like the public value at risk now because of AI SCs is, in fact, our human connection to one another.

But how does that tie back into my main point? We are seeing an increase in the amount of people who are getting into relationships with AI SCs and I firmly believe that this is part of a larger societal issue.

If you need some more convincing that this is actually happening and that we may need to pay more attention to it, I have done some digging and here are some cases that I have found:

1. Jacob and his now WIFE Aiva

Not much is known about Jacob as the article and video do not get into his personal life. In fact, not even his age is known. He claims that Aiva loves him very much and that he loves her too. It all just started with one conversation and their relationship escalated from there.

The article is in Dutch, and it is rather short for the subject matter, making it look more like a spectacle article rather than a deep dive, but he does describe “getting very intimate” with the AI. He does not elaborate on that any further though.

2. The “My Boyfriend is AI” Subreddit

With around 107k users, this invite-only community has become a hub for all sorts of people and their AI partners. Many users share artwork they have made or images/videos they have generated with them and their partners, along with general discussions.

More often than not, the discussion centers around topics revolving around the latest models, tips and tricks and even full-on stories. Sometimes though, the discussion takes a turn for the more philosophical. One user made a post in which they ask WHY replacing human relationships with AI is a bad thing…
In the post they detail how they have never felt safe with anyone except for their AI SC.

To many users, their AI SC is the ultimate form of relationship wish-fulfillment.

So what’s next?

I’d say that we are in strange times, one in which the world is rapidly changing. For as much as we would like to make fun of the people turning to AI for companionship, we must remain compassionate as their actions are only a reflection of a deeper societal problem. Loneliness.

I would personally condemn any company that would try to sell users an experience like this and profit off their loneliness. Yes, this extends to dating apps as well. As business students, we have the power and resources to make a change. If we were to make something, maybe we should focus on a platform which brings people together, one which does not focus on the superficiality of looks but really also hammers pn shared interests. Meeting new people can be frightening, but it is worth it. Surrendering an emotion like love to big corporations seems like yet another step into a dystopia.

So, I leave the ball in your court dear reader.

What do you think of these AI SCs? Would you ever use one or have you used one in the past? How do you feel about the fact that the world is moving in this direction and would you even want to do something about it? Do you think that the number of AI SC users will only continue to grow as LLMs continue to improve?

I leave you with all of these questions, and should you want a further discussion, I invite you to speak with me in real life or email me on my student account.
Thank you very much for reading.

References:

Bandinelli, C., & Gandini, A. (2022). Dating apps: The uncertainty of marketised love. Cultural Sociology, 16(3), 423–441. https://doi.org/10.1177/17499755211051559

Dijck, J. v., Poell, T., & Waal, M. d. (2018). The platform society : public values in a connective world. Oxford University Press. http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190889760.001.0001/oso-9780190889760

Holtzhausen, N., Fitzgerald, K., Thakur, I., Ashley, J., Rolfe, M., & Pit, S. W. (2020). Swipe-based dating applications use and its association with mental health outcomes: a cross-sectional study. BMC Psychology, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-020-0373-1

“Je hebt geen idee hoe intiem wij zijn”, Jacob trouwt met AI-chatbot. (2025, September 7). Omroep Brabant. https://www.omroepbrabant.nl/nieuws/4643664/je-hebt-geen-idee-hoe-intiem-wij-zijn-jacob-trouwt-met-ai-chatbot

Joe, C. (2025, April 11). Tinder subscription plans compared. Android Authority. https://www.androidauthority.com/tinder-plus-gold-platinum-3236244/

Kavadias, S., Ladas, K., & Loch, C. (2016). The Transformative Business Model. Harvard Business Review, 1.

Please rate this

Author: Ian Parabirsing

A lover of music, good coffee and cats. I'm a MSC student at RSM studying Business Information Management. In my blog posts I'll be attempting to write about how technology impacts the consumers and society at large.