This AI Assistant Wants to Make Up for Your Boyfriend’s Incompetence

这款 AI 助手想要弥补你男友的“无能”

Over the past few years, the term “weaponized incompetence” has blown up in dating discourse online. 过去几年里，“武器化无能”（weaponized incompetence）一词在网络约会讨论中迅速走红。

It’s used to describe someone—most often the guy, when it comes to heterosexual relationships—who acts like they are incapable of doing things like cooking, cleaning, scheduling, and just generally being thoughtful, in the hopes that their partner will simply take care of it. 它被用来形容那些——在异性恋关系中通常指男性——假装自己无法完成烹饪、打扫、安排日程或表现得体贴等琐事的人，其目的是希望伴侣能直接代劳。

A new AI agent, Orchid, was advertised this week as a way to fix relationship problems by simply doing all of those tasks for an inconsiderate partner instead. 本周，一款名为 Orchid 的新型 AI 智能体发布了广告，声称可以通过直接为不体贴的伴侣代劳所有这些琐事，来解决恋爱关系中的问题。

In the promo, released on Wednesday, Sam, a boyfriend who is busy gaming and rifling through expired groceries, has forgotten his anniversary. “Ok ok, I can do this,” he types to Orchid, when the AI agent reminds him of the day’s significance. “You can’t. That’s why I’m here,” Orchid replies, as it goes about making a reservation and buying his girlfriend’s favorite flowers—lilies—another detail he didn’t remember. The girlfriend, who is also consulting Orchid throughout the day, is well aware that the AI assistant is doing all of this labor yet somehow allows Sam to take credit for the whole plan. 在周三发布的宣传片中，男友 Sam 正忙着打游戏和翻找过期的食品，完全忘记了纪念日。当 AI 提醒他这一天的重要性时，他打字回复道：“好吧好吧，我能搞定。”Orchid 回复说：“你搞不定的，这就是我存在的意义。”随后，它便开始预订餐厅并购买了他女友最喜欢的花——百合花，而这也是 Sam 没记住的细节。女友当天也在使用 Orchid，她非常清楚是 AI 助手完成了所有工作，但不知为何，她还是让 Sam 领了这份功劳。

The rollout was blasted by users on X, for advertising to “adult babies uninterested in the world they live in” and “perpetuating … dead-end relationship[s] that both parties secretly hate.” 这一推广在 X（原推特）上遭到了用户的猛烈抨击，被指责是在向“对现实世界毫无兴趣的巨婴”做广告，并“延续了双方内心深处都厌恶的死胡同式关系”。

To state the obvious: Orchid will not fix long-simmering relationship resentments through task managing. 显而易见的是：Orchid 无法通过任务管理来解决长期积压的感情怨恨。

“Trying to outsource difficult but necessary communication will prevent couples from facing the messy but meaningful growing pains of their relationship,” says Lauren Maher, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Los Angeles. “An AI app will never be able to compensate for a lack of attention or genuine caring, and no amount of feigned attention will convince the nervous system that someone is there for you when they are not.” 洛杉矶的持证婚姻与家庭治疗师 Lauren Maher 表示：“试图将困难但必要的沟通外包出去，会阻碍情侣面对关系中那些混乱但有意义的成长阵痛。AI 应用永远无法弥补关注或真诚关心的缺失，无论多少伪装出来的关注，都无法欺骗你的神经系统，让你相信一个并不在乎你的人真的在支持你。”

Maher adds that “triangulation”—the term for when individuals do not speak to each other directly but communicate through a third party—is regularly advised against in couples therapy. Now we have the “bizarre option to triangulate the nonhuman entity of AI into our romantic relationships,” she says, but Orchid’s use case for couples is only a temporary mask for problems in the relationship that are likely to sprout later. “While this is being marketed as a solve, indirect communication is notorious for straining relationships.” Orchid did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Maher 补充说，“三角化”（triangulation）——即个人不直接对话，而是通过第三方进行沟通——在伴侣治疗中通常是被建议避免的。她说，现在我们有了“将非人类的 AI 实体引入恋爱关系的怪异选择”，但 Orchid 在情侣间的应用场景只是对关系中问题的暂时掩盖，这些问题很可能会在日后爆发。“虽然它被营销为一种解决方案，但间接沟通向来以破坏关系而闻名。”Orchid 未立即回应置评请求。

The actual usefulness of AI assistants remains in doubt when it comes to matters of the heart. 在处理情感问题时，AI 助手的实际效用仍存疑。

According to one recent survey from astrology app Hint, which polled more than 13,000 adults across the US, Latin America, and Europe, AI assistants are actually making dating decisions harder, with 59 percent of the participants saying the advice left them more confused than before. Overburdened with too much machine-generated guidance, 47 percent said AI input influenced them to postpone decisions about their romantic relationships. 根据占星应用 Hint 最近的一项调查（调查对象涵盖美国、拉丁美洲和欧洲的 13,000 多名成年人），AI 助手实际上让约会决策变得更加困难，59% 的参与者表示 AI 的建议让他们比以前更困惑。由于被过多的机器生成建议所困扰，47% 的人表示 AI 的介入促使他们推迟了关于恋爱关系的决定。

The company’s viral ad seems to be a bait-and-switch more than anything, as its larger ambitions are focused on workflow. Pitched as the ideal agent to “automate your life,” it offers to work across your connected apps without requiring you to switch between them. 该公司走红的广告看起来更像是一种“挂羊头卖狗肉”的营销手段，因为其更大的野心在于工作流。它被宣传为“自动化生活”的理想智能体，声称可以在你连接的各个应用之间工作，而无需你在它们之间来回切换。

But it’s unclear, beyond its texting feature, what makes it unique from other AI agents. 但除了短信功能外，它与其他 AI 智能体有何独特之处尚不清楚。

Rage-bait or not, the ad featuring the couple certainly generated a lot of chatter about the company, which, according to a blog post from June, wants to usher in a new vision for how people do, well, everything. But fixing a shitty relationship probably isn’t one of those things. 无论这是否是“愤怒诱饵”（rage-bait），这则关于情侣的广告确实引发了关于该公司的热烈讨论。根据其 6 月份的一篇博客文章，该公司希望为人们处理一切事务的方式开启新的愿景。但修复一段糟糕的关系，恐怕并不在其中。