Compounding problems of increasing social isolation, disintegrating family life and declining fertility is a new threat: the fusion of AI with sex dolls to create at-once ultra-realistic and emotionally empty “AI companions” intended to substitute for real human intimacy. It’s a formula that can – and already does – kill, warn Tim Rosenberger and Vilda Westh Blanc in City Journal. Not surprisingly, teen-agers are most vulnerable to the allure of quick and seemingly consequence-free gratification. In fact, warn the authors, it can be a path straight to suicide.

Bad Mom? Bad Wife?
The Massachusetts trial of Lindsay Clancy for killing her three young children (recently declared a mistrial) became a litmus test for couples – with some publicly breaking off engagements due to disagreements over her culpability. Writing in The American Mind, Evie Solheim ponders the malign influence of social media on the marriage decision for younger generations. “When men and women treat existence as a zero-sum game, everyone loses,” she writes, pleading for greater understanding between the sexes. For more on marriage, see this C2C article.


