Till death do us part? AI begs to differ

Can AI save your marriage or predict its downfall? From spotting red flags to dividing assets, the future of divorce may be digital.

The minefield that is divorce carries so much vitriol that restraining orders and police helicopters can even come into play, especially when your ex is throwing rocks at your window.

While this is one of the more complex areas of the human experience, does our path to AGI mean that soon, technology will help us navigate this rocky road?

Add custody battles and financial settlement struggles to the mix, and it’s natural to wonder whether AI can assist in both proactive and reactive ways.

If relationship patterns are like algorithms, then perhaps AI could help untangle this mess.

Of course, it’s essential to consult experts, as we did exclusively, because this is a tricky landscape to negotiate. When emotions turn toxic, or demands become unreasonable, perhaps artificial intervention is the solution we need.

Will AI spot the red flags?

John Gottman is a leading psychologist who spent over four decades studying different couple types.

According to his categorization, there are three types of happy couples:

• Conflict avoiding
• Validating
• Volatile

Then, two unhappy ones:

• Hostile
• Hostile-detached

While 50% of marriages in the US end in divorce, according to Gottman, it’s only the hostile-detached category of couples that could end up defunct and filing for divorce

While this already seems like it’s getting complicated, assuming Gottman’s methodology is salient, there is plausible number-crunching to be done.

AI may well be competent at pattern recognition, but experts point out that forecasting emotional dynamics is far more complex than gauging the weather, for example.

“AI can certainly help generate ideas, but it’s truly useless when it comes to predicting divorce outcomes,” Yonatan Levoritz, a family law expert, told Cybernews.

It seems that AI is a long way off from anticipating the absurd and unforeseen in life.

Imagine a husband or wife reversing the car out of the driveway and running over the cat in the process. The distress caused could cause a marriage to fall apart and it’s hard to envision AI factoring in such outliers.

Life throws curveballs, and while you might be able to put a ring on it, AI wouldn’t really be able to put a number on it.

“It might be possible for AI to predict a divorce, but probably no more or less accurately than a nosy neighbor of a married couple"

Derek Jacques, divorce attorney, told Cybernews.

Keep it together, with AI

When two humans tie the knot, it’s more a lesson of tolerance and compromise than anything else. Holy unions aren’t defined by the good times; it’s how you manage the bad times that counts.

Remember those “perfect couples” that always seemed like the right fit because they were glowing when out in public? Well, most likely, they became discombobulated when they experienced something unforeseen.

Gottman's research highlights the importance of positive communication and emotional support throughout a relationship.

"People need to learn how to ask for what they want and need, and their partner needs to listen. I would say 99% of the divorce cases I see, they don't do that. They are either not asking (i.e., 'Isn't it obvious? He should just know') and/or they are not listening (i.e., 'I was blindsided, I thought our marriage was great')," Christina Previte, Founder and Managing Attorney at Wolf Esquires, LLC exclusively told Cybernews.

Therefore, personal human counseling seems to be the way forward, with AI offering generic relationship advice at present.

Perhaps when it develops a decent stock of emotional intelligence, which could be sooner than we think, the game could change somewhat.

Supposing that happens, would you want AI listening in on your conversations anyway? And what about all that data? Unless a couple consensually signed up for a sophisticated AI coach, then the outlook remains dubious. However, it can also be seen as a contributor to divorce:

Many AI chatbots and agents use personal data to train their models, raising concerns about privacy and data security.

Since it’s often unclear where this data is stored and how well it’s protected, the potential for misuse or breaches becomes a serious risk. This ambiguity makes the idea of relying on AI for deeply personal matters even more questionable.

“What we are increasingly seeing is generative AI used to fake everything from false text conversations to deepfake images, video, and phone calls. Could a parent lose custody because their ex produces 'evidence' to the courts that they are unfit?”

Bari Z. Weinberger, family law expert, told Cybernews.

Another example of how brutally AI could be used to manipulate proceedings.

Tech vs. Tears

AI is adept at organizing and processing financial data, which can help in dividing assets, alimony, and offering the best rate of child support.

Perhaps compared to hiring an expensive attorney, a sharp and concise artificial platform could help secure an amicable outcome, and a couple would chill the emotional flaming if one platform decided everything – not a “my lawyer vs. yours” kind of thing.

The whole “I’LL SEE YOU IN COURT!” outburst is impulsive by nature, and instead of waiting months or even years for a settlement, it could be done immediately.

“People need to learn how to ask for what they want and need, and their partner needs to listen,” explained Previte, “In 99% of the divorce cases I see, they don't do that.”

Coming from a family that’s had its fair share of divorce, I can observe that some settlements take years to negotiate. Perhaps a digital arbitration could help strike when the iron is hot.

There are a few emotional elements that might be hard to sort out,like who gets the dog? You can’t split it and a machine wouldn’t plausibly be able to reason with that either.

Human attorneys are best used in such proceedings, but when we look at the “me vs. you” thing, there is a huge need to speed things up if it could somehow keep costs down.

Where are all the cyber lawyers when you need them?